Oct. 20, 2014 Littleton, New Hampshire

A Blessing and a Curse Hey there family!! :)                         Oct. 20. 2014 I hope that this week was totally great, especially with mom and Lizzie's birthday's and all!!  Exciting!  We've been keeping busy here, and doing well! :)  I can't believe it is Monday again, though.  Weird.  This past week was kind of a blur, but good!  First off, the weather has been throwing me off big time.  It really can't decide whether or not it wants to be warm or cold.  Tuesday and Wednesday were like, the nicest days ever, after a cold week we got sunny, 70 degree temps :)  However, it was short lived.  It rained rained rained all weekend, and woke up on Sunday to like 28 degree weather and some snowflakes/hail.  Just kind of everywhere!  Anyways, so something that I just want to make sure that I say is... I love training :)  It has been such a blessing to be able to train Sister Maxwell, especially because she reminds me so much of myself when I first came out.  It has been great being able to help her and encourage her, and I've already learned so much from her.  She's grown so much already, and it just makes me so happy to be able to see her strive to reach her full potential!  Granted, we've been through some harder things together, but it really has helped us learn and grow together :)  I'm so grateful for companions! We had a pretty fun week! :)  We went to see a member who has the most Halloween decorations of anyone I've ever seen in my life, hopefully we can get over and get some pictures with all of her mannequins!  We tracted for a couple of hours in a total downpour and got super soaked!  A member made us pumpkin cheesecake for dinner (totally reminded me of the cheesecake you make mom, delicious)!  And we had stake conference on Saturday and Sunday, which was really good!!  Bishop Davies came and they were both incredible meetings! :)  The spirit was so strong, and I learned a lot from the great leaders and members of this stake.  Something crazy about this ward is that the members here are two hours away from the stake center.  It takes a lot of dedication to make it out to the meetings!  Also, fun fact, our stake includes members from three different states- Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York! :)  What has been cool is that there has been a huge theme we've seen throughout this entire week. Agency.  Almost every lesson or talk with members or people that we meet finding has been about agency.  The stake president talked about agency in stake conference.  We've also been studying a lot about it, and it has just been amazing.  It all started with a lesson we had with Hansel.  He has a lot of questions and is a lover of logic and psychology.  It seems like every time we meet with him, he gets really deep thought processes and it is kind of hard for me to keep up.  He talked about his reasoning for there not being a God and how he could care less what happens after this life, and overall we just had the feeling like he was purposefully trying to trip us up or something.  It seems like he is pretty set in what he believes. It was interesting and kind of saddening.  We talked about the lesson afterwards, and we had so much that we felt like we could have told him, but ultimately, he wasn't choosing to listen so we couldn't.  I've definitely found that it can be frustrating at times that we have agency.  A common phrase I've heard over and over from people here in New England is that they are 'all set'.  Sometimes I just want to make them see the truth of the gospel and greater happiness is right in front of them!  But that isn't God's plan.  He loves us so much he has given us the freedom to choose for ourselves.  Ultimately, God has said, "they are their own judges" (Alma 41:7).  I've gained an increased testimony of agency as I've been a missionary.  I choose everyday what kind of missionary I want to be, and receive the consequences of my decision, good or bad.  I've seen as I choose to use my agency to follow God and His plan, I've been blessed, and it makes me happy.  It is like the scripture in D&C 58:27-28 which I love, it talks about 'being anxiously engaged in a good cause...and inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.'  What a blessing to be able to choose God, and not be forced.  However, I know that it can also be a curse for me if I choose not to follow God and keep His commandments, like it talks about in an awesome scripture we discovered this week in Deuteronomy 11:26-28.  My goal is to focus on using the gift of agency to be a blessing in my life.  I'm grateful that I can be a missionary and invite others to come unto Christ and allow them to use their agency!  I'm grateful for my agency as well!  I'm grateful for God's perfect plan and my ability to choose whether or not I want to dwell with Him forever in eternity :)   Well family, make it a great week!! :)  I love you so much!!! Choose ye this day whom ye will serve (Joshua 24:15) Sister Bergeson :)