Smile and Do It !!!

Hi Fam Fam!                 

This week has been a crazy week. I am staying here in Crawley for my last transfer, Sister Gates moved to Bath. I am really going to miss her. But my new companion is Sister Shumway from Rexburg, ID. She has been in her mission for 3 months. But she seems nice!
I'll try and sum up this week for ya, bear with me.

Thursday: We had exchanges with Eastbourne. I was with sister Torgerson. She goes home in a couple of days. So this is her last transfer. She is so amazing. A goal she had was she wanted to say "God has sent us here to talk to you" to someone on the street that we contact. She has wanted to do this her whole mission so I was like "okay sister Torgerson we are going to get on our knees and we are going to pray to have the courage to say this in the street to someome you feel has been prepared" so we prayed and we went out and talked to Carina. She wasn't really interested in what we had to say. But the spirit I felt as Sister Torgerson said those words was so powerful. How amazing is it that we are representatives of the Savior. I take it for granted. It was amazing though because Sister Torgerson had tears in her eyes and after the contact she turned to me and said "Sister Lund... I did it. I have wanted to do that for so long and I did it." I started crying because it made me so happy she was happy and that she fulfilled her mission goal.  Now she can go home with no regrets.

Friday: we finished up exchanges with Eastbourne. Sister Torgerson and I taught Joanna this morning. It was good. Joanna just has a lot on her plate right now. She wants to be baptized on February 3rd but we will have to see how things go. She is so cute though. We love her. After exchanges we went to East Grinstead to do finding and food with the Zion district. It was great. We did whiteboard contacting where we had people write down their answer to a question on the board. We got some pretty interesting responses. But it was good.

Saturday: We found out moves today which were so bittersweet. But today we got to go to Brighton to go see a Baptism. Peter and Jo and Hannah came with us, so that was great. And we had dinner with them after. Hannah told us and her parents that she really wants to be baptized and her parents gave permission. So we are going to start teaching Hannah. That was a big miracle!

Sunday: A day full of goodbyes for sister Gates. But it was good we had a dinner appointment with Brother and sister McLuckie and The Ryan's. So that was fun. Then we just did some finding this evening.

Monday: We spent most of our day in Horsham. We got to go to Sabrine's house and we helped her set a missionary goal. And then we went into town and got hot chocolate with Izzy. Izzy is so funny. She is dating a member who is on a mission right now so a lot of the conversation turns into her talking about Michael... so it can be hard to keep her focused haha. Then Elder Roper and Elder Armstrong came to Horsham to do accounting with us and we were sitting in Kokoro and we sat next to these two chinese women, Ping and Margaret. They are going to meet with us this week so that is excitng. They then started to tell us their first impressions of us. They looked at Elder Roper and they were like you are a Lawyer. They looked at Sister Gates and said you are a writer. They looked at Elder Armstrong and they hesitate and Margaret says You are a playboy! Haha we like burst out laughing, and Margaret goes "I sorry my English bad... you just pretty that's why you playboy".  It was hilarious. So then Elder Armstrong was like who is Sister Lund and Ping goes "she is my princess! And margaret goes she is an artist". So funny We had a dinner appointment with the Craggs this evening which was great. And then Sister Gates packed.

Tuesday: Sister Gates left pretty early this morning and Sister Shumway got here not too long after she left. We had a good day. Did some finding, and we had correlation and ward council this evening. It was pretty good.

This week was good. It was a bittersweet week. I am excited for new opportunities, but a bit sad to lose some of my friendships for a time. All in his plan though. I think something I learned was a quote I think dad shared with me "some grin and bear It, others smile and do It". There is bound to be hard times in our life and we are going to have to go through some things but we might as well find joy in it.

I hope you have a great week! I love you. We can do hard things. We got this!

Love,
Sister Lund

Our Divine Identity!!

Hello Fam Fam!

I had a really great week! I hope you did as well. I am currently writing my emails on a bus, so I left my journal at home... so bear with me as I try to remember my week! I probably will just share some highlights.

