September 22, 2014

Winter is quickly approaching - it's quite scary. I hear rumors about California being 80 degrees and I want to scream. The leaves are changing really fast which is GORGEOUS, but they are turning a little bit earlier than they should. We live in the best spot for fall by far.

North Brookfield is quite the funny and quaint place. The members are all related to eachother. S. Layton has created this hilarious family relations chart - i swear, it practically dates back to Adam. As a result it provides quite the branch family drama sometimes and we love it.

Apparently I can't keep myself from investigating all these potential projects and getting everyone else around me sucked into them because per request we are now also digital missionary extenders which means finding people online to teach through pinterest, facebook, blogs, etc...yes it's true, I said pinterest. People engage on online conversations and begin skype teaching people and connecting them with local missionaries. It is the sweetest thing since boston cream pies. We have the opportunity to do it in the morning when it is a slower time. It's mostly S. Layton that's surfing the web while I work on another project. Apparently, the Book of Mormon has not been translated as an audio recording in Haitian Creole. There's a ton of haitian creole speaking people here and there's an elder here who translates live general conference in haitian creole. The combination of having an innovative mission president serving in a very innovative place seems to blow up too many creative projects. We have a goal for him to finish recording his voice reading the entire BOM in HC and I'm editing the audio and piecing it together as he goes just by following along reading a copy of a HC BOM. A joke right? Not this time. Maybe i'll get to be like the guy from the Other Side of Heaven and be fluent in Haitian Creole by the end. Probably not.

We've had so many miracles this week - we are trying to get a member with us at every single appointment to help build lessons and help build unity in the branch. One day we were picking up a member for an appt. and Sister Layton is outside the car backing me up. At one point I thought of telling her to get in the car because we were backing up on kind of a busy road, but then I thought, 'eh, its probably ok'. All the sudden I see her talking to someone crossing the sidewalk at the end of the driveway. She runs to the car, grabs her planner and goes back to the woman. Blessings of having a backer!!
She said the woman said, "You look so cute!"

S. Layton, "Thanks, do you live around here?"

Woman: "Yeah, about 5 minutes that way. Do you?"

S. Layton: "No, i'm from Utah."

Woman: "What are you doing all the way out here?"

S Layton: "Serving a mission for my church - want to hear more about it?"

Woman: "Mmm, i can't right now, but I can tomorrow!"

S. Layton: "4:00 ok?"

Woman!: "yeah!"

I'm tellin you - my companion is the ultimate champion. She is so natural at sharing the gospel. The studies of S. Layton and S. Bell statistically show that when you take members out with you, be yourself, be outgoing, and have a backer.....the combination creates unexpected miracles.

Love you all - thanks for your prayers!

Sister Bell