La Vie D'Ivee

Week 66: Brad and Cassie's Baptism!

Hello all!

I wish I was lying when I said it's snowing right now. But I'm not lying, and it is snowing, in May!!

This past weekend we received transfer calls! I will be staying in Dow's Lake and receiving Sister Barbaroux from France! This will make for my 6th transfer as an STL and I am so excited to be able to continue to serve in this assignment!

BIG NEWS: BRAD AND CASSIE WERE BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!

It was probably the most stressful day of my whole entire mission. I don't know why, but everything was just not working out... at all. There was just too much drama and I was just so tired and wanted everything to be perfect and wonderful and it wasn't. However, because Heavenly Father is amazing, it all worked out in the end.

They were both very different situations because Cassie has been investigating the church for a year. She has attended church pretty much every week since, and even invites her friends to attend with her. She has been faithfully living the gospel for a long time now, but had to wait to be baptized for family reasons. However, at her baptism she was beaming, you could tell she was filled with joy because of the decision she had made to follow the Savior. As well, her parents attended and gave her so much loving support, which made Cassie even happier, it was great.

Brad has only been taught for the past 6 weeks. When we met Brad he was not the same person he is today. He has done a complete 180 and turned his life around. He has come so far, and it was amazing that the rapid change he made and the testimony he gained were all a direct result of a love for Heavenly Father. Brad quickly gained a testimony of the gospel and was committed from the beginning. We were worried that maybe Brad wouldn't be ready to be baptized on Saturday and we had intended to change the date. However, in our lesson with him, the spirit was so strong and told us we had to keep his date, so we did. Brad was so happy at his baptism, he truly loves the gospel!

I feel so incredibly blessed and privileged that Heavenly Father has allowed me to meet and work with the both of them, and play a small small role in helping them come unto Christ. On that day I really felt just a part of the love that Heavenly Father has for his children, it was amazing.

Besides that, this week was just wonderful overall. I am so grateful to be here! Missions are wonderful! The gospel of Jesus Christ is amazing!

I am so grateful for all of you! I hope you have an amazing week!

Love,

Sister Garcia

Scripture of the week:

Mosiah 18:21

"And he commanded them that there should be no contention one with another, but that they should look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, having their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another."

Quote of the week:

"You guys are brainwashin' me!"

Brad and Cassie at their baptism!

It has been raining non-stop and there was terrible flooding in Gatineau.

We were able to spend a couple hours volunteering and helping fill sandbags.

Bday/Farewell cake

Birthday!

#Dreamteam ft. Stephen our ward mission leader

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, by Amanda

Week 65: 15 Months!

Hello!

This week I will hit 15 months on my mission and have my 21st birthday...I feel so old...

Anyways, on to more exciting things! This past week was fantastic! I was able to go on 2 exchanges. The first exchange was in my beloved Gatineau with Sister Goaslind. It was so wonderful! We were able to go and do some service for Kathy who is still doing amazing. As well, we were able to go and do some passby's and one of the people we ended up seeing was a former investigator from when I was with Sister Paine! Her name is Suze and she was the one who came with her family to our Christmas party. A lot of personal things had come up which hindered us being able to meet with her. However, she was so excited that we showed up and the sisters were able to get a return appointment with her. I am so proud of all the wonderful work the Gatineau Sisters are doing, they have been really able to find some solid investigators and help bring them to church!

The 2nd exchange of the week was with Sister Prince! It is always so nice to go on exchanges with people from my MTC district. It really feels like being reunited with family, I love it. We were able to stay and work in the Dow's Lake area which was great. We had a lesson at one of the University's but gave ourselves plenty of time for contacting beforehand. The first person we contacted was actually super rude. It was weird, since there are few times when I have had people be flat out rude to me on my mission. This didn't discourage us too badly though because a few people later we ended up finding Parneed! We have been having a lot of luck with Indian's lately. Anyways, we sat down with her and she allowed us to teach her the whole restoration. She thought it was super fascinating and can't wait to start reading the book of Mormon!

As for our investigators, Cassie and Brad are doing really really well. Originally, Cassie was set to be baptized on May 5th. However, due to scheduling conflict, we had to move the date to the 6th. Yesterday we were able to meet with her to plan everything and she is so excited and so ready! Cassie has been attending church and meeting with missionaries for a year now, and she can't wait to take the next step.

Brad is also doing really well. He is working super hard to keep the commandments. In fact, I felt like such a proud mom the other day because he gave us his pack of cigarettes and his lighter so that we could get rid of them for him. As well, he got offered a beer and said no! In addition, there was somebody that was using a ton of profanity behind our lesson the other day and Brad mentioned how he wanted to ask them to stop since they were offending him. I just love Brad, he has changed so much in such a short amount of time! We're hoping he will be able to get baptized sometime in the near future.

Other than that, we will be receiving transfer calls this week. I should probably be more nervous than I am, seeing as I know that I will be getting a new companion. However, I feel completely at peace that Heavenly Father knows what will be the best way for me to end my mission!