This week we started teaching this cute less active family the Naye's. They are from India. The dad, Manoj, is really wanting to work on some things so that he can baptize his 9 year old daughter Ishika. We saw them twice this week. And they are really eager for us to come.  It seriously makes me so happy. We are seeing a lot of miracles with this family, and I know we will continue to!
We also were able to get back in contact with Joanna. She has been going through a tough time, so it was really good to see her. She told us that she still really wants to get baptized. So we set another date with her.

We had our zone conference yesterday. Which was so great. With it being a new year the theme was "New Year, New You". So we talked a lot about change. And what we can do to make changes in our lives to come closer to our Savior. It really was exactly what I needed.

This week was great. I think one of the biggest things I learned this week was that we are of divine identity. We are children of the most high God... So why do we so often forget this? Because we all have the natural man in us or a.k.a we are human beings. I think it is good for us to remember that we all have a divine identity. We are all his spirit children that chose to come to this earth to follow him. But more often than not we forget who we are and start making decisions that pull us away from him, and our spirits are dying for us (the human part) to set them free. We all have to make sacrifices and decisions that are not easy. Just as Christ said in the Garden of Gethsemane "not my will, but thine be done", we too will have to sometimes swallow "the bitter cup"... But if we can remember that if we make the harder right choice than the easier wrong choice He will bless us in ways we can't even comprehend, it makes swallowing that cup that much easier. I KNOW that to be true!!

I hope you have a great week. I love you so much! We can do hard things! We got this!

Love,
Sister Lund

Chasing Jesus in 2018!!

Hi Fam Fam!                                                                                                                               010318

Oh my goodness I have exciting news!!! My dear sweet friend Richard Dolan got baptized this past Friday! Words cannot even begin to express how happy this makes me. He looked so happy and I was just amazed at his growth. President Gubler gave me permission to Skype him, so I got to talk with him for a little bit. From the man I met in Woolston in September to the man who just got baptized... man oh man... completely different. He is so happy!! I am still on cloud nine. I can honestly say nothing makes me happier than to see people come closer to Jesus Christ and to experience his miraculous healing power. I could ramble on and on about Richard. He is an eternal friend of mine that has impacted me forever.

Thursday: We had MLC which was good. Haha however I got the flu, so I was going in and out of the meeting. But we set a lot of great goals for 2018. So that is exciting! It will be great to see what happens!

Friday: We didn't do much today! But we did a lot of planning which was good. And I got to Skype Richard! Which let  me tell you again, seeing him was so great!

Saturday: So sorry I can't remember what happened today! Not much happened because I have been under the weather.

Sunday: We went to church! And we had a dinner appointment with the Coughlans. It was so fun! They are such a cute family. Their kids are the cutest! It was a pretty quiet New Years Eve.

Monday: 2018!!!! So we went to the Corrigans for lunch. They are such a great couple. Then this evening we went to the Vowels...and let me tell you a story. It was so embarrassing. So I have been sick this week, and I have been having coughing attacks. So we were sharing the spiritual thought after dinner, and when Tony (The Grandfather) was bearing his testimony I started to have a coughing attack but my water was across the table. Side note: Adam one of their younger boys was playing with a Whoopie Cushion... You probably can see where this is going... Another side note, I want you to know that the Vowels remind me a lot of the Ashton family. I can just imagine the Vowels and the Ashtons being like twin families. Anyways so I was having a coughing attack so I leaned across the table to get my water and at the exact same time Adam put the whoopie cushion on the table...So I don't know if i pressed it or if he did, because neither of us were trying to press it on purpose, but the whole table went silent for like 5 seconds and then they realized what happened and they were like "Sister Lund!" I was like "I swear that was not me!! I promise" and I turned bright red... Oh my goodness so embarrassing. But low key hilarious!

Tuesday: We had DLC today. Which was fun. We went to Nandos to celebrate the New Year and the success and miracles of 2017. But something that I loved that we did in this meeting was we showed "A silent interview with Christ" I don't know if you have seen it, but it is so good so you should watch it! It is so powerful. Then we went and visited Charlie, she had a harder week, so we just talked about how through Christ we have been blessed with the gift of change and becoming better, and that we don't need to constantly beat ourselves up. This evening we had ward council and correlation, it was good, but honestly not much for me to tell ya about haha.

