That's TORONTO!!!!

Skyline of London

Hello Everyone!

   Exciting news for transfers tomorrow! This is how the conversation with President Scott went when he called last night...

First of all, Sister De Groot answered and pushed the wrong button and hung up on him so we had to call him back. haha but he said, "Sister Messer, we'll start with you, i'm sure this is a big surprise for you but you'll be training a new missionary and you'll be serving in Don Mills East." That's TORONTO!!!!) He said, "it's the big city!" and i said, "President! You know i've wanted to serve there for a long time!" and he kinda laughed and said,  "i know." I'm so stoked. Nervous cuz that's a whole new rodeo but sooooo excited. It's bus..and maybe the subway as well. I'll know for sure tomorrow! Sister De Groot will also be training a new missionary and staying in London 2. The ward is getting another set of sisters as well! They split the area into East/West and all 4 of them are staying in our apt until the new one is available. haha

  This week has been AMAZING. We hit the standards of excellence! We picked up 4 new investigators this week and things are going really well with our investigators.
Lloyd is doing great. However, he got food poisoning from eating duck at a baby shower on saturday night so he missed church on sunday...so we had to move his date to march 17. I think that will be good for him though because he's been nervous about it happening too fast. This should give him a couple of weeks to get his foundation steady. He's progressing really well. He said at our lesson, "i'm going to this church forever." He commited to live the Word of Wisdom this week and when he text us telling us he was sick on Sunday morning he told us he was never eating duck again and he was drinking green tea (to help him feel better i guess)..I text him back and said, "You shouldn't drink green tea either, it's bad for you too!" and we don't think he understood that part of the WoW so he felt bad and said thanks for telling him. haha

   Shawn also came to church yesterday, Bom and a mug full of coffee in hand :) He's the most humble guy, he's so great. We're planning to teach him the Wow as well this week. haha At our lesson a few days ago he prayed for the 1st time in over 30 years! When we asked him how he felt he said "joyful". So i whipped open to Galations 5 and testified to him that that feeling is from the spirit and how that was God answering his prayers that what we're teaching him is true. It was sweet.

Celebrating Valentines Day?

   We also had Jamie come to church yesterday. She is 15 and we met her sister while street contacting a couple weeks ago. She told us she wasn't interested but that her sister might be and gave us Jamie's number. So we contacted Jamie on Saturday and she wanted to come out on Sunday. She really enjoyed YW's and sunday school class. She's going to mutual on Tuesday and and really wanted to attend the temple trip this saturday. The YW's adivsor told her what she's gotta do to go to the temple :)

Sister Messer would LOVE to answer any of them!

   This funny thing happened this week- on the bus this perhaps less accountable lady looked at sister de groot and said, "wow! You have the shiniest teeth i have ever seen!" It made a few people laugh on the bus. Great conversation starter. haha

   Well, hopefully my new trainee is as awesome as Sis. De Groot, we've had a fun, short transfer together. I'm excited to see what Toronto has in store! Miss and Love ya'll!

Sister Messer

30 new sisters coming in this Monday...should be interesting!

Hello Everyone!

   This week has been pretty good! We've definitely seen the blessings as we strive to be exactly obedient. I also found out the Anne Nicholls (remember her from Kitchener/Waterloo? We found her and committed her to be baptized?) Well, she was on Sunday! Awww, sometimes i REALLY miss that area :) But good things have been coming here too. We have 2 baptismal dates for March coming up. . . Transfers are a week from today...haha go figure! Lloyd came to church on Sunday and really enjoyed it. He's the one from Jamaica. He's great. He even sent us a picture of flowers on our phone for Valentines Day! haha We also got a new investigator named Shawn who seems pretty solid, hopefully things continue to progress with him. Yesterday we dropped by a less-active in the ward that we had been told would be hard to get into but when we walked up to the door she opened it smiling and invited us right in! haha We started talking to her 15 yr old daughter and she wants to know more about the Book of Mormon! So things are picking up! Remember the inactive sister in the wheelchair? We run into her all the time. We met her at the bus stop yesterday and she reached out for a big hug. Hopefully her heart will continue to soften!

   We were dropping by a potential investigator's house yesterday and for the 10 minutes that we were at the complex, two inactive women (the only 2 that live there) walked passed us. It's great to see the Lord continually put them in our paths! Even if we can't teach them, they're continually reminded of the church and the promises they've made!

   You'll like this story- at a dinner appt a few days ago we were eating with an older single sister in the ward and all of a sudden we smelled something burning and she jumped up and was running all around the room looking for something. I stood up from the chair getting ready to help look for it (wondering what the nearest escape route was) It was on the 8th floor and a few days before that a member told us that fireman's ladders only go up 7 floors...haha but anyways, she grabbed her cat and was looking at it's fur- sure enough. the cat had brushed up against a candle and caught on fire! hahah we had a good laugh about that after we left her apt. It was one of those cats with long, shaggy fur and it was all black on the stomach. haha classic!

   We're getting the buses figured out more and more. We've made good friends with one of the drivers named Joe that drives a specific route passing the church. We got on a few days ago and he said, "hey! I've missed you!" He's soooo gonna get baptized ;)

   We visited a member this week who fed us some Sudanese food. If someone is from Sudan are they Sudanese? I'm not sure...but it was good! We've done a lot of walking, a lot of talking and a lot of bus riding this week. The search continues in London, for another week at least. 30 new sisters coming in this Monday...should be interesting!

