Monday September 30, 2013

Family and Friends,
Well I am going to try and keep mine thoughts straight but I can't make any promises.  This week has been like a roller coaster.           I am learning to laugh more and things that happen during the day. whither it be from awkward situations or encounters or things that my companion says.  I am still trying to learn to trust her since I know the Lord is trusting her out her.  I still get a little uptight though whenever we go into any houses because I never know what she is going to say.  This week we went on exchanges with my old companion Sister Dickey.  She came to our area so my companion was in charge of the day.  They taught a lesson to one of our investigators and tried to see people.  When we exchange back Sister Dickey and I talked for quite some time.  She was telling me how she can see how overwhelming it can get, especially in teaching lessons.  It is sometimes frustrating because we will spend so much time on role-playing our lessons and what to say or do and then when we get to the lesson everything goes out the door.  Her thoughts or random or really confusing so I am always trying to tie in what she says into the lesson somehow or reexplain things differently.  It is just tiring and mentally draining each and everyday.  I had such a big headache at the end of the day yesterday after our lesson.  I feel like I am doing a lot better than week one, I am able to stay positive and patient most of the times.  But hey I am not perfect and I have my moments where I break.  I am defiantly been focusing on the positives for this transfer.  This is a time where I know that will strengthen my relationship with my Heavenly Father and Savior.  I have the callouses on my knees to prove it, which I really don't mind.  My prayers are becoming longer and more sincere and I am openly honest with my Father in Heaven.  I know that I would never of been able to make it this far in the transfer without all of his help.  Each and every night I look for a few things from the day that He has blesses my life and it has made a difference.  I would suggest to everyone each and every night to reflect on the day and see how the Lord has played a part in your life.   I have seen how the Lord sees the big picture in all things, I was reminded this last week when I realized that Mom you work with kids like this each and everyday.  I really do commend you for what you do, I knew that it was hard work, but I just didn't know just how difficult is was mentally.  I thought I was pretty mentally tough since doing sports, but apparently I am not as tough as I thought I was.  I know this sounds silly but I related this to anatomy how with muscles you actually got to tear the muscle fibers and make them weak so that way you can build them back up to become stronger.  I see this each and every night, that the Lord is doing this to me, to make me a better missionary.  HE knows what I can handle and I know that it will all be for the better. "But ohhhhhh We're half way there, oh oh living on a prayer".  That Journey song has been in my head today because we are half way through transfers!!!!  I am determined to make it through.  Mom I do keep in close contact with my Mission President and his wife as well as Sister Dickey has been talking to them as well so they are getting that perspective.  We have told how it is just hard to explain what we go through and what she does, you just have to be there for it.                       Okay here is a funny story, and Elise and Jensa might be able to understand how funny this is.  So on Saturday it was a little gloomy and a little nippy out but it was only like 64 degrees, which is  a little cold but not to bad.  So I was in just a knee length skirt and a short sleeve shirt.  While my companion is all bundled up, she has this long puffy coat that goes down to her calves, wearing a long skirt, boots, layers of long sleeve shirts and is wearing gloves.  All day long she wore this, outside, in the car while I had the heater on and even inside peoples houses.  She would not take this coat off and just just looked ridiculous but I didn't care.  We were at a Part Member Family house when they made the comment to her what the heck she was wearing and just starting laughing.  I know this is bad but I started laughing as well.  My companion was saying how it was cold outside and this is the best coat she has.  I told her that I don't know how she is going to survive winters up here if she is already wearing that in 65 degree weather.  Anyways we got a lot of weird looks when we were walking around the neighborhoods.  It is things like this that I laugh about each night to help over look all the bad.  I wish I could just sit here and write you a detailed list of everything that happens everyday, but there isn't enough time.  I will say one thing, I try not to stay in the car for long periods of time because she likes to sing....loudly and out of key and when she finds a song she likes she listens to it over and over and over again.  