This week really was so good. I was reminded of a talk dad had me watch back when I was in Welling... "The Perfect Lie". I was reminded about a few parts of it. One of them is where Tiffany Webster talks about Christ and how when you study his life he takes things and he transforms them to be better then what they were. And the other part was at the end where she says " I no longer am chasing perfection... I'm Chasing Jesus". That part hit me so strong. I think a lot of my life I try to chase perfection because I lose sight on what actually matters. So I decided my slogan for 2018 is "Chase Jesus". I am so excited for this New Year!

I love you so much! I hope you have a great week! We can do hard things! We got this!

Love,
Sister Lund

I Skyped with Richard!! He got baptized!!!!!

At Least God Is Perfect!!!

Hi Fam Fam!                                                                                                               122717

This week was so good! I was so happy to see your faces! You all looked and sounded great!

Thursday: we had district meeting, and it was focused a lot on charity. It was so spiritually uplifting. We studied in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. If you get a chance you should read it! It's really good. Then we went up to Brighton to take the Christmas picture for our zone, so we could deliver our Christmas Gift to our zone. So that was fun. And then we had interviews with President and Sister Gublers over Skype which was good. They are the cutest, I love them. This evening we had a dinner appointment with the Vowels, which is always fantastic. They are preparing to go to Australia for 3 weeks. We will miss them! And then we taught Richi, and we talked about him preparing for the temple. So that is so exciting. 

Friday: today was really fun! We went and did some caroling in Epsom. And it was so fun. So Epsom isn't in our area but it is in our district. And so we wrapped copies of the Book of Mormon, and handed them out to the people that passed us caroling in the mall. It was so fun, but man my voice hurt at the end.

Sunday: we had church only for an hour today, and it was so fun. The church service was amazing. Lots of pretty music. Then we went to Diego Volpe's house and he made us Italian food... Lasagne. Then we had a dinner appointment at the Craggs house. They are so sarcastic, but they are really funny. So it was a really good Christmas eve.

Monday: this morning we ding dong ditched Peter and Jo, one of our investigators, with a present from the ward. And then we went to a lunch appointment at sister Stamps house. She is the sweetest. She is from Italy, and she had two of her daughters with her. So it was great to spend time with her. Then we went to the Corrigans and Skyped home and had some pudding with them. It was the best!!!

Tuesday: Today was Boxing day. England loves their boxing day. Haha. We went over to the Grahams house. They are so funny, they are crazy funny! Haha. After that we went and heart attacked Evie Mueller's house. Then we had accounting and some planning. So it was a good day.

This week was so great. I absolutely loved seeing you!

Elder Holland gave a talk in General conference in October 2017... And I absolutely love the part:

"I believe that Jesus did not intend His sermon on this subject to be a verbal hammer for battering us about our shortcomings. No, I believe He intended it to be a tribute to who and what God the Eternal Father is and what we can achieve with Him in eternity. In any case, I am grateful to know that in spite of my imperfections, at least God is perfect—that at least He is, for example, able to love His enemies, because too often, due to the “natural man” and woman in us, you and I are sometimes that enemy. How grateful I am that at least God can bless those who despite fully use Him because, without wanting or intending to do so, we all despite fully use Him sometimes. I am grateful that God is merciful and a peacemaker because I need mercy and the world needs peace. Of course, all we say of the Father’s virtues we also say of His Only Begotten Son, who lived and died unto the same perfection."

We can achieve great things WITH God and WITH our Savior Jesus Christ. I know miracles are happening all around us. We don't need to beat ourselves up for not being perfect. This is the time to prepare to be like God. One day we will get there. I love you all so much. Have a great week. And a Happy New Year! We got this!

Love,
Sister Lund

P.S. I found out some AMAZING news today!! Richard is getting baptized this Friday!!!! I am so excited. And President gave me permission to Skype him on Friday. I am soooooooooo happy for him!!! Oh my goodness.

Happy Christmas Harry!!

Hi Fam Fam!

This week was pretty Good. I am really excited to share some highlights with you!
Thursday: We went to the Visitors Center to have District meeting but due to their crazy schedule we ended up just doing our Christmas activity with them and decorated sugar cookies! But it was so fun even though things didn't go quite to plan.

