Feliz Pascua y Bienvenidos a nueva area!

Hello Everyone! :) I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and were able
to reflect on the life of the Savior. As we were talking with people
yesterday, everyone kept saying "Come back a different day, it's
Easter today." I couldn't help but laugh--wouldn't Easter be the best
day to hear a message about Christ? ;) It was a pretty awesome week!
This area has so much untapped potential, and I am super excited for
this transfer.

Sister Greene is awesome! We have had such a fun time this week
together :) She is from Georgia, and has been out for 6 weeks. I am
follow-up training her; it is so fun to be  around some "greenie" fire
again :) We were able to find a lot of people this week and teach a
lot of lessons. She kept telling me "this never happens! Why is this
happening? This is awesome!" Though it is different than being a STL,
I love being in this area. I realized that I learned a ton from the
last two transfers, and I have been able to apply a lot of things. I'm
so grateful that I had the opportunity to be in leadership, and that
the Lord provided ways for me to improve and learn.

We had a baptism this Saturday! It was weird walking into one, but
luckily I was able to teach her a few times before the actual baptism.
Her name is Kerra, and she is a firecracker! She is 12, and has known
about the church for a long time. Her mom just starting coming back to
church, so Kerra expressed a desire to be baptized to the Sisters. The
baptism was very spiritual, and Kerra was so happy when she got out of
the water. She is going to be a great example to her family and
friends!

We had some crazy things happen as well....haha. It wouldn't be
missionary life without a little bit of that right? For one, we
totally confounded a bible basher, and he is one of our new
investigators! Whoop whoop! :) I hate bible bashers, and just usually
walk away, but he was being really nice about it....haha. We will see
how it goes this week! 2. When I met our new bishop, he said "Welcome
to the hood!" Hahaha! This is definitely not anthem anymore. 3. We had
to go rescue some sisters on a bike trail b/c one of them crashed. She
had to get 7 stitches in her foot (at least I got to practice some of
my nursing skills ;)).

I am happy and loving the new experiences. I can't wait to hear from
our Prophet this weekend. It's going to be great! I love you all :)

Love,

Hermana Erickson

New assignment: Free Agent!

Yet another week has passed by in the mission. The time just keeps going faster and faster. I can't seem to get it to slow down for me. I lose track of what happened when since it all melts into one big long week. The end of last week was also the end of a transfer. It does not feel like I have been here for 7 weeks.

Transfers came as a huge shock. I got a call Friday night from one of the mission STLs asking if I could train a new missionary instead of being a STL. I agreed, but I was pretty sad about it.  I thought I had done something wrong to not be a STL anymore. I talked to our Mission President the next day, and he explained the whole picture. It wasn't what I hadn't done, it was what I had done. He know wants me to be a "free agent", which is basically STL undercover ;) haha. He wants me to use the skills I learned in leadership and go out into mission field to help. I am excited for another new journey :)

I am getting transferred to the El Dorado/Lake Mead stake in Old Henderson. I'm going back to the humble people! ;) My new companion is Sister Greene, and she has been out for one transfer. So I will be finishing up her training. We have one ward, Pueblo (no, I'm not in Spanish. Still English). A lot of changes are going to be coming my way in the morning....but it will be great!

We found a few more people to teach this week. One is from Korea. He speaks very little English, but luckily we have a Sister from Korea serving here. So we exchange with their companionship, and she comes in and teaches the lesson in Korean. It is interesting being the person who doesn't understand anything that is happening. Haha! Also, we noticed that when people think someone can't understand English, they talk slowwwweeerrrr and LOUDER. ;)

We received a referral a few weeks ago from Mormon.org. She had requested a Book of Mormon from the website. We were able to teach her , and it went great! Turns out that she is only 15 years old and has some family that are members of the church. It is so interesting to me when teenagers investigate the church. If I hadn't been born in the church, would I have found it that young? Would I be willing to do it without my family? I have so much respect for the people we teach. It is a hard journey, and usually there some sort of back lash. But the blessings are always worth it!

I love you all and I love the work! Yes, it is hard but I love the blessings that come from it :)

Love,

Hermana Erickson

Reality of Missionary Work

This week has been difficult. We didn't have all that much proselyting time all week long, and our teaching opportunities were lacking. We have definitely been struggling to find new people to teach and people that aren't flaky. It was just a weird week....! And we only have one more week to go in the transfer.....crazy!

So our amazing golden investigator might have dropped us. We had a lesson with her this week, and really had a hard time understanding why we need the priesthood. A lot of the things we teach, her church does too, it's just that they don't have the priesthood/proper authority to do it.We are wondering if she took the time to read the Book of Mormon. The BOM is the physical evidence that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that this is Christ's church. If you are struggling in your testimony in any way, read it!!

We were able to find a family that had taken the lessons before! There are five girls, and three are above baptism age. I have never taught a family before!! It's pretty exciting to have them to teach. Their problem is that they have tons of activities that keep them super ooper busy. But they miss having family scripture study and prayer. I really hope that they take the time to relearn the lessons. We aren't sure what stopped them from getting baptized the first time, but we
hope to resolve any concerns that they may have had. I know that a family based on the gospel can never fall. I can't wait to teach them!

The reality of missionary work is that we are on a roller coaster! I have felt like I have been through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows on my mission. But that's ok, because that is exactly how life is. Whether you are a full time member or a full time missionary, there will always be ups and downs in the work. All that Heavenly Father cares about is if we are doing our best all the time, not just during the good times. I love the work! I am so happy that I made the decision to serve a mission. It is not easy. But it is worth the time. I love you all!!!!

Love,

Hermana Erickson

A Baptism in Henderson

Hey Everyone! I can't believe that yet another week has passed...what the hey?!? The time has just been on a speeding train it feels like.  For all those greenies out there, enjoy it when the time goes slow....haha :) It will pick up and you will want it to stop! This week was a little bit slower work wise, but we saw some amazing miracles!

SO! We had a baptism!!! YAY :) It was pretty amazing. She wanted it pretty small, but it was filled with the Spirit. Her nonmember family came, and afterwards, her niece said that she felt something different there. She ended up coming to church the next day! Our investigator is a single mom and has two young kids. To think that now her family will grow in the gospel, and more generations as well. You never know the influence that you have.....we can usually only see the direct influences. But I can't wait to get to the Spirit world and meet all of the people that were affected by the little things that we did.

We had a crazy amazing miracle....... :D We had been walking around the ward for most of the morning, and little to nothing was happening. We had talked to a few people, but no one was interested and everyone was busy. We decided to go to a member's house to get some water. We were almost there, when we saw this lady getting her kids out of her car. We went over to start talking to her, and ended up talking for an hour!!! We taught her the whole first lesson outside. When we told her that church was 3 hours, instead of saying
"That's super long...." She surprised us by saying "That's AWESOME!  I've always wanted more church!"  I had to pick my jaw off the ground after that....haha :) We have a lesson with her tonight!

Other miracles: a random lady showed up to church yesterday, we got free nail stickers, and a member bought us amazing ribs :) Great week overall! Thank you for all of the prayers, they are appreciated and needed. I love and miss you all!!!!

Love,

Hermana Erickson

PS Sorry, I can't send a picture of our baptism. Next one!