At one point she replayed the song over for the 5th time in a row and I just change the song and just started laughing i said " I am sorry I love this song, but I just can't take it anymore, 4 is my limit" hahaha I was just laughing at the whole situation.  Mom and Dad I can't even imagine how it was to be in a 13 hour car ride with 6 annoying kids hahaha           Before I forget, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOMMY AND DADDY!!!! I sent a card on Saturday, I hope it makes it in time by tomorrow.  One thing that I learn as I meet with people is how blessed and how appreciative I am towards my family.  For the siblings I have and for the parents I have as well.  Everyday I am shown just how blessed my life was growing up.      Okay now some more positive things.  Last night we taught a lesson to our investigator Alex, she is 14, we taught her the plan of salvation.  It went as well as it could of with my companion teaching with me of course.  Well we extended to her a soft baptismal invitation and she accepted.  I am so excited for her, we have a date in mind for her, but she needs to talk to both her parents(since they are divorced) before we can set that in stone.  We will probably meet with her dad next week, her mom is LA and doesn't mind at all.  It sounds like she is worried about talking to her dad, so I pray that his heart is soften and he is accepting to her decision.  I wasn't there for the lesson with Brent(Sister Dickey and Sister Thompson taught it on exchanges) and I heard that it went pretty good as well.  Some jumping around on Sister Roberson's part, but Sister Dickey said it didn't hinder it too much.  They had a really good discussion on faith.  This week we are going to try and focus on getting him to get more out the scriptures and read with him as well as prayer and how important it is.  We hope to get him to pray at the end of our lesson because we haven't been able to get him to do it yet.  Things are looking good with that.  This week on exchanges I went back to my old area and taught part of the Restoration to a nonmember whose wife is a member and his sons went on missions.  He goes to church and everything and I had talked to him a couple of times before we left.  Let me just say it was one of the most powerful lessons that I have ever taught.  I give all the praise to the Spirit.  It lead me so much on how to answer his questions that he asked as well as questions to ask him.  He told me after how power that was to him and how he thought I was a really good teacher.  This was a boast in my confidence that I needed because I have been hard on myself these last few weeks because I feel like I have to teach the lessons on my own and I don't think I know them that well or am as good at them as i would like to see.  I have learned how important it is to rely on the Spirit and how important it is.     The work is really picking up in this area and it is going to be a crazy month of October for the people here in Boise and Meridian.  I heard they are trying this out here but am not sure.  Pretty much all the bishoprics and auxiliary leaders and ward mission leaders met with the area seventy this past Wednesday.  They got a list of all the part member families in the ward, all the less actives, all the prospective elders, and a list of all the children over the age of 9 that has not been baptized yet.  In this next 4 weeks they have to go and make contact to everyone of these people and extend some type of commitment to them, this includes everyone on the Do Not Contact list.  They want everyone to divide up the names to the appropriate groups and then for them to find the " amuleks" for these people.  I think this is such a great idea.  This is something that the First Presidency and apostles are wanting us to do.  I think of how important it is for us to reach out to the less actives in the ward.  I read a scripture in the other day that made me think of the Less actives, it is in Alma 39:6 talking about people who once knew Christ and deny them.  It made me think how much more important it is for us to reach out to those less actives and help them come to know Christ again in this life, because in the next life God will not be so forgiving to these people.  Do your V.T. and H.T.    Well the time has come.  I hope all is well back at home.  And yes mom I got to go to the General Relief Society Broadcast and it was really good.  I am so excited for general conference this weekend.  I love you all oh so much!!!! Spiritual thought this week.  Go onto Mormon Messages.  There is this 3 part series on daily bread that I watched which was really good.  And if you are ever struggling watch Mountains to Climb, I watched that again this week.  It makes me cry every time, but I love it so much, it is so powerful!!! I really do love you and hope that all is going well!!!  Until next time, as Ron Burgundy would(those of you that would know him) Stay Classy!