Friday: so fun! We did finding and food in Brighton today. Man it was so cold, but was so fun! Then after that Elder Armstrong and Elder Roper and us all went to make some Christmas presents for our zone, which they are going to be so fun! Then we went over to Charlie's house and we had dinner with her and watched the Testaments. I LOVE that movie. It makes me cry every time.

Saturday: we went over to Evie Muller, a lady in our ward who has M.S. and is unable to do hardly anything. She is the sweetest woman though. She had us decorate her whole hallway in pass along cards and then she handed out a Book of Mormon to her nurse Anna. She is such an amazing woman. She definitely is doing all she can to light the world. Then we had the ward Christmas party. Our 83 year old friend Ann came. She is the cutest, but she is very forgetful..  bless her. She needed a taxi home so half the night was spent having us try and figure out how to get her home. Haha but they did a nativity and sang carols and played Christmas games. So it was a really good night.

Sunday: we had church! Which is always great. Sadly none of our friends came, but we are working with them. So hopefully next week! We saw Ann this evening. She is the cutest... but she forgot we were coming. But she welcomed us in and she made us dinner... Oh boy... She made what she called "Spaghetti" but really it was top ramen with no broth and vegetarian meatballs with this vegetable mix stuff... and she was like "I forgot you were coming so i cooked the dinner and then i went and read the Bible, and I forgot I made the food, So it's cold". Haha oh Ann. She was like you have to try these meatballs though they are made from trees... me and Sister Gates looked at each other and we were like "oh Wow... I'm so excited" 😂

Monday: we had exchanges today with the VC sisters. I was with Sister Nielson. She is from Riverton. She has been on her mission for about 5 months. She is the cutest. We were able to visit a member who just moved into the ward for a few months, Sabrine. She is from France. She is so funny. So funny thing about England they have what is called "Squash". And it is this flavoring liquid that you pour into water. So in the states I would say it is a lot like Crystal light but not in powder form. And so you have to put water in it. But foreigners dont know that. I sure didn't when I first got to England. So she sets out this squash on the table and three glasses, but she didn't set out water. And I was like well maybe she'll set it out later. So we get talking and then she takes the squash and just pours it all the way to the top of our glasses and pushes it in front of us. And sister Nielsen had no idea that is was squash because it didn't say it on the label... But I knew so I took a swig of it and oh my goodness was it strong. But then sister Nielsen took a drink and she like gagged.. and I lost it I could not hold in my giggles Haha! So Sabrine takes a drink and in her french accent goes "oh my goodness, this is so sugary". It was so funny! But I love Sabrine. She is the cutest. She actually is planning on serving a mission. So cool!

Tuesday: best day! We went to the Temple. And it was just what I needed! Such an amazing thing to be able to feel the spirit in such a way in the house of the Lord. It was fun to be able to go through the temple with President and Sister Gubler and a third of our Mission!
I am loving my mission. I love to be able to share my testimony with others. I love to be able to come closer to my Savior. I love to be able to help others make changes in their lives, and I love to see them change. I just LOVE my mission. I am so excited for Christmas this week. It came so fast! I can't even believe it! There was a Christmas video on lds.org I was watching and it talks about what the world would be like without Christ. And it really just put into perspective how dark the world would be. We already are having so much turmoil and scary things happening in the world... imagine for a second what the world would be like without the Savior. Scary right?

If you get a chance watch:
"Why we need a Savior — A Christmas message about our Savior Jesus Christ. #ASaviorIsBorn."  It is amazing!

I am so excited to see your faces on Christmas! And because I'm in England.... "Happy Christmas Harry".

I love you. We got this! We can do hard things!

Love,
Sister Lund

 Elders Armstrong and Roper have become our good friends

 I Love to see the Temple

 Decorating sugar cookies

Brighton

Cause that my Eyes may be Opened!!

Hi Fam Fam!

This week flew by. But it was oh so good.

