February 24, 2014

Mi family,

    It has been a hard couple of days trying to say goodbye to everyone.  I got transferred!  I am now with Sister Allen, she is an STL and came out one transfer before me.  I know her pretty well and she is just awesome and so sweet.  I also have been made a Sister Training Leader, so crazy! So we will be co-STL together.  They are starting to put STL together, to better help each other out.  I was the only one this transfer, so there are only 6 for the whole mission.  That seems crazy that there are only 6 sisters to be over 70+ sister missionaries.  Guess that means I will be going on a ton of exchanges.  I am super excited to take on this new responsibility and step up to the plate.  I feel so grateful for the trust that President has instilled in me. I am a little relieved that I won't be training again, not saying that I don't ever want to train again but it is nice to have a little break.  It is great to be with someone who has been out a little bit longer and I don't have to feel like everything is on me, I feel like in a sense we will be able to "run" together with the missionary work as to the Lords will.  I came over here to her area, Boise South Stake.  It is about 5 miles east of where I was just serving.  Little older area and houses, but seems like a pretty decent size area.

    It was so hard for me to have to say goodbye to my ward, I honestly feel like I could of been there another transfer but I also know that my time would come.  Things were going so well, it was hard to leave a place where I had started to nothing and had built up to be teaching 8 investigators and working with 25+ less actives.  There was so much work going on in Summerset, that ward was my family.  I really knitted myself in that ward.  Bishop asked me to bear my testimony before in Sacrament meeting,his little girl who is two years old came up to me and said goodbye, she doesn't speak much but she said my name, it was so precious and really touched my hear.  There was lots of teary eyes that day in church saying goodbye to everyone.  But it was also comforting to know that I would be back to visit as well.That ward was too good to me, and I know that I wouldn't of been able to progress the work along if it wasn't for the ward members. I also had to say goodbye to the Andrus' they felt like parents to me and their home felt like my home. They gave me their numbers and told me if I ever need anything to call them, I promised them I would be back to visit.  Leaving today was hard, not gonna lie I shed a few tears, it felt like I was leaving home.  I also came to realize a tender mercy of the Lord this morning, that during these holiday season I have been with them and I think the Lord knew how much family means to me.  I have been so blessed to live with members for the holidays, but more importantly to live with people that felt like family.  I say that because in my new area I will be living in an apartment with another set of sisters, so it will be different.

   This week was a really great week for us with so twists at the end.  We ended up having to have a third sister with us Friday until transfers cuz her companion went home which was hard because we had to work in her area as well as ours.  Weekends are our best days so it was hard trying to balance things out but overall everything was good expect Saturday.  The other sister forgot to cancel her dinner so we had two! The Lord helped us to be able to have two meals, but I have been paying the price for it the past few days, my stomach wasn't to happy with me. We contacted some less actives I haven't met before and some went well and some weren't interested.  There was one that was a mother and son that said they are wanting to come back to church. So awesome!  We taught Emilie as well and we invited her to be baptized and she said yes!!!! She said that she didn't want to rush into things though and wants to know everything.  She understands how big a commitment baptism is which is awesome.  Next time they plan on talking to her about that and hopefully set a baptismal date.  The biggest miricle I saw this week was with Max, one of our youth investigators.  He kind of had pulled back on him because the mom wanted to wait until the dad was able to baptize him.  This week I felt like we needed to visit them since it had been about two weeks since we had seen them. So we text ed his mom and she said we could come by.  We finished up the last lesson with him, at the end I told him how he was all done with the lessons and he should decide with his parents when he should get baptized.  The mom said they wanted to move forward with him being baptized and allow the bishop to do.  We are shooting for the second weekend of march, that is what she wanted.  I was so happy after that, it was a little tender mercy from the Lord that he knows me and hears my prayers.  It was nice to leave the area on a good note.  I hope to come back often for the baptisms of the other investigators in the area.  That is probably the toughest thing is to build up an area and then leave it to other sisters and hope that things go well.  I guess I just got to trust in the Lord.

   I am excited for this next chapter in my mission. It still amazes me how fast it is going by. Quick question. So I have sent out a few letters they are small square sizes. I usually don't put a return address on it, but one one of them I did and It got sent back to me because it was too small it says.  I was wondering if they threw them out or if they still delivered them.  Oh and what I want for my birthday I am not sure yet but i will let you know.  But for sure I want either a hand written or type form of all your testimonies, kids included.  This is what I am really desiring right now so you have a few weeks to form them.  I love you all so much and miss you all! I hope all is well and that the Lord is blessing your lives.

