June 2, 2014 Bethel, Maine

There is Sunshine in my Soul Today :)

Family!!                                       June 2, 2014

What a beautiful day it is in Bethel, Maine today!! I just love it here so much!  Finally the sun has decided to stay out :)  And all the leaves on the trees have made their appearance!!  I've seen more green here than I have probably in my entire life!  Ahh... so good!  But well, I've also been attacked by bugs, and even had an allergic reaction to some of them, so I'm covered with bumps, but we bought bug spray, so that is good!  I hope things are going great at home!  Summer is practically here, it is crazy! 

This week lots of stuff happened!  Pretty great overall! :)  We were able to do a lot of volunteer work!  Yay!  I love being able to serve so many people!  It all started off with a meeting with the pastor of the Alliance church here in town.  It is the popular church here, and we wanted to get involved in their community meal they put on so we went there and asked if we could help out.  He said that he wanted to meet with us first, so we did, and boy it was exciting!  He wanted to get to know more about what we believed so he could see if we would be able to volunteer or something like that.  We need to be up to par with their standards of beliefs, I guess.  Anyways, the meeting went well.  He was kinda intimidating, but it was great to be able to clear up a couple things.  All he knew about Mormons was polygamy and the FLDS church.  So, we pretty much gave him a run down of everything!  We gave him a Book of Mormon and the Articles of Faith and he said that he would really look into it and talk with us later.  Pretty sweet!  We were also able to help a lady at the Methodist church as well.  We helped rake leaves a bit ago and this time she needed help cleaning the sanctuary.  It was such a great experience and she appreciated it so much!  :)  We helped Sister Smith paint and I learned how to edge a wall :)    And we miraculously found the Bethel Volunteer Fair 15 minutes before it closed and were able to find a whole bunch of opportunities to get involved in the community!  I love the responses we received when we were so willing to help others, it was great!! :)   Service...it is just awesome!! :)

Our investigators are doing well, but most especially Michael!  We have been working a lot with him, and he is doing great.  He felt like he had a whole lot of trials when he started learning which was hard for him, but he decided to turn to God and he feels so much stronger!  He is such a great example to me!  He has so much love for God and he is so grateful that we've been able to help him and we've never given up on him.  He is a modern day Alma the Younger, that is for sure!!  Andrea, another investigator of ours is also doing well, she came to church yesterday and bore her testimony!  It was a really neat experience!  It has been a great experience helping my new companion to adjust to being a missionary.  I've definitely needed to be patient, and it will be a process before teaching together will really flow, but it will all happen in the Lord's time, and boy I sure am growing in the process.  Sister Banda extended her first baptismal invitation to Josephine and Tony, which was pretty neat!  They said they had been thinking about it, but they really won't be able to make it to church right now because of different circumstances.  It was great to see her stretch herself though and go by the spirit and ask them :)  I'm a proud momma!  We've also been doing a lot of real playing (aka role playing), which has been great!  I love real playing because it helps me put things into words better.  I've had to work at it a lot, but I feel like my ability to teach has really grown.  It has been great now to be able to help Sister Banda and we're both learning as a result! :) 

Other cool news!  We had a lesson with Adan and he told us that he has been reading the scriptures and thinking a lot, and he keeps going over the idea of serving a mission in his head.  He wants to help other people improve their lives, especially by bringing them closer to God.  He is such a great example!  He comes to mutual on Wednesdays and includes everyone, so the youth have bonded a lot because of him.  It is great!!  He has a strong testimony and he is going to do amazing things!  Also, we had a lesson with the McLarens yesterday which went really well!  We've been focusing a lot on the scriptures the past couple of months, and likening them to ourselves, and it has been great!  Yesterday we went over the Psalm of Nephi and focused on asking inspired questions.  They were able to open up more, and Sister McLaren told us that she has been praying for the desire to quit smoking because she really wants to be sealed in the temple!! :)  Ahh!!  Miracle!!  We kind of talked about quitting with her a bit ago, but she was pretty set that she wasn't going to do anything about it until she decided she desired it, and the desire is coming!! :)  I love being able to see change and growth in the people that we teach!  I've truly come to love the McLarens and everyone else here!  I have such a strong desire to help them come closer to Christ, and when they decide that is what they want it is the greatest feeling in the world!! :)  I just love it!! 