Love Sister Messer

London is great!

Hello Everybody!

Downtown London, Ontario

   Well, this week has been a pretty good one. We picked up Lloyd- a really cool investigator (with a baptismal date!) from Jamaica. It's been going really well with him, we're excited for him to come out to church this coming Sunday! Maria is struggling with commiting to baptism and the wheelchair lady you asked about- she's a less-active in the ward. We haven't been meeting with her anymore because of some issues she has but we ran into her on Thursday! haha you'd think she'd take it as a sign,eh? :) Other than that, we have been doing a lot of less-active work and finding. This transfer is going by so quickly! Only 2 weeks until transfers. Geeeez.

   Mom, you asked about the snow storm hitting us- we got the edge of it. Friday it snowed and snowed and snowed, all of our appts cancelled so we were outside all day! It made for some fun times. We trekked through the snow and I was really grateful for boots. I believe we were supposed to get 30cm of snow and we only got 10cm or so? But today it is raining and melting it away. Here's a cool story of the week-

   We were calling potential investigators that the elders had talked to a couple of months ago and we called Alisha. When she answered she told us she was going to Toronto for the weekend but to call back on 'this date'. So that day we called her and she said, "you guys totally freaked me out. I met elders a couple years ago and they gave me a Restoration Pamphlet but i didn't give them my phone number and this number is a new cell phone i just got." So she asked us what her name was again and we said, "alisha?" and she said, "oh, my name is Lisa!" So what had happened was whoever alisha is- Lisa got her old number and we contacted her. A few days before we called her the first time she had come across that Restoration pamphlet and read it. Then we called and she went to Toronto, thought about us the whole weekend and how we could have gotten her number and then she told us we could come teach her! So we made an appt, looked her address up on our map and she lived just outside of our boundaries. Ha. Go figure! So we passed it onto the elders and they haven't been able to meet with her yet. But I thought that was pretty cool! (Dad, that was the faith building experience you asked for.haha)

   We had our ward conference yesterday too! Our Stake Pres, Pres. Saunders, told us to say hi from them to our families- so hi from L2 stk presy!

   Well, this week will be a good one! Thanks for the prayers and everything! It's helped us in our quest to figure out the buses for sure! haha Except last night when we had to wait at the bus stops for like...2 hours. no biggie. London is great!

Love,

Sister Messer

Guess what?! AMANDA got baptized!

Hey everyone!

Look!  Someone passed up a life-changing opportunity!  Poor little pass a long card!

Caught in the rain!

Us with cute Celeste 

Maria's on the right

Amanda's baptism (Sister Casner sent me this)

   Guess what?! AMANDA got baptized! Remember her? We worked with her my whole transfer in Kitchener/Waterloo and we set her for the 3rd right before i left. It KILLS not being able to stay in an area long enough to see the people you teach get baptized :( I've been moving so frequently now that it's hard to whitewash, get things rolling and see a baptism in one transfer. Aw well. I'm super excited she got baptized! Just wish i could've been there. Story of my life! It's ok, i was reading in Alma 29 today when he's talking about how he wishes he were an angel so he could declare the gospel to everyone with the trump of God and when he sees his brethren come unto the Lord he's filled with joy because he was an instrument in His hands in helping some soul to repentance. It does bring a lot of joy, the icing on the cake is being there for the baptism. But in the long run it doesn't matter...GOOD NEWS of the week: We've been working a lot with Maria and she's getting so close to baptism! She's now living the Word of Wisdom and is the cutest lady i've taught. Her and her son, James are a hoot. They've been so faithful coming out to church and they're starting to get fellowshipped better. Keep her in your prayers! She is so close.

   We've been getting the buses down. It's been really cold the past couple of weeks and a few days ago it poured and melted all the snow and we were walking in our down coats and got absolutely soaked. It was one of those classic moments when the car drives past you and splashes into a big puddle. It made for some good laughs. We still had no idea which bus came by and we were standing there trying to figure it out and one started to come out of the distance so we ran to the stop and the driver stopped and all we said was, "we don't know what we're doing!" and he just laughed and said, "get in." and he drove us to the stop we really needed to be at. The driver and the one other man that was on the bus had both talked to elders in the area before and so we told them how we were new in town. It's cool how many people you meet that have either talked to missionaries before or have had friends that were members etc.

   There's a young women in the ward that has brain cancer and she's supposed to pass away any day now. Her mom lives in a different town but has come to stay with her for the past week or so. She invited us to come see her on Tuesday so we went over and talked to her and what not. Her name is Celeste Templeman. She has a facebook page you all should check out.

   Last night we treked all over southwest london looking for a referral we received from a member. After finding the family (we have an appt this week!) We decided to start walking back until we saw a bus. We were only about a 3 min. bus ride away from our apt when we saw the bus come so we got on thinking we'd get off at the bottom of the hill. Well, a few minutes later we realized we were on a different route than we thought. It still took us to where we needed to go but 1.5 hrs later. haha we rode the bus all over London and talked to people who got on and off. Quite the night. Sometimes we think we know what we're doing only to find out that we don't. Sister De Groot also dropped her wallet on the bus a few days ago. We found it on the same bus an hour later but no one had stolen it! haha

   So all is well, we're trying to work with the gators we've found and we had a couple of less-active members come out to church yesterday! That was exciting. The ward is great, still trying to get to know all the members and what not.

Talk to ya soon!

Sister Messer