Love,
Sister Metcalf

Monday September 23, 2013

famille et les amis (thats French for family and friends...see i am still learning a new languages),

    

So on Tuesday we had Zone conference with Elder Martino, he is one of the seventies.  It was amazing, he really motivated me to become a even better missionary and made me feel like I need to push myself even further.  He talked a lot about how to better work with members and get referrals.  He talked about asking people who their neighbors? Or after a spiritual message asking if they know anyone that has recently lost a love one or has recently giving bith to a  new child.  Then you ask the member if they will take you to introduce you to them.  It is not all about us teaching members friends, but having them become more comfortable and acquainted.  Also we had to prepare talks on diligence, but no one knew who was going to speak.  Guess who got chosen, yep me.  It was so nerve wrecking to have to talk in front of one of the seventies.  But President Winder talked to me after and said how Elder Martino had leaned over and told President he wanted me to speak and he also said how Elder Martino told him he could tell that I was a special sister and that I had a unique spirit about me.  That really did give me a lot of confidence and brighten up my day.  There was also a new investigator fireside the next night and it was really good, my old investigator Joe was there.  It was nice to see him and talk to him again.  I am so excited for him to get baptized in less than a month.  I also had one of our new investigators there.  Her name is Alex, she is 14 years old and is a friend of one of the families in our ward.  Last night there was some family conflict so we could not meet up with her, but we are hoping to meet up with her sometime this week and we are going to extend to her the baptismal invitation for Oct. 12th, as well as the spirit will direct.  We also taught our other investigator Brent this week the plan of salvation and it went really well! He also came to church yesterday as well, I was so excited to see him.  He is 22 and got introduced to the church by his sister and ward members reaching out to him.  This one ward that I am in, the Summerset ward is amazing!!! I am sure I said this last week, but seriously I have never seen a ward so fired up with missionary work.  Every Thursday we have split night and there are about 7 ward missionaries and before they come to split night they are assigned 2-3 family names and they call to set up appointments to go and visit with the families.  When we show up the Ward Mission Leader usually gives some type of training, last week was about asking members and less actives having missionaries to come to their home, I will have to send you the paper dad of the notes, it was really good.  It was through the split night last week that we found Brent.  I see so much potential in  these two wards I am with, I am trying so hard, but there it is a little difficult with my companion.  I can tell that the members feel a little distrusting with her as well as uneasy,  I am always trying to show them that I can handle it and I can keep her under control.  These wards are amazing, the members see that she is difficult to deal with so they are always asking me how I am doing and what they can do to help.  They are always giving me words of encouragement which really does help as well.

    Well we only made some people feel uncomfortable a few times this week, okay maybe a few more, but only a couple stick out in my mind right now.  So we visited this lady who son is not baptized, but her ex-husband won't allow it.  So we are visiting with her to set up regular visits and she is telling us how she is home all the time because of disability and my companion straight up asks why she is on disability and what her disability is as well as trying to help diagnose her of what she might have.  So uncomfortable.  I talked to her afterwards about not asking personal questions.  Well I thought that would work but then the next day we stopped by a members house.  And first off when we get into the house my companion sees a new era and picks it up within the first 10 seconds we sit down and starts reading it.  I am talking to the mother for a few minutes and my companion is still reading so I tell her that she shouldn't be reading that at the moment and she gets all upset making this big deal saying "ahhh man I really wanted to read" and then just tosses it back on the table and slumps back in the couch.  The members is like uhhhh she can read if she wants and then I feel like I am the bad guy, but I just said how we are here to get to know her not to read.  Anyway so this lady likes to talk and talks about how she has 8 kids, and how her last child died inside the womb at like 5 months and they had to take it out.  And goes into detail about this traumatic story about it and we sit and listen and just move the conversation along.  So like 10 mins later one of her piano students and dad shows up for his lesson so we end with a spiritual thought and it was my companions turn to give it.  She decides to pick a scripture on how unborn babies go to the celestial kingdom and brings back up this traumatic story to these nonmembers whom I am sure she didn't want to know that.  Anyways we said goodbye and she was so sweet, she has a son on a mission now and is always wanting to give things to missionaries, so she offered us 20 dollars each!!! I tried not to take it, I felt so bad but my companion up and grabs hers right away and I try to tell her how she doesn't have to do this and she basically put it into my hand to take it.  That had really touched my heart.  There are so many kind act that happen all the time.  One more awkward encounter, we were eating with this family last night and their son had gone to the MTC last September but came back early and you could tell he was uncomfortable when it got brought up.  My companion asks why he came back early and he said personal reasons, and then she asks like what? and I just had to turn to her and said we don't need to know and we shouldn't be asking it is personal.  I feel so silly sometimes when I need to correct her in front of members like she is a little kid.  She really doesn't understand social skills at all!!  Whenever people get personal about things and say how they have family that have drug problems she just turns and looks at me with the gawking look and the people can see this and I just pretend I don't see her and just keep focusing on the person talking.  I am really nervous because there is this lady who has been inactive for 30 years and has gotten into some anti-mormon stuff and is reaching out to us to help her with her faith.  I don't think my companion can handle that situation.  I don't know what I am going to do.

