Dec. 3, 2012
Fam Fam! 
This week we went to KIRTLAND! It was zone conference, and it was fabulous. It is so funny how much I love Bowling Green, but how exciting it is to see the Kirtland temple and Kirtland sites when I get to go :) 
  
I loved getting to see Sister Palmer and the other Kirtland missionaries. Love those sisters :) Also, conference was SO good! Our focus was developing the faith to find, and I felt like I learned so much about faith just by studying for that subject and focusing on finding this past week. President talked about how he has been bombarded with emails stating that more missionaries will be showing up on the coming transfers. That morning he had 19 more missionaries coming! Just that MORNING! The missions are completely getting flooded all over the place- almost like that prophecy about flooding the earth... ;) Pretty neat! Because we were focusing on finding as a mission, for fast Sunday we did a mission fast for finding the elect. The entire mission knelt down at 10:15p Saturday night to open our fast. Yesterday, right after we closed our fast, we got a call from these neat lady we had tracted into, saying she wanted to meet with us! Fasting with a prayer of faith works miracles! It was a very humbling experience.

The baptism we had on Saturday was CRAZY!  Leading up the baptism was super stress-free, which was really weird... what kind of missionaries ever get a stress-free baptism?! I know- it was eerie. But then the night before the baptism, everything EXPLODED! Everyone on the program was calling saying they wouldn't be able to attend the baptism because of choir concerts they had overlooked, or family deaths, etc. So we scrambled to find others to replace them (not so easy when you are working with a ward you don't have the roster for...), so by the time we got to the baptism, we were prepared to give talks, do a musical number, etc to make it all come together. Then we realized that the girl being baptized had forgotten her handmade baptismal dress, so her mom ran back home (which was half an hour away, btw) Anyway, it was insanity for a time, but then, miraculously (after starting half an hour late) everything came together PERFECTLY. The people that ended up filling in actually worked out a lot better than originally planned, Sister Joseph was given time to redo the supply table (the elders tried, she gave them that :), and it was such an amazing night. April was so happy. It is neat how He really is in charge, and we don't need to be worried. Everything will turn out :)

Oh, another thing from zone conference- we were talking about Christmas and how this is a great time of year to serve others and share Christmas messages when President randomly said, "I hope you get homesick this Christmas." I was like WHAT?! Who is this guy? Here I am trying to focus on missionary work and to not think about home, and then he goes and brings that up! The nerve! I couldn't help but think about that a lot this past week. You know what? I absolutely love my family. I really think about you a lot more than I would like to admit (because I should be focusing on those I am serving) and I am absolutely obsessed with you people :) I can't wait to talk to Meg about boys, to see Lex's incredible art, and to see how much Brooke is grown and get to play games with the family. Dad, I love learning and spending time with you and Mom, I miss our talks and your hugs! I think I am totally going to be homesick now... and it is totally my mission president's fault! :) I love and miss you all a lot.

Something else I have been trying to figure out recently is how to identify direction from the spirit. I think one way that he communicates with us is by shocking us (not with lightning). It was President's shocking sentence that made me think about what he said over and over, and the same thing happened at Grandma Mahrt's funeral when the bishop said that her death is sad now, but it would become sweet with time. There are a few scriptures that talk about things 'pressing upon their minds.' I think that is what it was talking about. I had never thought of it that way before. 

I forgot my camera card reader, so pictures will have to wait until next week! 

Sister Mahrt