Wisdom to know the Difference!!!

Hi Fam Fam!!                                                                                                  083017
Thursday: We head our Quad-Zone Conference today. It was so good. We practiced giving invitations through the Book of Mormon, which was amazing. It really helped me get yet another witness that the Book of Mormon is true, and that there is so much power that comes through it. It helped me see that just like it says in 2 Nephi 32:3, that we need to feast upon the words of Christ, because they tell us ALL things we should do. How amazing is that!! The Book of Mormon tells us all things we should do. We got home in the evening and we got a call from Ron. He told us that his family called him and came to his house today, telling him that he needed to drop all contact with the Mormons... they were sharing all the Anti- Mormon material that they have seen. So he dropped us, and the missionaries in our area, we were SO sad. But it was a bittersweet experience because I got ANOTHER witness that the Book of Mormon is true. I was able to see that there is anti material everywhere around us, but if people will seriously read the Book of Mormon with real intent, nothing else matters, because if you know the Book of Mormon is true, you know everything else is as well... everything rests on the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
Friday: crazy day. We helped with the Elders friend today... Des. He stopped contact with the Elders for a couple of days and his baptism is supposed to be this Saturday, so Sister Gaston and I planned to go and stop by his house. Des is really busy, so we were hoping and praying that we would see a miracle and that he would be home. As we were walking down this road, we were like I hope he is home! Right as we said that Des comes riding his bike right by us. We yelled for his attention, and he stopped! MIRACLE! We looked at eachother and we were like "God loves us!" We were able to have a lesson with him, and discover what he needs help with, sadly he has to work through some things so he won't be able to make his baptism this Saturday, but we are praying he will make it for September 9th!
Saturday: we had the futbol activity today! It was really good, we had a good number of people show up! It was really hot! But it was fun! We were able to go see Alcina today, this was the first time we saw her since she got back from Mozambique. She is doing pretty good. She loved her trip! We had a DA with an older couple in our ward the Hammonds. Oh my goodness their house was boiling haha. And Sister Hammond poured us our drinks, and went into the other room to grab something, and we took a sip, and Sister Gaston goes "I think this is syrup" haha turns out the drink she gave us you are supposed to mix with water but she didn't know haha. We kept taking drinks and dumping water into our glasses haha! Oh my goodness.
Sunday: we had a miracle..we had two friends at church. Emilia, and our friend Alex we taught back in April. He showed up!! Yay. We don't know how interested he is, but he came to church!
Monday: We had the Hamble River War BBQ at Royal Victoria Countryside Park. 60 members came!! We played games, and ate lots of food. It was great! And it is such a beautiful location... right by the ocean! So cool.
Tuesday: We got an out of the blue call from Ron. He called and told us he wanted to meet up for lunch. He tooK us to the west end to a place called Haskins. He told us that he knows the message we share is true, and that he for sure felt something... but that he doesn't want to go against his family. The spirit is working in him! Amazing huh?! He cracks me up. He reminds me so much of Grandpa Ashton. Even down to the fact that he sent us home with Scones, and he told us that we needed to put A LOT of butter on them haha. It just reminded me of him. We were in Florida, when Grandpa put butter all over his banana nut muffins. Ron and Grandpa would get along really well. ❤️ this evening we had a DA with sister Hollis. She gave us two of her friends to go see. This was a huge miracle!! We are really trying to find through members.
This week was good. It was really hard, but good.
" God grants me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can change and the wisdom to know the difference."
This quote has really stuck out to me this week. I can't change people's Agency, but I can change the way I choose to act based on others decisions. I have seen that if I choose to have courage God can help me change the things in my life that are holding me back.
My mission has been one of the hardest experiences of my life, but I wouldn't change one piece that has happened so far. It has shaped me into a better and stronger person. I also love the scripture in Alma 34:32, where it says this life is the time to prepare to meet God. It is so true this life is the time to prepare to meet God, not to receive ALL of our blessings. We are spiritual beings with eternal potential and an eternal destiny.
I love you so much and I am so grateful for you. Have a great week. We can do hard things. We got this!
Love, Sister Lund

 I had a "Notebook Movie" moment when I looked out my window!!

 Come play futbol with the missionaries each Saturday

My mama!!

I Hope You Dance!!!