    Well we went on exchanges this week which was a nice breathe of fresh air, I was with my old companion sister Thompson in my area and sister Dickey(our sister training leader now) was with my companion in her area.  It was nice to not have to worry about what my companion was going to say or do.  But it was also difficult when we switched back.  Sister Dickey and I talked for a while about things and how to best deal with this situation.  We are going to go on exchanges again this week so Sister Dickey can see how my companion teaches.  They will be teaching Brent and as nervous as I am for that, I trust that Sister Dickey can handle it and I think it would be best for her to see how she teaches as well to better help explain things to President Winder.  Sister Winder checks up on me twice a week to see how things are going as well as how I am going.   Things are starting to wear on me and it has only been two weeks.  I have been trying to give her instruction on things and she tries to work on them, but that usually lasts for a few days before her old habits come back into play.

   Overall I am doing better, like I said I think I am just handle the situation a lot better, but my patience is being pushed to the limit. Well I will try and keep my thoughts organized next time.  Looks like Megan's ADHD is rubbing off on me.  I wish I could tell you so much more, but I don't have much time left. Love you all and hope that all is well!!!  

Spiritual thought this week:

 A quote from President Hinckley

"Believe in yourself. Believe in your capacity to do great things. No mountain is so high that you can not climb it. Believe that not storm is so great that you can not weather it...you are a child of God, of infinite capacity. Believe that you can do it- whatever it is you set your heart on. Opportunities will unfold and open before you."

Love you all!! 

I am here till October 21st!!! Hope these next 4 weeks go by fast(just these next four weeks that is all I want ;)

Love 

Sister Metcalf

Monday, September 9th 2013

The family we live with and their house behind us.

Free Snow Cones

   

Family,

This week has been such a whirlwind for me! So on Monday evening we had a lesson with Joe, and he told us he wants to get baptized!!!! He decided that October 26th was going to be the day, I am so excited for him, I can already see how much he has changed this past month, the Lord will truly bless his life.  Our other investigator Greg is starting to become flaky and we think he is losing interest.  He cancelled on us on Saturday because he said he had a few work things to do.  I am hoping and praying that he comes back and can grow more spiritually.  So we had a Zone Meeting on Thursday and President and his wife were there as well which was nice.  I had to give a spiritual thought and then the Zone Leader also called on me to bear my testimony at the end of the meeting.  I need to stop being so confident when I speak as well as friendly with people, i am just kidding.  But I found out from my trainer who is also the Sister Training Leader that the Zone Leaders submitted my name to train for the next transfer and she said how when she met with President she backed them up on that.  I was flattered, but didn't think anything of it because there are only 7 English speaking sisters coming into the area and 23 sisters in the area.  Well on Saturday the transfer calls went out Sister Dickey and Sister Thompson are staying together in our area, which I am a little sad about because I seriously loved my companionship.  We seemed to be one of the only few companionship's that got along and really liked each other.  Plus I was sad to leave my investigators as well.