Have a fantastic week!

almost forgot!

Scripture of the week:

Mosiah 3:4

For the Lord hath heard thy prayers, and hath judged of thy righteousness, and hath sent me to declare unto thee that thou mayest rejoice; and that thou mayest declare unto thy people, that they may also be filled with joy.

Quote of the week:

"My brotha! Oh, you know him too? Now he's my brotha in the Lord."

Love,

Sister Garcia

5. Sister Prince and Sister Jeon! Sister Jeon is from Korea and apparently making tiny hearts with your hands is super popular

Beautiful Cassie

Sister Goaslind

Sister Prince and Sister Jeon! Sister Jeon is from Korea and apparently making tiny hearts with your hands is super popular

When the senior couple loves you enough to buy peanut butter and bananas

Institute crew

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, by Amanda

Week 53:

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, by Amanda

Week 52: 1 Year!

Hello!

Well, I can't even begin to describe how it feels to be hitting my year mark this week. The time is flying, and my mission is winding down, and I can't even think about it! Ahhh.

Anyways, this week was AWESOME. For starters, I am e-mailing late because we were just able to go snowshoeing with one of our less actives! Yup, what a great Pday this already has been.

This past Wednesday we had the worldwide missionary broadcast and some big changes were made to the missionary schedule and key indicators. The schedule before used to be very rigorous and pretty much every second of every day was planned for you. However, they are now giving the mission presidents and the missionaries much more flexibility to use their agency. The mission president can adjust the schedule according to needs. But, we as the missionaries get to choose when we do our studies, and when we eat. They have also switched planning to the mornings, and now we can go to bed a whole hour earlier if we want! Dreams come true. As well, we used to have 9 indicators that we would track daily and weekly, and now we only have 4. We only focus on baptized + confirmed, investigators with a baptismal date, investigators at church, and new investigators. It's been really weird to have so much freedom, but we have seen so many miracles!

For example, one night sister Paine and I did some knocking. We didn't know where we should go so we said a classic prayer. Then I decided to open up this old map sitting in our car, and the page I turned to happened to have a street circled. Well, I took it as a sign, so thats where we headed. There were 4 apartment buildings on the street so we made a plan to knock all of them. As we did, we taught a lesson in each building and were able to get several potentials that were interested! It was great.

Then, one of our old investigators, Rafael, who we haven't seen in months ran into our ward mission leader on the bus. He invited him to come to an activity the ward was hosting, and even offered to pick him and his family up. Well, we had a lesson scheduled, and weren't going to be able to make it. That lesson ended up falling through, and we were able to go to the activity with Rafael and his 2 daughters. It was so much fun to be there with them and to introduce them to the ward and the youth, and they loved it!

This Sunday we had a MIRACLE. Sister Paine and I have been struggling forever to get our investigators to church. No matter what we do, they just will not come. They will agree to come and then flake out morning of, even if we have found a ride for them. Well, that happened to us again this Sunday and we felt pretty discouraged. However, as we were greeting everyone, a woman walked through the door I had never seen before. We got to talking, and it turns out her dad joined the church in Benin, Africa. She always goes to a Catholic church and felt impressed to come to ours that day even though she had never attended another congregation. She has been prepared! She knew some of our members, and saw the elders walking down her street the other day but never talked to them. She had a great experience, and we were able to teach her some of the plan of salvation and plan to meet with her again shortly. Oh, her name is Ambrosine by the way.

Really what it came down to was this quote that I have been obsessing over since the broadcast. Elder Bednar said, "all things come together in 1 in Christ." The gospel is amazing. Amrbosine has had so many instances in her life that have prepared her to recieve the gospel. And for the longest time no matter how hard we worked, we sort of felt jipped at the last minute. But I am learning that I need to just trust in Heavenly Father and his timetable more. He will bless me with success when he is ready for me to take part in success.

Throughout this past year, I have come to really love the gospel of Jesus Christ. Coming into the field I knew things were true just because it was what I had been taught. My testimony was not as strong as I thought it was. When I got out here I learned that maybe my faith wasn't as strong as it needed to be, I wasn't as knowledgeable as a I needed to be, and some days I even wondered what the heck I was doing here. But a year later, I have come to find out the true joy and light that can come from the restored gospel. I am so grateful for my Savior. I am so grateful that I have been able to study his atonement. I have learned to rely on Him and my Heavenly Father more than ever before, and I have never been more aware of blessings. I am a firm believer that miracles exist because Heavenly Father has been kind enough to allow me to witness so many weekly, in fact, daily. THE GOSPEL IS LIFECHANGING. Let it help you, let it heal it, let it change you.

I love you all! Thank you for being the wonderful people you are and supporting me throughout this past year! Time is flying! I will see you before you even know it.

Love,

Sister Garcia

Scripture of the week:

Mosiah 24:14

And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.