Hi Fam Fam!                                                                                                    082317
I hope you have had a good week. Our week was pretty good!
Thursday: today was pretty cool! Sister Gaston and I were able to participate in the Portsmouth Stake beehive camp. We were asked to help them with their service project. And they asked us to talk about the Book of Mormon, and tie it in with this years theme "Ask of God". Wow this was such a powerful experience. We were able to bear our testimonies of the Book of Mormon, and how if we go in with a specific question written down, and search the Book of Mormon, that we can receive answers... I have a sure testimony that the Book of Mormon truly answers questions of the souls, and that it brings us closer to God. So this was amazing... the Young women wrote their testimonies in the Books of Mormon, and gave them to us to hand out to investigators. We were also asked to help in their faith walk, so I was able to talk about Emma Smith and the value: Divine Nature. I shared the scripture in D&C, where Emma is called an Elect Lady. That was really fun for me to talk about Emma. She truly was an elect lady.
Friday: haha so we bought a monthly bus pass, that we thought covered our whole area... yeah we were wrong. It only covers the Southampton part, not the Hampshire part... and we had a lesson in Fareham today, but it was a miracle because the bus driver was very kind and gave us our tickets half price! So so nice. We had a lesson with our friend Debbie. We are really really trying to help Debbie. She is very unique, and is hard to teach at times, but we really are trying to do all we can to help her. We had correlation with Brother Handley this evening. He lives out in Gosport, which is the very edge of our area, but it is beautiful there. They have the D-day beaches there. We know that fall is coming, because it is starting to get darker in the mornings and night!
Saturday: We had interviews with President in Portsmouth today. We also had our zone training. We focused on faith, obedience, and works. As a mission we are really trying to be exactly obedient, because we know that obedience brings blessing, but exact obedience brings MIRACLES.
Sunday: Emilia came to church today! Yay! I love her. The Wrzeszcz family have changed my life. I will really miss them when I leave. We had a meeting with Brother Sheppard at his house, since he is in the bishopric. He really wants to help us move the work forward in the Hamble River Ward. We are really trying to move the work forward.
Monday: We did A LOT of finding today. This area needs a lot of finding!! But that's okay. We also were able to do some service for Alcina, so that was fun!
Tuesday: Today we had a lesson with one of our friends Ron. Oh my days, he is the sweetest little man. He is 83 years old. Sister Gaston and Sister Ripley found him while we were on exchanges last week, and they gave him a Book of Mormon, and he said that he would call if he was convinced... and guess what today we got a call. He told us he wasn't convinced, but that he wanted to meet up. So we taught him in a pub.... we had no where else to go. 😂 but hey the lesson was amazing. All three of us were in tears. He shared how he wants to know how he can be with his sweet wife Antonia again, since she passed away, and he misses her dearly. When we started the lesson he said that he didn't believe there was a God, and he thought the Book of Mormon was a good "story". By the end of the lesson he was in tears, and told us that there is power in this book, and that he believes there is a God, and that he wants to be baptized in two weeks! WHAT??? We are so happy for him. We found out that he is just outside of our area, so we had to refer him to the Elders in the city centre. But it's okay, we want to do Gods will, and be obedient. Ron told us that every night before he goes to bed he says " goodnight Jesus, goodnight Antonia, I hope I see you in the morning". Awwwh. Oh my goodness I hope when I am 83, my husband will love me as much as Ron loves his wife. So cute.
This week has been really good. It has been hard, because literally every solid investigator we found isn't in our area so we have had to refer quite a few people. But we know that Heavenly Father has a plan.  I read a conference talk called "Summer with Great Aunt Rose". And there was a part that really stuck out to me... " I decided I had a choice - I could hang my head and drag my feet on the dusty road of self-pity, or I could have a little faith, put on a bright dress, slip on my dancing shoes, and skip down the path of life, singing as I went". It made me think of the song "I hope you dance". I think one of my biggest desires in life is that I want to live my life to the fullest and be happy in the NOW, and do this on God's path. I don't want to be caught in the trap of "I wish I did this, or if only I did this, or when I have this or when I do this I will be happy" because I am here to tell you, if we don't CHOOSE to be happy now, we are robbing ourselves from so many amazing experiences and blessings.
I hope you will have a great week. I love you so much. We got this!
Love,
Sister Lund