One more story.  It was the last day of the month and miles were running low, but we wanted to go to Rumford, so off we went!  We parked in a central location and walked to a less active we were going to help, but she wasn't home.  Alright, so we went to a super awesome potential investigator we found there last week.  She wasn't home either.  Bummer.  Our plans had all fallen through, except finding.  So, we looked and looked.  We walked all over town and met nice people who wanted to talk to us, and people who didn't.  Overall, a lot of walking.  We were finishing up a street, and then I saw another street and decided we should just give those few houses a try, and what do you know?  The sweetest lady answered and let us in and made us lemonade.  Miracle.  I was so grateful to give my feet a rest and quench my thirst :)  Such a blessing!  We talked with her about books and reading and I shared with her my favorite book- The Book of Mormon.  (I totally thought of you when I said that dad :)  I remember you would always tell me that when I asked what your favorite book was).  How I love the Book of Mormon!! It is so wonderful!! :)  I know that it is true!  I was so grateful that I was able to share with that sweet lady such a treasure and she was glad to receive it :) 

Being a missionary is wonderful.  I just love it so much!  And love all you so much as well!! Have a great week!!

All my love,

Sister Bergeson :)

May 26, 2014 Bethel, Maine

The Start of a New Adventure

Family!!                                    May 26, 2014

Hey hey!  So, I hope that you’ve all had a super fantastic Memorial Day weekend! :)  Thanks for the letters.  I got them on Saturday and I loved hearing about how things are going!  Sounds like the trip to NYC was great, and holy cow, I can’t believe school is almost over!  Crazy!  Summer is just around the corner.  But I sure am enjoying spring!  I can’t believe how green it is here!  The new leaves are beautiful and the flowers are growing.  It’s great.  I just love it! :)  I’ve really got to prepare myself for the bugs though.  I’m determined not to have as many bites as I did last year!

Alright, so I’ll get right to transfers!  After we got sister May’s stuff all packed up and she said her goodbyes, we got home and conked out up in our loft which was a blast!  Then woke up at 3:30 am to get ready for a super long day.  I needed to go to transfer meeting to get my new missionary, but we needed to drive to Augusta first to drop off Sister May to meet her new companion and go to her new area, then we picked up 2 other sisters and drove to Salo, Maine where we dropped off then picked up another.  After all that we finally made it to Manchester, New Hampshire!   Hooray!  And… I met my new companion, Sister Banda!  Fresh out of the MTC :)  She is from Moses Lake, Washington and really nice!  I’m really grateful that I get the opportunity to train her.  It will most certainly be a growing experience!  Yep!  After the meeting we drove a sister back to Augusta then finally arrived back in Bethel, which made it 10 hours in the car.  Sister Lilly was the best to take us all that way!

Training isn’t really what I expected, not like I even knew what to expect.  It’s been weird having to explain so many aspects of missionary life that have become super normal to me.  Also, teaching has been much different, but I’m so grateful for how hard Sister Banda’s working and her desire to be the best missionary she can be!  It is going to be great! :)

This week went by so fast!  It’s all a blur!  We had a bunch of member meals which was definitely a highlight!  I just love them so much because it really helps us get to know the ward members better!  I just love the Oxford Ward so much!  We were also able to teach quite a few lessons!  Great practice for Sister Banda and I :)  A highlight this week was definitely Michael.  He has been doing so much better!  I’ve loved seeing his growth, and he was telling us all about how he knows he’s not alone and that God loves him, no matter what.  It’s such a miracle!  He also called and told us he found the Bible videos online and he loves them!  Another awesome thing was that Jess went to the temple!  (to do baptisms) She said she felt the Spirit really strong and absolutely loved it :)  I’m so happy for her!

Something that has helped me this week is a quote Sister Wallentine shared with me when I was being trained, “Don’t be afraid to make choices  because you are afraid to make mistakes” – Elder Carl B. Cook.  I feel like I’ve had to make so many decisions this past week!  It has definitely been more stressful, but I feel like I’ve learned a lot already.  I know I can’t do this alone, and I need to rely on my Heavenly Father to help me along.  He’ll help me when I make righteous decisions and when I have good intent.  I’ve just got to make the first step and act!  This will be quite the adventure!  I’m looking forward to the ride! :)

Well, I hope you have a fantastic week!  I love you so much!!