Thursday: so I went to go look through my journals and planner to see what we did today, but I honestly can't remember... Haha sorry! 🙈

Friday: We got to see cute Charlie a recent convert in the ward. She is so precious. Oh my goodness and so smart. She majored in cancer cell biology. This afternoon we did transfer planning with Elder Roper and Elder Armstrong. It was really great. We have some really fun things to do in the zone this transfer. I am so excited! This evening we had a dinner appointment with the Vowels. They are the cutest family. They have 8 kids, along with his parents and one of their business colleagues that live with them. So every night they have 13 people around there dinner table! Wow! And they feed us a twice a month. How sweet is that?! After dinner with them we had a lesson with Dave. Oh Dave... he is lovely. But is struggling with urgency to prepare for his baptism. His Date was for the 16th of December, but he doesn't feel ready. So I will keep you updated on him. He is a great guy though!

Saturday: Such a great day! We had a lesson with one of our friends Laurie-Anne. She is 17 years old. She brought her friend Madison on her lesson today. It went okay. She is pretty apprehensive. We will see how things go with her. This evening... made me SO happy! I got to see one of my bestest friends!! Francesca went to visit the Temple today and came to see me in Crawley. I cried! My goodness I haven't seen her for 9 months. She is doing so well. She is so amazing. And she brightened my whole week!

Sunday: We have had Stake Conference this weekend. It has been so good. There was a bit of an emergency in the chapel today though. A sweet little old man during the middle of the meeting had what we thought was a stroke, but it turns out his blood sugar was just off. Miracle though, we think that because the whole stake was sitting there praying for him as they got him prepped for the ambulance that Heavenly Father heard our prayers and healed him. It may sound weird but I just had that overwhelming feeling that the power of prayer, if it is according to God's will, can heal anyone and anything. So amazing! The rest of the day we just did a lot of finding. Which was good. Although it is getting a lot colder!

Monday: This evening we went over to the Fagan's house (our ward mission leader) and shared the Light the World video with them. Sister Gates is a trooper. Bless her haha. As we were travelling to the Fagan's who live in Horsham  (far away in our area from where we live) she was walking up this hill and like flew into this pile of mud. She was COVERED. Like sooo bad.  Haha she popped up so fast though. But the poor thing had to walk around the rest of the evening with mud all over her because we couldn't go home and change. Haha she had a good attitude about it. She just used me as a shield the whole time we were traveling so no one could see her. 😂

Tuesday: We dropped by a lot of our friends today that have been dodging us. And tried to make contact with them. One of our friends wasn't home, the other one was and invited us to come back so hopefully things will get better with them! Then this evening we just had correlation. Which was great, not much to talk about though!

This week was so good. I absolutely loved it. I think it wasn't necessarily about what we did during the week, although we did great things! It was just that this week was a week of remembrance for me. I read a really good conference talk called "Lord will thou cause that my eyes will be opened". And I loved this part:

" On May 28, 2016, 16-year-old Beau Richey and his friend Austin were at a family ranch in Colorado. Beau and Austin climbed into their all-terrain vehicles with great anticipation for a day of adventure. They had not gone far when they encountered precarious conditions, at which point tragedy struck. The vehicle Beau was driving flipped over suddenly, pinning Beau under 400 pounds (180 kg) of steel. When Beau’s friend Austin got to him, he saw Beau struggling for his life. With every bit of his strength, he tried to pull the vehicle off his friend. It wouldn’t budge. He prayed for Beau and then frantically went for help. Emergency personnel finally arrived, but a few hours later Beau died. He was released from this mortal life.
His heartbroken parents arrived. As they stood in the small hospital with Beau’s dearest friend and family members, a police officer entered the room and handed Beau’s cell phone to his mother. As she took the phone, an audible alarm sounded. She opened the phone and saw Beau’s daily alarm. She read aloud the message her fun-loving, highly adventurous teenage son had set to read every day. It said, “Remember to put Jesus Christ at the center of your life today.”
Beau’s focus on his Redeemer does not lessen his loved ones’ sorrow in his absence. However, it gives great hope and meaning to Beau’s life and life choices. It allows his family and friends to look beyond only the grief of his early death to the joyful realities of the next life. What a tender mercy for Beau’s parents to see through their son’s eyes the thing he most prized."

Even though this story is so sad... I was just reminded that when Christ is at the center of my life... that is when I am the happiest. I know that if we want more happiness in our lives we need to make sure we are putting Christ in the center!

I hope you have a great week. I love you. We can do hard things! We got this!