1 Year!!!!

Hi Fam Fam!                                                                                                          
Oh my goodness. This week was pretty good. We saw a lot of miracles! I apologize ahead for this short email... 😜
Thursday: we had two dinner appointments today, one with the Batus, and one with the Kleins. The Batus are such a funny and cute old couple. They remind me a bit like Ray Barone's parents from Everyone Loves Raymond... only a little bit though haha. They have the biggest English house I have seen so far on my mission. English homes are quite small. I think it will be weird for me to come home and see big yards and houses. The Kleins are such a cute young family. Mathilde is hilarious, she definitely has English humour. 😂
Friday: we did a lot of planning and we did a lot of finding! I think that is where we have seen a lot of miracles this week is finding... granted a lot of our appointments flogged us... but hey we are able to find, and we are doing our part, now all we can do is leave it up to God.
Saturday: today was really fun. This morning we started a new activity! Football on Saturdays! I actually did pretty well... all us missionaries were so out of shape haha, but I can still do rainbows!
Sunday: we had a miracle! One of our investigators came to church! We had been trying all week to get someone to come, and we were really worried no one would come, but cute little Symphony came with her mama!
Monday: we went to the edge of our area: Portchester, and spent the day there. We were able to see a less active family: the Lowrys. They are the funniest. They are very unique, the wife has bright red hair, and she wears 50s clothing and the husband has a mustache that makes him look a bit like Captain Hook. But oh man they are so fun.
Tuesday: we were on exchanges with sister Walker and Sister Ripley. I was with Sister Walker, and we went to hedge end all day. We were able to see Heather, which is always good. I love Heather, we haven't seen her in a while, and she needed the visit. As soon as we got there and I asked if we could pray, she just looked at me and pulled me into a hug and started crying. She has had a really hard life, but it was such an amazing moment for me to be there with her and feel the spirit telling me "if your only role here was to help Heather, that would be fine for me". I think that was a lesson I learned today was that I am helping everyone I can, and Heavenly Father recognizes my efforts.
Wow. I cannot believe I hit my year mark... I know I always say time is weird, but it really is. It's crazy, now when people ask me how long I've been on my mission they are like "you are starting to get old"... haha but I have been able to reflect a bit on my mission, and ya know it hasn't been the easiest. I have had some growing pains. But I have learned that I really can do hard things, I was set apart by the Lord to do the things He needs me to do here on my mission. I have been able to learn more about myself... especially the fact that I am a spiritual being having a mortal experience, and he doesn't expect me to be perfect in this life. But mostly I have learned that this Gospel truly does bring eternal joy into my life... that the joy I have had in my life hasn't come from the world or anything the world "gives" me. The joy I have, came and comes ONLY from my Loving Heavenly Father. What a gift... men are that they might have joy. So yes, we will have hard times and we will face trials, but we can choose to find joy in these experiences.
I love you. I hope you have a great week. We got this! We really CAN do hard things! I love you so much.
Love, Sister Lund

I'm Blonde...but I'm Trying!!

Hi Fam Fam!
Another week down!! Big shout out to mama!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! Have the best day ever. You are amazing, and are such an amazing example to me.
 Thursday: okay so it is quite funny... Sister Gaston is related to a couple in our ward: the Andrews. Sister Gaston's great grandfather married sister Andrews mother. So such a small world. We had a dinner appointment with the Andrews this evening, which was pretty fun. We were able to talk a lot about Sister Gaston's family. 😊
Friday: this evening we went over to wash Iwona's (Patrycja's mom) car. Which was a miracle because we are really trying to work with the family. It was really funny. So when we got there we had dinner with them... and then Sister Gaston got to hold Fred. She is terrified of snakes but she did really well. I've gotten better with snakes but today was an interesting day between me and Fred. I went to pet Fred and his mouth opened, so it scared me... like My heart skipped a beat and I thought I was going to pass out haha. Turns out he was Yawning. Snakes yawn? 😂 And then Pat was like "Sister Lund, you need to hold Fred..." so she coiled him up and set him on my lap, and he sat there for about 5 minutes, until she had to put him back in his cage. And when she picked him up, I look down at my leg, and saw that it was wet... I was like huh? Turns out Fred peed on me... 😂 who knew snakes peed on people... Pat was like of course it would happen to you.
Saturday: we had correlation at Brother Handleys house this evening. He got new bunnies, and so we were able to go in the bunny house and pet them haha. They are so cute.
Sunday: we had dinner at Bishops house! And it was great. They really like to make fun of our accents. But hey it was fun to build a stronger relationship with him and his family.
Monday: we did A LOT of finding today. We are trying to build up the area. And so we spent the whole day finding. Which is okay. 😊
Tuesday: we helped Alcina this morning, prepare to go to Mozambique. She hasn't been back in years so she is really excited. I'm glad that we were able to help her, because she was pretty stressed, she wouldn't have been able to do it all by herself. This evening we went to a LA in our ward Naomi Islam, and on our way to her door, Sister Gaston slipped in the mud, and we both started laughing. When we left Naomi's, I slipped in mud going down the hill haha. We just looked at eachother and we were like "okay this is scary, we are so similar".
Sister Gaston and I are so similar. We have gotten a long really well, and we just click. It was funny, because you know me... I'm pretty blonde and ditsy at times... well most times. And Sister Gaston can be as well. And so we came up with this slogan #I'mblondebutI'mtrying. And I love this. It just made me think how grateful I am to be me. I am NOT perfect... not even close. But I am grateful for the strengths and weaknesses God has given me. I am so grateful for my personality, because I am literally the only person in the world like me. There Is only one of me. I think Satan is telling the world that we need to be just like this person, or we need to do this to be noticed, but it's not true. We NEED to be ourselves, because God intended us to be unique, and to be ourselves, and for that I am so grateful.
I love you. I hope you have a fabulous week. Happy birthday mommy! I love you. We can do hard things. We got this!
Love,
Sister Lund

 Fred peed on me!!