     

So you are wondering what I am doing, well I am opening a new area in the Boise West Stake and training!!!!! I seriously am still in shock, I have only been out for 6 weeks!!!  Stress is good right? as long as it pushes you right? funny how in Zone meeting we talked about managing stress on the mission which I felt like I was doing fine.  Which I really still am, just a little stressed out which is normal.  Don't worry about me, I really am excited that the Lord already is trusting me so much! There are other sisters that have been out way longer than me, don't get me wrong I am excited, but I am also scared and nervous.  I have never opened an area and I honestly do not feel like I know what I am doing and now I am going to be responsible for another missionary.  I feel like these next few weeks I am going to rely on the Lord more than ever.  I am trusting in His decision for me as well as my mission presidents.  I guess they know what is best for me and the Lord sees the big picture of everything.  Ever since Saturday I have just been on a roller coaster.  I have fely a little sick to my stomach at times, but my trainer has given me tips and said how she seriously felt like I was ready to train from day 1.  Anyone got any good advice for me at all.  It was really hard for me to say goodbye to some of the members that I have grown close with.  I sorry that this letter is so short, my mind is just racing with all this new information and I have to organize things by Wednesday which is when I will find out who my new companion is.  Tomorrow we are doing that tracking experience again, which is never fun.  But I am honestly going to try and approach people at the door differently.  Who knows what will happen.

   

So the area I am opening up, sisters haven't been in before.  There was 2 elders over 6 wards which was the whole stake(Boise West Stake).  I am now over 2 wards: brookhollow and summerset.  Some people have already gone down to 1 ward which is crazy to me.  By January they expect to have about 250 missionaries in my mission!! There is only 112 wards in my whole mission!!! I know that I am living with members, but I have not met them yet.  There are a few investigators in these two wards and there are some girls in the area that have been requested to be taught by sister missionaries.  So I am excited about that and nervous.  I just realized that I am going to be the one doing most of the talking and teaching until my companion feels comfortable.  Well I guess the Lord feels like I know the lessons well enough.  I hope that I get a trainee that I get along with as well as can push me.  I guess the Lord is giving me what I asked for, I have been praying for the Lord to help me push myself even harder to become a better missionary.  Well I hope all is going well with all of you! I love you all so much and thank you for all your prayers. I know I wouldn't be able to be doing all of this without you.  Keep sending letters to the mission office, I will let you know on Wed. the address of where I will be staying at.

  

Side note stake conference was this weekend which was super awesome!! IT was all on getting the members excited and telling them how a lot of the work relys on them.  Turn to parable in John 21 (i believe) this is where Christ is talking to Peter and asks him 3 times "Lovest Tho Me".  The way we show the Lord that we love him is by feeding his sheep.  The talks from both Saturday night and Sunday morning were so good!!! They also talked a lot about housing missionaries and the blessings of it.  I just want to say how much I love living with members.  I don't think that the benefit is to save the church money, but honestly it is for the missionaries especially the 18 and 19 year old coming out.  I seriously was an easy adjustment for me living with members.  I felt like I was apart of their family and you could feel the spirit so strong in their home.  I also just felt a lot safer because I knew that there was a priesthood member living there.

   

I can not believe how fast time is going and how much I have already grown, I can't even imagine how much more I will grow in the next few weeks.  If you any of you return missionaries have any advice about opening an area and training send them my way by Wednesday if you can.  That is when I will be able to get on again to take my trainee to write her family.
   

I hope you all know how important you are.  I feel like my love for all of you has grown so much stronger and I see just a sliver of how much the Lord loves each and everyone of you.  Saw this video a few weeks ago and really loved it, i know how much you love videos Daddy.  http://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-05-010-unto-all-the-world-essas-story?lang=eng 

     One last note.  I encourage you all to Feed the Lord's sheep, know that no time is a waste.  Just think of Abinidi, he was burned at the stake.  He had know idea that Alma had heard his words or taken it to his heart and look where that all went, Alma baptized hundreds of people.  Just open your mouth, you never know how what you might say might plant a seed.  It might not bring forth fruits right away, it could be years.  But know that it happens, my investigator Joe is a testimony of that to me!!! Don't think that that is impossible in our day because there is family history work.  So by you effect one person you will be effecting/helping out their ancestors as well.