Sister Bergeson :)

Pictures May 19, 2014

 The sign  --

May 19, 2014 Bethel, Maine

Be Thou and Example

Family Dearest!                             May 19, 2014

Hey hey!! I hope that you have had a super fantastic week!!  Crazy that it is almost summer!  Really!  It still doesn't seem like it all the time here, but we're getting there! This week has been pretty busy for us here, and it totally just flew by, as usual.  Where to even start..  Well, we did a whole bunch of service this week, which was great!  Everyone was trying to get their yard work done in the nice weather we were having.  We helped with gardens and stuff which was really nice.  It is great to be able to enjoy being outside now! :)  The bugs are starting to come though, so lets hope that I don't get eaten alive as much as I did last summer!!  We also ran into this lady from the Methodist Church in town and she talked to us a bit and was impressed that we asked if they needed any service done or anything and she was really happy we agreed to rake the leaves there.  She asked us a lot of questions about what we do as missionaries while we raked and she was amazed at what we do.  It was great to be able to tell her about what we believe not only by our words, but mainly our actions.  Service is just so awesome! 

We were also able to teach a lot of lessons with members present even though our teaching pool is shrinking a bit.  It is great hear members share their testimonies and teach the gospel!  It especially helped when we taught Katy this week.  She is doing really well and having Sister Lilly there helped a bunch!  It has been awesome to see Katy piece together the truths that she knows and make sense of how they come together so simply.  My testimony of teaching plainly and simply has increased so much!  That is exactly what she has needed, even though she has studied religion so much.  Michael is doing much better, and he has really enjoyed reading Alma, which has been great!  He really has such a strong desire to become closer to God, and he has been such a great example of picking yourself up when you fall.  I just love our investigators and the less actives that we teach so much!! It has been a slow process with most of them, but they are making steps in the right direction little by little.  Also, awesome news!  Jessica got her temple recommend yesterday and she is going on the youth temple trip to do baptisms for the dead on Saturday!! :)  She is way excited and we're just so happy for her!!!

So, this week I was thinking a lot about what to say in the talk that I had to give in church.  The topic was "how did the Savior's influence in my life help me decide to go on a mission" or something along those lines.  It was great to really reflect on that the past couple weeks!! There really have been so many ways that the Savior has influenced me in my life!  It took a bit to decide what to focus on, but well, it came :)  I talked all about how the people in my life who reflected Christ helped me learn about Him, encouraged me to find Him for myself, and then my desire to share it and be examples to other people.  Prayer, scripture study, service, and so on have all be crucial in developing my relationship with Christ, but I wouldn't have known any of that if someone didn't teach me.  So, pretty much, I talked about you mom and dad!! :)  I talked about how grateful I am for what I've learned from you :)  For the examples that you are to me :)  I also talked about how I've also been influenced by extended family (going into family history a bit there too and learning from their examples as well), my ward family, and others :)   Also, I love the talk, "A Priceless Heritage of Hope" that President Eyring gave too and used some parts of it.  I'm so glad that I can take these things that I've learned and help others as well, and they in turn can be examples to there family and friends, etc.  It was such a great opportunity to give that talk.  I know that preparing it helped me strengthen my testimony a lot.  Being examples is such an important part of the gospel!  Just like it says in the scriptures in Matthew 5:14-15 and 1 Timothy 4:12 which I just love :)  I'm so so grateful for the wonderful examples I've had in my life cause they have really shaped who I am today! :)

Alright so now, last but not least....I totally forgot to mention that transfers were coming up last week, and now they have come and gone.  It was pretty crazy because they switched the calls to Friday super unexpectedly and then all of a sudden we got a call, at 8:01 no less (super super early in my experience).  First, to preface, Sister May and I were both kind of thinking that I was going to leave.  I've been here in this wonderful area for three transfers and I do feel super comfortable here and just love it.  I took my picture by the coolest sign ever, which was great because the first day I got here I said that I wouldn't leave until I saw it.  Things were really just wrapping up nicely.  So, when President told us that Sister May was getting transferred we were both super shocked!  We were hoping that we'd maybe be able to stay together, but that isn't what needed to happen I guess.  I've just learned so much from Sister May and I'm sad that we won't get to be companions any more :(  We've grown so much as we've served together, and teaching with her has been incredible!!  It just flows when the spirit it there and it is really fun!!  It's just been so great :)  But now I guess it is just time for me to be stretched in different ways.  President told me that I'm going to stay and train a new missionary here in Oxford!  Um.....WHAT??  I still don't even know exactly how I feel about all of this.  I'm excited, nervous, happy, shocked, and well, it is super hard not to feel way inadequate, but it is what the Lord knows that I need right now.  I know that it will be a huge learning and growing experience and I'm already feeling pretty humbled, so we'll see where this adventure takes me and my new sister :)  I hope and pray that I'll be able to be a good example to her and help her come closer to Christ!

I hope that you have a wonderful week!! :)  I love you soooooooo much and again am just so grateful for the impact you have all made in my life. Hooray for being examples of Christ! :)

Let your light so shine!

Sister Bergeson :)