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

Scaredy Catz

Hello out there!

This week was the usual AWESOME. Being a missionary is just such the best. Especially at this time of the year. Also, me and Sister Bailey have some how tricked the members of our ward into thinking we're super cool or something, because they keep inviting us over for coco and giving us handmade gifts and stuff. Like the other day we mentioned how we love going to bed but the only down side is climbing in at first because our sheets are all cold, then BAM! The next day a member sewed us rice bags to heat up and put under our covers! So, basically life is going beautifully.

And also the work is going beautifully, because that's what actually matters in making me joyous. We have a couple baptisms next week, a few of our recent converts are going to the temple on Saturday, and our investigators have tons of potential. BLESSINGS!

I will now share a tiny snippet of my life that recently blew my mind:

One of our investigators is a 14 year old girl with serious heart health problems. She's a foster child and has been coming to church the past few weeks (and is loving it!) I was in Young Women's with her last week and told her if she had any questions that she didn't want to ask the whole class, she could write them down and we'd talk about them after. The lesson was on missionary work and how we can build the kingdom of God.

After class, she only had one question for me. She asked "Is it hard to talk about Jesus Christ and God?" with a little bit of bewilderment. I told her that some people are a little bit nervous for various reasons, but referred back to the previous week's lesson about Spiritual Gifts and how one of her spiritual gifts is having the confidence to easily talk about the things she believes.

Looking back, I think it's so interesting that she so easily picked up on the fact that the lesson about missionary work was more about breaking preconceived negative ideas about sharing the gospel and convincing the YW that missionary work is actually a good thing to do, than a lesson about ways to improve or things to say,etc. I think it just proves that fear of missionary work is a self taught habit for us members of the church, and that people who meet us are a little confused why we might be so hesitant to talk about something so important to us. Like if one of your friends started talking to you about their job, or their family, or a charity they're involved in, you would never be offended or be weirded out because you know that's a huge part of their life! Even if you decided that you didn't want to join their job or family or charity, you would probably still enjoy the conversation.

So ... moral of the story is that being scared to share the gospel is all in our heads. Try to de-brainwash yourselves this week. :)

I love you all! Have a fabulous pre-Christmas week!

Love,

Sister Gledhill

The Squirrel Killer‏

So in order to fully understand the tragedy of a rather unfortunate event that took place this week, I need to fill you in on little quirk that has been developing for a few months. I think it started Spring Semester up at USU when I realized I really love things to be alive. In fact, I love things to be alive so much, that I would really prefer that nothing dies because of me. This feeling has for some reason escalated on my mission to the point that the majority of the missionaries out here know me as "the sister who saves bugs". After arriving in Rhode Island and seeing all the Rhode Kill, I decided to put "DON'T kill an animal while driving" on my list of 20 things I want to accomplish before I turn 21.

This week, that goal was demolished.

Whilst driving along on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, a majestic gray squirrel with a really bad sense of timing darted out in front of my tire. I was actually really, really upset. Ahhhh! It was the worst. But I will find that squirrel in the next life and give him a little squirrel treat.

Other than that, this week was pretty much fantastically uneventful. We taught some lessons, ate some food, watched the Christmas devotional. You know you are a mormon when you can scout out favorites in Motab. Some of my personal favorites include Tiny Asian Man, Orange Haired Grandma, and Steve Martin Doppelganger. 

Anyways, I love you all and am so grateful to be out here! #MBMforLyf

Love,

Sister Gledhill

Weeping Messes

So not much time this week, but all is well in the land of Scituate!

This week was awe-some! And was exceptionally full of Priesthood Power. I got a blessing last Sunday because I was feeling less then exceptional. This was the least miraculous instance. But it get's better!

One of our recent converts, Bill, has an autistic and severely retarded son (Joey) that he adopted when he was 4. He is about to turn 21 and has to move to an adult home this week. Bill has been really worried about Joey having a hard time with the change, and asked if the elders would give him a Priesthood blessing on Thanksgiving. It was an incredible experience and you could feel how special Joey is to Heavenly Father. Bill called us after the blessing and said that he has never seen Joey so calm and peaceful in his whole life! Bill bore his testimony about it yesterday in Sacrament meeting and said, "I'm so glad I found the church - I've spent so long looking for this. I finally feel like I've come home." Needless to say, Sister Bailey and I were weeping messes.

The other really cool Priesthood moment was when the Elders gave a blessing to a deaf man in our ward. It was a really beautiful example of how Heavenly Father communicates with us spirit to spirit - although Joe couldn't hear the blessing with his physical ears, he still could experience the blessing in the most important way.

So anyways, I love the Priesthood. I'm so grateful for the Restoration so we can have such a special connection to our Heavenly Father!

Love you all!

Sister Gledhill

The Foreign Soapy Girl‏

Helloooooo out there!

This week was quite fabulous. We met the new Elder in our ward - Elder Moser. He is from Ogden and is pretty hilarious. He actually reminds me a lot of Uncle Tyson Ballard. It's kind of weird. In a good way.

So for transfers, the biking elders serving in Warwick (a neighboring ward) took our car to Transfer Meeting. The new elder that came, Elder Nordin, had all his stuff in the back of the car still when we went to go get the car back, so we got in the back seat and they drove to their apartment to drop off all of his stuff before we could take off. Whilst driving to their apartment, Elder Nordin made a particularly sharp turn and the lid of his liquid laundry detergent popped off. Unfortunately this laundry detergent happened to be RIGHT ABOVE ME beneath the windshield, and proceeded to POUR OUT ONTO ME IN COPIOUS AMOUNTS. It took me like 30 seconds to unwedge the container out from it's storage place, so I was one soapy girl. Elder Nordin sure knows how to make a first impression ...

Also, ever since I have arrived in Scituate, suddenly people think I'm from another country. Our Ward Mission Leader and his wife said, "You do not look like a normal American girl." Another member says I have a European accent, and yesterday a sister in relief society says I look like I am part of a North-Western Canadian Indian tribe. Uh ... nope.

We taught Relief Society yesterday from Elder Ballard's talk "Trust in the Lord" from conference. While we were studying for it, we realized that President Monson's welcome message was all about missionary work. Usually this is the time that the Prophet will announce new temples and exciting things like that, but this time he said the following:
"The holy scriptures contain no proclamation more relevant, no responsibility more binding, no instruction more direct than the injunction given by the resurrected Lord as He appeared in Galilee to the eleven disciples. Said He, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”² The Prophet Joseph Smith declared, “After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel.”³ Some of you here today will yet remember the words of President David O. McKay, who phrased the familiar “Every member a missionary!”⁴
To their words I add my own. Now is the time for members and missionaries to come together, to work together, to labor in the Lord’s vineyard to bring souls unto Him. He has prepared the means for us to share the gospel in a multitude of ways, and He will assist us in our labors if we will act in faith to fulfill His work."
So it's like his really exciting announcement was that now is the time for members and missionaries to work together! Whaaaaaaaat??? So cool.
Anyways, I love you guys. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Sister Gledhill