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Miracles, Miracles, MIRACLES.‏

Oh Good Golly you guys,

THIS WEEK WAS AMAZING!!!

Unfortunately it is the curse of the missionary that the week you have so much to say, you have so little time to write.

In 5 minutes or less, let me try to give you a glimpse into the amazingness that being a missionary is.

So, due to the surge of baptisms in the past few months, our teaching pool has gotten pretty ... empty. (NOT a bad problem to have, there is no such thing as too many baptisms!) But we really have been a little stressed about who we are going to teach now! So we put our heads together with the Elders and made some "Finding Goals". The things that we felt we could do on our end so that we could find the people we KNOW are being prepared to hear our message. These goals included things like exact obedience, inviting one new person every day to hear the discussions, asking for a referral at EVERY appointment, and probably the craziest one was to ask for these people to be able to find us in every. single. prayer.

Every single prayer might not seem like that big of a deal to you guys, but let me illustrate this a little further for you. We pray all day. We pray when we wake up. We pray when we eat. We pray to open and close personal study, companionship study, and training. We pray before we drive. We pray before we go into lessons. We pray to begin and end lessons. We pray when we don't know what to do. We pray when we feel super blessed. WE PRAY ALL. THE. TIME.

And now, in every single prayer we pray that those people that Heavenly Father has been preparing to receive the gospel will be led to us, and that we will be able to find them.

And let me tell you, its been working.

In less than 6 hours after making these goals, we had 2 new investigators and one of our members tell us that he had been praying about someone he could "lead to the waters of baptism" and that it was his daughters childhood friend. We were like, "Are we being punked?"

But we're not! The Lord's work is just that amazing, people. And all around us, missionaries are having the same kind of success. NEW ENGLAND IS READY.

That's not even mentioning the amazing interviews we had with President, that last night we had 4 voice mails of members asking to go on splits with us, and that 3 of our investigators are praying for investigators. Oh and also this super cool less active brother gave me a tambourine this week. We're freaking out over here. Pray for us to be able to handle all this awesomeness.

And also pray that the snow doesn't stop us from working, because I just looked out the window and it is COMING DOWN.

I love you guys! And I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY.

xoxo,

Sister Gledhill

A Week of Really Good Things‏

Hello all you Westerners!

This week was full of all kinds of crazy adventures, which I will now present in bullet format:

• Yesterday we typed the address of a less active into the good old GPS, which took us down some questionable paths. After traveling several miles on a dirt road, the GPS announced that we had "reached our destination". We looked out the window, and what did we see? An OUTHOUSE. Literally. The GPS took us to the middle of no-where, down a dirt path, next to a frozen river, to an outhouse. 

• Sister Batschi and I have been using our traveling time to increase the size of our brains ... well, maybe not. But we HAVE been memorizing things. We memorized the poem President Monson gave in his last Conference address:

Good timber does not grow with ease

The stronger wind, the stronger trees
The further sky, the greater length
The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow
In trees and men good timbers grow.

I typed that purely by memory, you guys!!! We also have memorized the first third of The Family Proclamation (so far), but I won't bore you by typing that out. But I could if I wanted to. So ... be impressed.

• One house that we went to contained 5 beautiful Australian Shepherds. I looked into the living room and saw what I thought was another dog, and then realized IT WAS A GIANT BUNNY. So huge.

• This we were given a $25 gift card to Applebee's, $20 in cash, and a free car wash. The work of the Lord pays good, people. (haha, just kidding - our members just have this weird of obsession of being awesome and serving us.)

• Our mission President invited us to read The Book of Mormon as a mission over the next two transfers, underlining every reference to Christ, as well as the words He spoke. This schedules out to about 6 pages a day. But let me tell you, it's addictive. We actually started waking up half an hour early so we can have more time to read during studies. Because we're just. that. dedicated. Just kidding, it was totally Sister Batschi's idea. With out her, I would still be sleeping for sure. 

Well, that's all the bullets I have time for, but it's just a tiny smudge of all the amazingness that actually happens on a day to day basis. Have ever told you guys that I love being a missionary? Because I DO.

I hope that you all find tons of joy in your week as well!

Love,

Sister Gledhill

Welcome to the Craziness Sister Batschi!‏

I feel like I start off every email with something the lines of "THIS IS MADNESS!"

Following this trend, this week was nothing out of the ordinary.

Let's look back to the last weekend of December. In the short space of 24 hours, we had 2 baptisms, got a call from President, found out I was training, and found out Sister Bailey was going to the ghetto, and let me tell ya, I was NERVOUS.

Partly because I love Sister Bailey so much that I can barely go to the bathroom with out experiencing slight separation anxiety, and also partly because for what ever reason I felt TOTALLY unprepared to train. Even though I was kind of expecting it (Scituate is just too amazing of a place to pass up), I wasn't truly mentally prepared apparently - as demonstrated by my panic stricken email last week.

And also I may have accidentally said this prayer a couple weeks ago asking to have the opportunity to grow a lot during this transfer. 

So ... I was a little freaked out about what Heavenly Father might have in store for me. 

BUT! Heavenly Father must really love me or something because He has sent me SISTER BATSCHI! Who is just so unbelievably amazing and is probably the most natural, powerful missionary I've ever met. She is a few months older than me, from Seattle, already has her nursing license, gorgeous, hilarious, spiritual, and basically just all around awesome.  I already love her to pieces and know we are going to be great friends and she requires like zero training at all. Too bad her first week of being in the field included a whole ton of craziness. We were Red Dotted (house bound) for 2 days due to the storm, the temperature dropped to -10 degrees and our pipes froze in our apartment, and then a pipe burst and the Chapel flooded at the Church building so we had to crash the neighboring ward for church on Sunday. Uh ... Welcome to the MBM I guess.

