Christmas!

CHRISTMAS WAS THIS WEEK!

I just thought I should let you all know in case you missed the memo.
WHICH MEANT I GOT TO SKYPE MY FAMILY!  Aw... :) They're the best.  And
they're doing well in case you were wondering.  I hope someone more
than my family is reading this email, or this was a very unimportant
paragraph.

Other than that, normal missionary work has been going great!  We saw
Beverly this week, and we attempted to soft commit her to baptism.  I
honestly wasn't thinking she would, but that wasn't our intention.  We
mostly just wanted to make sure she knew that that was what we were
hoping she would progress towards, and now she knows it, so I'm happy
with it.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and was able to focus on the
true meaning, and have a happy New Year!

THE EXCITEMENT THOUGH!!!

Hey everyone!

This week was so crazy!  It started off with a new investigator we got
about a week or two ago.  Her name is Beverly.  We gave her a
Restoration Pamphlet and a Book of Mormon to read so we could talk
about the next time we saw her. When we saw her next, she said she read
the Restoration pamphlet, but not The Book of Mormon because it was
too small of print for her to read.  So we got her a bigger one, and wrapped it
up for her like a Christmas present.  When we gave it to her, she was
so excited!  She tore the plastic right off and started flipping
through it.

The next time we saw her we asked if she'd read from it, and she said
that she'd read the introduction, the testimonies, and had read random
bits and pieces throughout.  She said that she loved it, and that she
understood it better than the King James Bible, and the best part
(wait for it...) SHE SAID SHE KNEW IT WAS TRUE!!!  It was insane!
She's dying for us to come back and read with her because she loves
how we make it even easier for her to understand.  I'm so excited to
see what happens with her.

Then, the next big day was Saturday.  We had our Christmas zone
conference, which was mostly just a Christmas party.  We got a
Christmas present (which was a TKM flag!), then we played dodge ball (I
got a big welt on my arm), and then.... the best part.... (Wait for
it...) WE WATCHED BIG HERO 6!  Yeah!  It was so good!  I'd already
seen it, but guys, we got to watch a movie!

Then..... DEE GOT BAPTIZED!!!  Oh my goodness!  It was so great!  She
had to be dunked three times, but she's a member now!  It was so
wonderful. :) She was so ready.  She was so happy afterwards and so
clean and pure!  So many members came to support her, too!

I loved this week, and I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

Sincerely,
Sister Shelton

It's Friday!

Hey ya'll!

So this week has been really fun!  Friday was a big day.  We had a
tri-zone conference with Elder Zwick of the Seventy.  It was so cool!
We were able to listen to him, his wife, President Griffin, and Sister
Griffin talk.  Those are some of the best people to listen to.  The
spirit was so strong the whole time.  I feel like the message I
learned the most from what they said was I can do it.  I have that
ability to make great things happen, and so do all of us.  It was a
big confidence booster.

In the middle of the conference we had a lunch, and I had a group of
missionary friends who I was going to sit with, and then all of a
sudden, one of the elders I was going to sit with said, "Hey, there's
open seats next to Elder Zwick!"  So yeah. I had lunch with a Seventy.
To be more exact, I sat on the right hand of him. ;) Yeah, I just went
there.  But no, really.  It was so cool! He was the nicest man I think
I've ever met.  I felt like that's the closest I've ever been to sitting
next to Jesus.  That kinda sounds weird, but he really does an amazing
job at being a representative of Jesus Christ.  I hope I can be like
that some day.  :)

Later on that day we had a nativity at our church.  Everyone brought
their nativities from home and set them out, and there were so many
gorgeous trees.  It was breathtaking.  It gave me hope for cultural
hall wedding receptions.  (Not saying that's how I'm doing mine, Mom.)
There were so many people who came that weren't members.  We had a
potential investigator come.  And there was a man who didn't believe
Mormons are Christian who came, and by the end of the night he changed
his mind on that subject!

I just love how people are around this time of year. Never forget the
true meaning of Christmas!

Sincerely,
Sister Shelton

Movie Missionary Week

Hey ya'll!

So, this week was fun!  It was like a movie!

It started out with exchanges.  I went over to Pleasant Ridge with
Sister Wright.  She came out with me, so we're both greenies.  It was
an adventure.  We had our whole day planned out, but it pretty much
all fell through, and so we did tracting for about four hours... In the
pouring rain.... Totally brought the wrong shoes for rain, too!
Couldn't do anything about it, either, because I was on exchanges.  But
it was so fulfilling!  I loved every minute of it because I was doing
God's work.  We even got a return appointment.  I guess I won't
because I was on exchanges, but they got one! Yay!

On Friday, we were going out to find some less active members, and we
just tried one who wasn't there, so we went on.  We were just in our
car listening to the amazing David Archuleta sing "The First Noel"
(because that song is gorgeous!) when my dear companion, Sister Johnson,
turned to me and said, "We need to go to [insert specific street
here].  When we drove past it, I just got a feeling that we really need
to go there, and I've been fighting it off for a moment, but I'm not
going to any more." So we pulled out our area book to see who lived
there, and we had a potential investigator named Pam, and a less
active member.  We decided to go to Pam.

We found her house, or I should say the ginormous hill that went to
what should be her house.  We were about to go up when a car started
coming down it going to a house that was a little below the hill so we
got scared and almost backed down, but then I said, "Sister Johnson,
we're going to this house. That was a prompting from God."  So we did.
We drove up that hill that was easily more than 45 degrees, and we
were so scared.  We were gonna die, but alas, here I am writing, so
obviously we didn't.  We got to the top of the hill and knocked on
the door.  A man's voice yelled, "Come in!"  So we did and asked for
Pam.  He said she just went to the house at the bottom of the hill.
Her mother who was the less active member lived there, and she was just
visiting her.  We went to the door and she let us right in.  She told
us that she was usually busy working, and it was hard to catch her, but
she was home taking care of her husband since he just had a surgery.
She is so willing to let us come back, too! So, yay! We got a new
investigator.

