I love you all so very much! I hope everything is going well for all of you. Thank you so much for the emails, they made my day! :)
Oh and Happy Halloween! It's not so fun without you all... But we may carve pumpkins today. Who knows. Ha ha!
So transfers will be announced a week from yesterday. However, we got the inside scoop last night from President Johansen. :) It was so nice- President and Sister Johansen invited Sister Johnston and I, and 2 new converts named Liv and Elizabeth to come over for dinner and waffles (typical Norwegian dessert). So it was girls night with the President and it was so fun! It was my first time at the mission home so it was cool to be there. We just ate and talked- it was so nice! It was there that we asked President Johansen what was going on with transfers- the pressure was killing us! We figured it would be me leaving to Bergen and Sister Johnston staying here to finish out her time, but I am actually staying and Sister Johnston is going to close Stavanger. So I will be serving with Sister Ray. I knew here in the MTC and she came out just 2 months before me... eek!! That is so scary- 2 very new missionaries! Oh man! I'm super nervous... Oh well, I am learning so much right now and my language skills are improving fairly quickly, so we will see how it goes. :)
There were 2 baptisms this weekend in the district so that was really awesome! Plus, Ugo our investigator, should be getting baptized this coming weekend! Yay!! Finally :) He met with missionaries 8 months ago, but they dropped him because he is hard to meet with, but we found him and he was still interested so we started teaching him. He has such a strong testimony and it is so cool to hear him share it. :) It's going to be so awesome! He told us that his mom is really against it, but he feels ready more now than he has in the past 8 months of meeting with missionaries. The Church is true!
So on tuesday, we busted out the thermals and stuff. It is so warm now! Ha ha! We haven't quite hit the boots and coats yet, so that is a plus. :)
Can I just tell you, I love being a missionary! I am learning so much about the gospel and it is helping me so much! One thing that Sister Johnston and I have been focusing on is really centering our teaching on Jesus Christ and His atonement. Before we would try to teach the Atonetment, but it just seemed kind of distant for our investigators, like they know it happened, but they don't know how it applies to them. That is why we are evolving our strategy. As we have been studying, we realize more and more how central the Atonement really is. It is amazing! I am so grateful for the Atonement in my life. It really is the greatest expression of God's love for us! It am so grateful for the Gift of the Holy Ghost, because that is the way that we can fully access the power that the Atonement can bring into our lives. Like this week I had an experience where I was feeling super down on myself. We read this scripture in Alma 7:15 about laying everything aside and that if we have faith in Christ, it can be taken away. So one night, I knelt down to pray and told Heavenly Father what was in my heart. I told him exactly what was bothering me. I told him that I had faith in Christ and that I knew through him, everything could be taken away. So before i could even ask, all of it was gone. All of the hurt was gone; I could remember the experiences that had gotten me down, but they didn't sting like they did before and all I could think about was how much God loves me exactly the way I am. That was only possible through the Atonement. So AMAZING!!!
Well, that's all I've got for this week... Sorry! I love you all so very much! I hope you have a great week!!!
Lots of love,
Sister Jessica Taylor
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