Love

Sister Metcalf

My New address is:

3695 West Morris Hill

#3

Boise, ID 83706

The Famous Joe i'm always talking about.

February 18, 2014

Today is our Preparation Day since it is our temple day as well.  We got to do a session at the temple which was amazing, and we saw the new video.  It was really good, I truly wish that I was able to go to the temple more often. Things in our area are about the same, so less actives willing to meet with us and lots of rejection.  My companion was getting down about the less actives not wanting to come back to church and she asked me why this is.  I told her I wasn't sure, but i told her to look at the bright side.  That we were weaving out the people that aren't ready to find those and focus on those that the Lord has prepared for us to work with.  And hopefully in a few months they will be ready for the next missionaries that come.  We have a decent size teaching pool and working with a quite a bit of less actives that have been receptive and even some have already started coming back.  One of our investigators that we are working with who use to be a member told us that she has a desire to get baptized again and get back to the temple, but she has a lot of worries on the little things.  We are trying to focus her on the basics and have her regain her testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith.  Our youth that we are teaching are all doing really well, still trying to figure out how to get the parents on board.  We talked to Kaila, one of the recent youths we began teaching a few weeks ago and we talked to her about the importance of her getting baptized sooner and not settling to wait until she is 18.   This week we picked up a new investigator and taught her the restoration, it went really well and we plan on teaching her the plan of salvation this Wednesday.  We also have a few potentials that we came across from trying to contact less actives that have moved.  Things are really going well here missionary work wise, just need to keep pushing harder and help get a few of my investigators with a baptismal date.

   This weekend seemed to be a weekend of service for us, we helped clean a few peoples houses and we helped a less active white wash her walls.  Her deceased husband use to be an avid smoker and she is wanting to get rid of the smell.  So we helped her wash the walls down as well as help her paint.I had a fun little adventure this week with Joe, I have mentioned him before.  Anyway one time I had mentioned to him how I wanted to milk a cow and he set that up for me this week.  Yep I milked a cow and drank the milk! It was quite fun, but don't worry i didn't let it interfere with my missionary work. 

   This weekend was stake conference, and for the Saturday night session the focus was on hastening the work.  The stake president called all us full time missionaries up to answer questions, one thing that stuck out to me that he said is that we weren't called here to an area or city, but to a people, we were called here to their friends and neighbors.  That really made me think of things differently.  Overall stake conference went really well and we actually have received some referrals from it.

  Well sorry this email is super short.  Things are  a little more rushed today with us going to the temple.  This Saturday is transfer calls so everything is up in the air.  I would start sending letters to the mission office until you hear where I will be officially.

  Know that I love you all and am so gratefully to be out here serving.  I know my birthday is in a few weeks but just a heads up, for my Birthday I would love for all of you to write me your testimonies, little kids as well.  So this gives you some time to think about it.  THis would really mean a lot to me.  I love you all!!!

Love

Sister Metcalf

February 10, 2014

A mission is defiantly like a roller coaster, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.  It is so funny how one week you can have such an amazing week and then the next it isn't as great as you hoped for.  Sometimes I wish that I could just keep my area consistent and keep all of my investigators progressing.  I now have officially 4 youth in the ward that I am teaching that all want to get baptized but the hold up is their parents.  We met with Kaila again this week and taught her the plan of salvation, she talked to her mom about being baptized and her mom said that she has to wait until she is 18 which is just heart breaking.  I really don't know what to do, I feel like I am cursed with teaching youth.  Okay not really but it is frustrating at times.  We talked in ward council yesterday about what to do, we have decided to do a ward fast the month of March.  Meaning families in the ward with sign up each day to fast for our investigators in the ward, so in a sense the whole month the ward will be fasting.  I hoping that this will help.  Kaila's mom is okay with going to church and meeting with us so we plan on to continue to finish teaching her the lessons.  We talked to her about to keep doing her part and her moms heart with soften eventually.  We talked about her sticking to her beliefs and her desires and showing her mom this is what she wants.  She also has an Uncle who is a member so we talked to her about talking to him this week.  YOu can just see the desire and thirst that she wants to learn more.  Members can see it and the YW leaders are always talking to us about her.  The family's house that we usually teach at who are her fellow-shippers are going to be out of town next week so we asked Kaila if she wanted to wait till they come back or if she wanted to be taught at someone else's house next week.  She said she really still wanted to be taught next week so we have lined up another family in the ward that she knows that we are going to teach at.  She has such a strong desire, I just hope and pray that we can some how talk to her mom about her daughter being baptized.  One of the other investigators that we have been teaching is starting to pull back a little bit.  She wants to continually meet with us but we might just have to teach her bits and pieces at a time, she is one that use to be a member and we are working with her to build her testimony again.  We also picked up a new investigator to teach actually from my old ward.  It's a complicated story and I actually thought the YSA missionaries were going to teach her but she feels more comfortable in the family ward and requested to be taught by sisters because she doesn't feel comfortable with Elders.  We should start teaching her this week.