On Saturday we ran through all of our plans in about two hours, until
some set appointments later on in the day.  So we went to help an
elderly lady clean her house.  Then, we had an appointment with our
second new investigator, Beverly!  She is so awesome! I love her.  She
had such fantastic questions, and I'm so excited to teach her.

On Sunday we got to go over to a member's house and watch the Christmas
devotional with Elder Hoyt and Lunceford.  It was really nice.  It
really brought the Christmas spirit. I really liked Pres. Uchtdorf's talk.
I hope you were all able to watch it. If not, go track it down. I hope
you're all able to bring more of the Christmas spirit into your life.
Have a wonderful white week!

Sincerely,
Sister Shelton

Thanksgiving Week!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  I sure did.  It was a
little weird though.  It was pretty much the only day I've ever had on
my mission where I did absolutely nothing to build up the Kingdom of
God.  Well... I guess I did some personal studies in the morning, so
that was awesome.  I always love studying the scriptures.

After our studies Sister Johnson and I went over to watch the Turkey
Bowl.  All of the Elders in our stake were there playing.  I've never
cared to watch any sports before, but it was seriously so fun!  I
think I may be changing my thoughts on playing and watching sports.

Later on in the day we got to go over to have our Thanksgiving dinner
over at the Beal's house.  They're vegetarians.... Yeah....  You'd
think that sounds bad, but no! They actually made a turkey just for us
and Elder Hoyt and Elder Lunceford.  And even though they don't eat
turkey, they know how to cook one.  It was good!  It was a really
enjoyable night.  After that we went and had pie over at the Maret's.
It's always a party over there. They're a really fun family.

Something really awesome that's happening now that Thanksgiving is
done is Christmas!  And with Christmas we have a new amazing thing
that you all may know about already.  It's a new Christmas initiative
that the church put out.  It's called "A Savior is Born."  You should
all go to www.christmas.mormon.org. There are two great new videos out on
it and a ton of other great stuff. I'm really excited about it!  We
as missionaries are going around with "A Savior is Born" cards, and we're
passing them out to EVERYONE.  My personal favorite thing about the
videos and the cards is that they invite everyone to "discover why."
You can print out the cards on the website and give them out to
everyone.  Those cards are gold.  Please do it!  It's great.  It is
such a big thing that the church bought advertising on YouTube for
over 40 days.

Anyway, that was my week.  I hope y'all are doing great back home!
Remember to share the Christmas spirit.  It really is a magical time
of year and a time when so many hearts are softened.  I hope all of
you can have that as well!

Sincerely,
Sister Shelton

November 23, 2015

Hi everyone!

So this week has been fun.  On Thursday we had exchanges, so I went
over to Pleasant Ridge with Sister Rowley for the day.  It's so fun
going out and seeing what other areas are doing, and learning things
that others are doing.  The fun thing I learned is just a fun way to
do companionship study.  Pull out something you want to study (i.e.
PMG, standard works) and just go to town reading and whenever you see
anything that stands out, just stop in the middle of whatever you're
reading and just talk about it.  I feel like that's honestly not that
creative, but it is so fun. It gets you so pumped, and you learn so
much.  Just try it.  It's a party.

The next day was zone conference.  I love zone conference so much.
It's hours upon hours of the spirit being dumped onto your soul!... I
hope that wasn't too dramatic.... Yeah, but anyway... The church is
releasing a short Christmas video on the 29th of November (maybe
sooner) and it is wonderful.  The church also bought some advertising
on YouTube to share that video for over a month.  Tithing money FTW!
Yeah, so we're now trying to find a lot of people through the Christmas
Season.  As the world stays busy and everyone wishes they could have
the Christmas spirit, us missionaries will be out and about sharing
that spirit that everyone wants this time of year, and we will show
them they want that all year round!

One other thing that happened at zone conference was President Griffin
gave us each a Book of Mormon and told us to read it and mark it up
and liken it to ourselves.  I almost didn't do it because I'm already
reading the Book of Mormon, but then I realized it was what I really
needed to do.  I'm in Helaman right now in my normal Book of Mormon
studying, and I'm in 1 Nephi with my likening studies.  So yeah, I'm
reading the Book of Mormon twice in a day. It sounds strange, but I
know it's what I need right now.  I challenge everyone reading this to
do the thing you know you need to do to help yourself the most even if
it seems strange.  Do it with real intent.  And can I suggest to you
all that the thing you need to do most very likely is something to do
with the spiritual side of life.  Like many people say when we ask if
they know of anyone who could use our message, "Everybody could use a
little more Jesus in their life."

Sincerely,
Sister Shelton

Second Week of my Second Transfer

Hey everyone!

So this week has been fun.  Now that it's our second week into the
transfer I'm starting to become familiar with the area, and we're
starting to get into the groove of everything.  We're just starting to
get into a lot of finding.  You've always got to be finding more
people to hear the word of God.

This week we got to go down to a training for all of the greenies.  I got
to see everyone that I was with in the MTC! It was a lot of fun.  It
was so fun to hear all of the success that everyone has already been
having.  My MTC companion, Sister Davis, has already had a baptism, too!
Gah! Bringing people to the church is seriously the best job ever.

I hope you all remember the important things in life.  It's not all
about what job you have, or what happened last on your favorite show.
It's best to focus on the eternal things.

Sincerely,
Sister Shelton