Anyways, I am so super stoked about what this transfer holds and can't wait to see what amazingness lies in store.

I love you guys! Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Gledhill

If You Could See Into My Mind, You Would See Utter Chaos‏

Woh.

Oh my life ... Being a missionary is crazy.

We've had a super amazing week including: CHRISTMAS! SKYPING! BAPTISMS! and ... T-TEXTS.

Dun, dun, dun.

And the news is that Sister Bailey is leaving me. For the Ghetto! She is being transferred to Bridgeport, CT which has resulted in a lot of a well wishes such as, "I hope you don't get shot!" But she's excited. Well, kind of.

And the news for me is that ... I'm getting baby #2! President called Saturday night to inform me that the Lord has called me to train, and thus "the dream team" needed to be split up. (Straight from the mouth of the Mission Prez, me and S. Bailey get along reeeeaaaaally well.) 

Last time I trained, I was so stoked! I was just a wee babe in the mission field and because I was going through the transition myself, it was really easy to help some one else make it too. Except now, being a missionary is just kind of my life. I don't know how to teach someone to live like this!!! Ahhhhhhhhh! Pray for me. Fervently.

We were supposed to go up to Belmont tomorrow for transfer meeting to obtain my baby, but we have just received a phone call from the APs that transfer meeting is cancelled due to the blizzard brewing for tomorrow and that everyone will be red dotted and that we have to go pick up my baby tonight!!! So ... ya. Crazy, crazy, crazy. Such is the life of a missionary.

Love,

Flippin'-out Sister Gledhill

Stranded

Holy Macoroni, so much has happened since last week and so little time to tell you about it!

So last Tuesday was the one and only MBM CHRISTMAS PARTY! Which included a glorious trip to the temple, musical fireside extraordinaire in the chapel next door, mildly gross dinner (I've decided that I am not a ham fan), and humiliating skits from each zone (I wanted to do a flash mob, but our elders wouldn't go for it. Instead we did a "chin skit" that I fervently hope never makes into an enemies hands ... ). And also a SURPRISE CHRISTMAS PACKAGE! Many thanks mamma.

And to top it all off, at the very end of the night President Packard announced that it had been steadily snowing all night and that none of us would be returning home till the next morning. But where I they going to house a 200 missionary strong army for an entire night? THE TEMPLE.

Hahaha, just kidding. Apparently even full time representatives of the Lord don't get overnight privileges. We all split up and packed into the closest missionaries apartments like sardines. Us and the Central Falls sisters got to spend the night with the lovely office couple the Vails. It was actually super fun to have a sleep over! The Vails loved it because they said it reminded them of all their daughters when they got together ... we may have been a little rambunctious with Christmas spirit.

We slept in our skirts, did not brush our teeth, did not shower (no surprises there, eh?), and then drove straight from Mass down to out appointments from the day, morning breath and all. We didn't get back to our apartment until the end of the night like normal! Oh memories ...

So then as the week progressed, all the snow that stranded us in Belmont melted as the temperature reached a balmy 60 degrees yesterday. Pff. So much for a picturesque New England Christmas! It's like Spring thaw up in here! But we did have a beautiful Christmas Program in Sacrament meeting yesterday. It ended with our Bishop telling the story of the WWI British and German troops during the Christmas of 1914. (look this story up now if you haven't heard it before). Basically these mortal enemies are swept up in the spirit of Christmas for a few days and an unofficial Christmas truce is called, and the two sides spend all kinds of time together singing beautiful Christmas music. (Obviously the granola-hippie-peace-loving side of me loves this story.) As night falls on Christmas day, a sober silence falls as the the soldiers reflect on the birth of Christ, the past few days, and what tomorrow holds - a return to the tragedy of war. During this silence, one clear voice starts singing Silent Night and one by one, other voices add in.

When Bishop told this story, he started singing "Silent night, Holy night" and then me and Sister Bailey came in one "All is calm, all is bright." (prearranged, of course. The missionaries always get roped into this kind of thing.) And then one by one our ward started chiming in. It honestly was so breath-takingly beautiful. There was such a special spirit in the room. I thought about how we celebrate the birth of Christ at Christmas, and what that truly means. Christ is the ultimate symbol of peace, hope, charity, purity, and love. What better ideals could we all choose to turn our thoughts towards together? I've been thinking about it the last couple of days, and I really think that there is more to Christmas than just remembering Christ. I mean, that's a good thing, but I highly doubt that our Savior wants us to just sit there and think about Him. If we truly are honoring His birth, and His life, and all that He symbolizes, we should be doing much more than thinking. Christmas should be a reminder that we are striving to create a world in which love of Christ and fellowman directs everyone's thoughts and actions.
As my favorite Book of Mormon scripture states, "Whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea even a place at the right hand of God; which hope cometh of faith maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God."
I am so grateful to be a missionary this year and have the opportunity to spread the good news of Christ and the hope of His gospel to anyone willing to listen. Maybe its the peace loving hippie naive teenager in me, but I truly believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ can make a difference in this world. So Merry Christmas, and may you guys all figure out what this season truly means for you.

Love,
Sister Gledhill