Megs on a Mission: One thing you can always count on in life is CHANGE! :)

Dear Family,

How is it warm enough in Idaho right now to go camping?! Oh wait... you have a trailer these days. :) How fun! Thanks for all the pictures! Congratulations to Kafferine, carrying the banner ;) Nelson, email me about your life... :)

Thank you for sending that birthday package, family!! I can't believe I will no longer be a teenager in 4 days. Turning 20 in Vegas... the only thing wilder would be turning 21. Ha-ha. ;) I can't wait to get it and open it up and laugh at the random fruit leather. Love you.

Well transfers are upon us and I'm packing my bags today! I'm headed to Green Valley to be STLs with Sister Mayfield. I'm super excited to be her companion. I went on exchanges with her when she was in the Kingman/Havasu zone and she is dynamite. However I'm really sad to be leaving Sister Koyle and this wonderful ward :( I really thought I had more time. Thankfully President Snow tipped me off early that he'd be moving me so I had some time to prepare. Thinking back on my two transfers here, I truly feel like I've done my best. I've made mistakes, and my time was short, but I tried to work hard and I loved the people. My only regret is not being able to have the full 2 transfers with Sister K. Last night I wrote little notes and inside jokes on about 30 sticky notes and hid them in all of Sister Koyle's stuff, so she'll be finding little messages from me for a while ;) Sister Koyle's new companion is in her last transfer of her mission so Sister Koyle will be killing her off. :P Sister K will do great things in this area. The members love her and she knows her stuff, so she's prepared to lead.

(Mom, ohh man, to answer your question "did you feel like a mother bear..." I've never felt so much like a mother bear as I do with Sister Koyle! No one messes with Sister Koyle without getting through me!)

Oh, and they are working on getting her ticket reduced. So she should be ok :)

This week Elder Clark of the seventy came and spoke to us in a mission-wide conference! It is in preparation for us getting iPads. The training was basically on anything BUT iPads, though... the training was about us. Heavenly Father spiritually created everything before it was physically created, and in the same way we need to be spiritually prepared before we receive this new tool. We are PURPOSE missionaries, not iPad missionaries! The iPads will just be a tool to help us invite others to come unto Christ. He really emphasized our eternal destiny and how our missions are preparing us for our families, for our marriages, for our careers... A mission is worth 100,000 dollars and we can't waste it. We can't let the experience go through us, it has to change us!

One thing they cautioned us to do is make it a habit not to get on an electronic device without having a purpose in mind. This is HUGE. How often do we whip out our smartphones or sit down at the computer without a specific purpose, just to find we've wasted an hour on Pinterest or YouTube? Not only does that waste time but it can be destructive and dangerous to wander. Never press a single button without first deciding what you're getting on to do and why. If 88,000 missionaries can make this a habit to take home, the world will be a much better place. That's something I want to make a habit of and I invite you all to try it out as well :)

Next week I'll send you my list of Green Valley investigators, but for now, please pray for Brissa, Patrick, David, Thalia, Juan and Joseph.

We had a little bit of a rollercoaster with David. On Wednesday he was really progressing. We had an amazing lesson with him where he told us that daily prayer was really helping him and that he FELT good. David does not like talking about feelings! But he was smiling all throughout the lesson! Then at Institute, they talked about church history and he got really confused. At our next lesson he dropped us and told us he doesn't believe Joseph Smith is a prophet. We tried our best to answer his questions but he had hardened his heart. Sunday morning he texted us apologizing and said he wants to continue investigating. We are going to take it slow with him.

I studied Alma 32 in depth for David and realized that there's a lot of prerequisites to gaining a testimony; a lot of controlled variables, like a science experiment. I'm not very good at scince but bear with me for a second. You first have to humble yourself, then you have to plant the seed and nourish it, not resist the Spirit of the Lord, and have diligence, patience, and long-suffering. The uncontrolled variable is the trials or obstacles that may come our way during the process. And the results you're looking for are what kind of fruit the experiment yields. If you do these things, seeking for a testimony, it will ALWAYS be good fruit!

"I'm starting with the man in the mirror, I'm asking him to make the change..."

Your inspirational thought of the day from Michael Jackson.

This week, I finally followed my dreams and got a brazillian blowout! Just kidding. The next best thing is having a companion who can straighten and curl your hair in under 30 minutes. She taught me how to do it so now, as long as I can get my hands on a curling iron, i can do it myself! 20 here I come! :)