   We had two less active families that we have been working with come to church this last Sunday which was awesome to see.  One of the families said that they set a new years resolution to go to church every week.  They also just had an active daughter and her kids move in this week so I am hoping that will help motivate them to keep coming.  We got in contact with a few other less actives this week that seem pretty receptive with allowing us to keep coming back which is always great to see.  We have also received some referrals from members, hopefully something will come from the works of that.  Overall I feel like this week went really well, we increased our total number of lessons by 3 this week which was the goal that I had set for us last Sunday.  I was so nervous at the beginning of the last transfer to go down to one ward, but it is funny how the Lord has blessed me and our numbers have actually increased from going from 2 wards to 1. 

  Some stories from the week.  Well we went on exchanges this week, so my companion stayed in our area and our STL came to our area and was the driver since my companion can't drive.  Well we were suppose to exchange back at 830 and at 820 I got a phone call from our STL asking for the number of the Senior couples that are in charge of cars in the mission.  Yep she had gotten into a car accident, it was super snowy outside and she was going a little two fast down a hill and couldn't stop at the stop sign and ran into on coming traffic.  Both of them are okay, but the car not so much.  Some members from the ward saw them and helped them out and even moved the car from.  Yesterday I got some people coming up to me asking about the accident.  I had to explain that it wasn't me, but that we were on exchanges.  I already have another car that I am driving right now, sadly that sister will probably lose her driving privileges.  One of my goals on my mission is to not get into any car accidents! It seems like it happens to so many missionaries, I don't even want to know how much the church spends on car repairs.  Anyway know that I am driving super safe all the time and super slow in the snow.  Luckily those two years up in Logan gave the experience that I need.  Members are taking good care of us, we got taken out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory, Famous Dave's, and Big Judd's(a local restaurant that the members own that took us out). I am for sure going ride a bike in the summer time, with the way members are feeding me there is no way that I am ever going to be able to keep up. This week the YW president asked me to speak at their new beginnings, she feels like the girls really look up to me and would appreciate me speaking, that really meant a lot to me.  I spoke to the girls about anchoring themselves unto Christ.  I talked to them about how in today's world that going to church isn't good enough to fight off the temptations of Satan, that it is going to take a lot more effort than that.  I used some good analogies about being lost at sea as well as like swimming in the ocean we don't realize that we are being pulled out to sea or becoming lost until we can't sea the shore anymore.  The youth these days have such strong testimonies, but they also have so much more to face that I ever had to when I was in high school.  It is so sad to see how far the world has become in just 5 years.  I hope all of you are anchoring yourself in Christ and strengthening those links in the chain that is connected to the anchor(meaning strengthening your testimony in the little things like prayer, scripture study, tithing, ect.) I used the talk Steadfast in Christ by Elder Ballard, you all should read it, it is really good!

   Thank you all for the packages and letters that I received this week. I love receiving all the goodies and cute little notes.  I love you and miss you all. I hope all is well with everyone. Hopefully I will be able to tell you more next week, I kind of have been slacking on writing in my journal so I forget the little things from the week that happened.  I promise I will try and do better on that, I've had that goal for the last few weeks, so hopefully I will do better.

Favorite quote from the week " Sometimes the only road left to take is a leap of faith" 

Love
Sister Breanne Metcalf

table rock round 3

Making Rice Krispys to ding dong ditch to members in the ward

1-Sister Haas and I

2- Big Judd's burger

 1- My poor car, wasn't me!

2-Sister Lomu and I 

February 3, 2014

What we have to do after we visit people who have dogs, we almost have to do this on a bi-weekly 

basis

 

 Half of the new missionaries and trainers after a meeting

These are the two oldest members in the ward, they are so cute.  We stopped by for his birthday this week.

Our other find for the week, a fossilized mammoth tooth and a shark tooth.  A members son use to be in the Navy seals and found these items.

The first one is of an awesome family in our ward, his husband in the backround made me a balloon animal after dinner(its the roadrunner)

We helped some guy move that had some midevil(sp?) times stuff that me made himself

Trying to catch snowflakes on my tongue