Love, Sister Lund

 This is now a hotel but the beam was where they hung people. Kinda creepy!!

 The Vowel Family

 Francesca came to see me!!

Be Healed!!!

Hi Fam Fam!!!
I had a really good week! I hope you did! I am sorry I didn't send a mass email last week, it was a bit crazy!

Thursday: We had an exchange, and I was with Sister Torgerson from Arizona and Sister Unga from Tonga. It was so funny! So we had a lesson with a referral that we got from another area in our zone (Epsom) and so we had a lesson with this cute family, Sidney and Mia. They are so sweet, and very open. But the buses here in Crawley don't run very often, and they drop you off in the middle of nowhere. So we traveled about an hour away from our flat into Horley, and the bus driver dropped us off not even at a bus stop but literally in the middle of this windy road in a forest. We got off the bus, and the sisters were like " Sister Lund, where are we?" haha it was so funny.. Even though it took us ages and we missed the last bus home, we had a great lesson with Sidney and Mia!

Friday: We finished up exchanges with the Eastbourne sisters! It was a great exchange. The rest of the day we just did a lot of finding which is always good to try and find new friends.

Saturday: Today we had a "Mission Finding Hour", which is where our whole mission at the same time tries to find new friends to teach. Let me tell you this was a little bit of a tough hour, We met a really nice woman about 5 minutes into this finding hour that said that we could come and teach her, and the other 55 minutes, no one wanted to stop. So that was a little tough, but hey we still had miracles!

Sunday: We were a little sad because none of our friends came to church today! We were really surprised Dave didn't come, but he had a family get together the night before in Woking which apparently is really far away, and his daughter Georginna was so tired she couldn't wake up in the morning! But Charlie a recent convert in the ward, came to church today, and it was the first time she came since I was here! So big miracle!! The other day we had a great lesson with her, where we sat in the chapel, and read the Book of Mormon with her, and we had her look around the empty chapel and asked her what she saw... She was like " I see no one", and we were like "Exactly!" And we talked to her about how when she comes to church on Sunday she shouldn't worry about what others think, that it is just between her and God. And that all that matters is that she is there now! And she was SO happy! I love experiences like this!! This evening we did Finding and Food in East Grinstead with the Office Elders and the Visitor Center sisters. It was so fun! We got to have a break the fast with all the office missionaries and some of the Temple missionaries which was fun. And then we did a scavenger hunt (finding activity) on the high street! SO FUN!

Monday: A lot of our friends have not been in contact with us which was really worrying us! So we decided we would make some cookies for them. When you don't know what else to do, serve! And giving cookies is always a great idea! It was hilarious though, because we accidentally put to much butter in at first (converting from American to English measurements can be so hard sometimes) and I was like "Sister Gates, why are these so greasy? And why are our cookies like broiling??" haha, and then we figured it out, and fixed ourselves, and the cookies actually turned out really good, and our friends really liked them! So miracles!!

Tuesday: We had a meeting with the Zone Leaders today, Elder Roper and Elder Armstrong. They have become like our best friends. They are great. And we just talked about how we can help our Zone coming into this next transfer, and we just reviewed the last transfer, so it was good! Last night we were supposed to have correlation, but we accidentally got stuck at this Less Active's house for an hour and 15 minutes, and she was sharing all this weird information with us. It was so weird! But she was nice.

Well this week was so good! Sister Gates and I during our dinner hour last night we watched "The Testaments". And oh my goodness it was so amazing! I literally cried. It just made me reflect on my testimony of the Book of Mormon. I know that it really is Another Testament of Jesus Christ. There is a part at the end of the video where Christ comes up to this man who has been waiting to see Christ his entire life, but he ends up going blind, so when Christ comes to visit the people in the Americas and he can't see Christ. But the way it ends is Christ coming to this man, and saying "Be healed". And it just hit my heart so hard! And it reminded me of this years Christmas video where Christ is healing the people. I know this church is true! I hope that if you are struggling with your testimony or knowing if Christ loves you, that you will take time to pray and read the Book of Mormon I know that you will get your answer!
I love you! I hope you have a great week!

Love,
Sister Lund

 Beautiful Countryside