   Have I mentioned how much I love you all and enjoy reading all your emails!!!

     

Love 

   Sister Metcalf

P.S. Got some nice red velvet cookies last night and some notes on my door step.  It was much needed with everything that was going on.  The Lord knew I need a boost, thank you Jensa!  Tell Ava, Chase, and Celeste thank you as well with a hug and a kiss!!

P.P.S. Can I just say it stinks to have transfers on Monday!!!!! Everyone else does it a different day of the week, our mission is one of the few that does it on p-day :(

Monday September 2, 2013

Buenos Dias,

Alright, So this e-mail might be a little shorter than normal because we have a shorter time today to e-mail with it being labor day.  A nice lady in our ward opened up the Family History Center for us to e-mail.  And just so you know that this Saturday we get a call of where we are transferring and transfers on a week from today.  So if you are wanting to hand write me letters send them to the mission office(Cole rd) until next p day when I can tell you where I will be living.      So on Monday we taught our investigator Joe, we taught the Plan of Salvation and it went really well.  We invited him to be baptized and he said he wants to in the future so I asked him if he would prepare himself for September 21st.  He was thinking about it in his mind, and we invited his home teacher to sit in on his lessons.  Well Brother Koyle (the member) jumps in saying that we are asking him really early.  He is use to teaching 7 lessons and asking on the last lesson.  It was kind of awkward as he talked about Joe not feeling pressured and how he sees our side of things.  He kind of made it seem that we only care about baptisms.  We talked about it a little more and told Joe that really are just trying to get baptism in his horizon.  We asked him if he will pray to know if he would be able to prepare himself for that day and he said that he would.  I have great faith in him.  He actually called us a few days ago and wants to change the location of our lessontonight from the church to his house.  We I think will be great because I am hoping that his wife will sit in on it as well, who is a less active.  I am going to really sad if I get transferred out of Joe's ward, but I know that no matter what I will be going to his baptism.  On Tuesday we did exchanges and I was with Sister Chen and Sister Farley in sister Chen's area for 24 hours.  Sister Chen is from ti wan and has only been out in the mission field for 3 months.  She speaks English very well, but is not confident in it, she doesn't like to talk much.  It was an awesome experience though because as we were planning out the day in her area, she didn't really have anyone for us to see, so sister Farley and I were picking families in their area book to go see.  One family that we saw, we shared a message with and the woman started crying.  We really didn't know what to do so we just kept talking.  She told us how she needed to hear what we told her.  That just showed me how the Lord guides us to the people that we need to see.  He answers our prayers through others.  We had a couple opportunities for service this week which is rare for us cuz honestly no one takes us up on our offer to do service for them.  We helped clean somes home that is a less active/ her husband was a former investigator, the Gutches.  Actually last Monday when we went to go teach them Josh told us how he doesn't want to take the lessons anymore because he is not ready to change his lifestyle.  There was nothing really we could say to him so we just taught the wife the first lesson.  She agreed for us to teach her which will be nice because Josh kept walking in and out while we were talking.  We are hoping that at some point he will just come and sit in with us.  Anyways we also went to the cannery.  It is a big thing up here, we help canned peaches.  I really enjoy doing service, it not only adds variety in our day, but I just love the feeling I have afterwards.    One semi-funny experience that happened this week is that we have been trying to catch a lady in one of our wards that in less active.  She is really going through a hard time right now and the R.S. president thinks that it would be really good for the missionaries to stop by and visit with her.  The only trouble with her is she never answers the door, she is home all the time because she doesn't work, but she just chooses not to answer.  So on Thursday night we went by her house and she didn't answer, after we got back in our car we saw a car pull up and she got out of the car and headed inside.  We waited a few minutes so it wasn't so awkward and then went to go knock on her door again.  And of course she did not answer, it was a kind of funny situation. Another funny story, kind of is that while we were at our ward mission leaders house, his wife gave us some cake to take home.  So we took it home and put it on the counter.  The next day sister dickey grabbed a piece before we headed out the door.  When we came back home several hours later we noticed that the plate that the cake was on and the foil was torn up.  We discovered that their dog had jumped up on the counter and got the plate down and ate all the cake.  We just laughed because we take her running every morning and it kind of went to waste with her eating 5 pieces for coconut cake, which was apparently super sweet.   This week we also got the opportunity to spend a couple hours on mormon.org which I loved.  I seriously love watching church videos.  So if you have any good ones that I should watch send them my way because we spend 2 hours a month on the church websites.  As much as I love sports and college football, as a missionary I hate it.  Saturday was seriously such a rough day for us, Boise states opener game was on and everywhere we tried to visit either the people were not home or they were watching the game.  It is crazy how many Boise State fanatics there are here, people will do anything in order to watch the game.  So during football season it might be a little difficult for us to go visit people when the game is on.  I did hear in church though how BSU got annihilated, there were a lot of upset people at church.  People defiantly keep me updated with sports here since they know that I went to USU.  It is nice in a way have something to talk about with some of the brethren in the wards, but at the same time I really don't care all that much, but I always make them think that I am interested with what is going on in the sports world.    On Saturday morning we also taught our other investigator Greg, well we tried to teach him the 3rd lesson.  He always has a lot of questions for us and it always pulls us off on different tangents.  I feel like he is progressing intellectually in the gospel but not spiritually which we are really trying to help him with.  He talked to us a little on baptism towards the end and about how he would have to get re baptized because our church doesn't regonize his baptism.  He feels like we are taking away from his heritage.  We are hoping to address this issue next week.  He told us how he might be moving in a few weeks to be closer to family and was asking how that would work.  We said how we would have to pass him off to other missionaries.  He said that he didn't want anyone else to teach us and how he hos grown close to us.  He wasn't saying that he wouldn't continue with other missionaries but he would miss us and that really touched my heart.  I am glad that our investigators have grown to care about us and a bond with us as we have with him.  This week was our last Sunday in at least one if not both of our wards because there is stake conference next week.  It is going to be hard to say goodbye to my investigators as well as some of the members.  Well Sorry this e-mail was all jumbled up, but I hope that all is going well on the home front.  I love you and miss you all. Read this poem this week which I really love.