Bunnies!!!

Encircled in the Arms of Safety

Hi Fam Fam!
Wow this week has been a bit crazy. And definitely unexpected. I am staying in Hamble River for this next transfer. I got a new companion: Sister Gaston. She is from Paris, France. So she is my second French companion. But man I already love her. She is so sweet. She has been on her mission for 7 months. She has been serving on Jersey for the entire time so far. So this is her first area on the mainland. We are super similar, it's a bit funny 😂.
Thursday: we had dinner at the Norths house, and we brought Patrycja with us, because he is her home teacher. We are really trying to get her integrated into the ward more.
Friday: correlation got cancelled, but that is okay. We were able to go and visit Paul, which was really good we hadn't talked to him in a little bit. Oh Paul... he is so amazing, but he has literally told us that he likes to be difficult. He always says "Sister Lund, I'm like Wasabi, I'm an acquired taste" 😂. I'm like well okay then Paul haha.
Saturday: This morning Kim Smith took us to brunch in Hamble, at the Banana Wharf. I had my first real English breakfast, which was actually pretty good. I am a fan of beans on toast. It is actually really good. This evening we had a dinner appointment with sister Baker. She is the cutest. She is 81 years old, but she acts and looks like she is in her early 70s. She is feisty!
Sunday: it was Sister Velez last Sunday in Hamble River. She is moving to Newton Abbott in Plymouth, and she is going to be companions with her MTC companion Sister Stephenson. She is nervous but excited. She will be great.
Monday: Sister Velez and I went to have lunch with the Sheppards, we always love seeing them. They have become like my "family" in the ward. I love them so much. Then we went and saw Alcina and Paul and Rehana, it was hard for them to say goodbye to Sister Velez because they were really close with her. And then we went to Patrycja and Emilia's. I think it was hard for Sister Velez, and it hit her that she was actually leaving, but I know it will be good for her.
Tuesday: because Sister Gaston was in Jersey, her flight got delayed by an hour. So I went to Havant with Sister Walker and Sister Ripley for the night, on exchange. I got so burnt! I don't even know how! My skin here, oh my days. They found out that I gave Sister Honeycutt a hair cut a while back and so they had me cut their hair, and I was proud of myself. It actually turned out really well... bangs and all haha. I think it was all those hours I watched people cut hair 😂, just kidding.
So this week was great. But it was also a bit hard because I realized again how important it is to not have faith in outcomes. I was reminded of my Savior and the His Atonement. I was able to see that my Savior loves me so much, and that he is there to help me through everything. I was reading a talk from October 2008 called Arms of Safety.
"A family had been taking pictures on a lookout point of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. They heard screams and ran to find that a two-year-old girl had fallen through a railing to a ledge about 35 feet (11 m) below. The little one tried to climb back up, but her movements caused her to slip even farther until she was 5 feet (1.5 m) from a dangerous 200-foot (61-m) drop.
A 19-year-old young man named Ian saw where she was and, using his emergency-response training, knew how to handle the situation. These are his words: “‘Immediately, it all came at me, and I just knew what I had to do. I set down my camera and went up the trail a little ways where it wasn’t as steep, climbed over the rail, scrambled down a bunch of rocks and through brush, and found her.’ Holding her in his arms for an hour, Ian waited until emergency teams could drop down with ropes” to rescue them (“Save Her!” New Era, Sept. 2007, 6).  The phrase “holding her in his arms” caught my attention because the scriptures talk about arms--arms of love, arms of mercy, and arms of safety (see 2 Nephi 1:15; Mosiah 16:12; Alma 5:33; D&C 6:20; 29:1). The scripture phrase “encircled in the arms of safety” comes from Amulek’s message to the Zoramites about the infinite and eternal Atonement. He taught that the sacrifice of the Son of God made it possible for man to have faith in Christ to lead us to repent. “And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety” (Alma 34:16; see also vv. 9–15)."
This just made me think of our Savior and that sometimes we want to stand up and move, and try to climb back up, and do what we think is best, but our Savior immediately climbs over the rail, scrambles down a bunch of obstacles, and holds us in His arms for an "hour" or whenever He sees that it is safe for us to move.
I cried when I read this, because I was reminded of how much my Savior loves me, and even though I can't fully comprehend how much He loves me, I know He does. Because I have felt his arms around me, especially on my mission. Sometimes I think my plan is better, as all humans do. But when we can humble ourselves and realize that our Savior and our Heavenly Father know us perfectly, and know how to help us, we are then able to recognize that love, and feel his arms of safety. Heavenly Father has a perfect plan for me and for all of you. Trust him.
I love you. I hope you have a great week. We got this!
Love, Sister Lund

 Sister Gaston form Paris, France

Exchanges with Sister Walker and Ripley