The Touch of the Masters Hand

Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneerthought it scarcely worth his while to waste much time on the old violin,but held it up with a smile; "What am I bidden, good folks," he cried,"Who'll start the bidding for me?" "A dollar, a dollar"; then two!" "Onlytwo? Two dollars, and who'll make it three? Three dollars, once; threedollars twice; going for three.." But no, from the room, far back, agray-haired man came forward and picked up the bow; Then, wiping the dustfrom the old violin, and tightening the loose strings, he played a melodypure and sweet as caroling angel sings.The music ceased, and the auctioneer, with a voice that was quiet and low,said; "What am I bid for the old violin?" And he held it up with the bow.A thousand dollars, and who'll make it two? Two thousand! And who'll makeit three? Three thousand, once, three thousand, twice, and going andgone," said he. The people cheered, but some of them cried, "We do notquite understnad what changed its worth." Swift came the reply: "The touchof a master's hand."And many a man with life out of tune, and battered and scarred with sin,Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, much like the old violin, A"mess of pottage," a glass of wine; a game - and he travels on. "He isgoing" once, and "going twice, He's going and almost gone." But the Mastercomes, and the foolish crowd never can quite understand the worth of a souland the change that's wrought by the touch of the Master's hand.

Much love from Meridian, ID
Love,   
Sister Metcalf
P.S. Mom I got my medicine and the other things this week, thank you so much you really didn't have to send that other stuff.P.P.S. Ryan I met a guy in my ward who served in Johannesburg South Africa who is around your age.  His last name was Haddock, don't know if you would know him but I thought I would just ask.