Hanna Haviland Back to Missionary Letters Kumusta my dear friends, Today has been a very exciting day here at the MTC. All of the missionaries are very excited about the changes in the communication guidelines for missionaries. all in all I don't think that I have seen so many smiling faces on the MTC campus during my time here. Especially in our zone. The three districts that came in the same day that I did are anxiously awaiting our flight plans because, drum roll please, WE ONLY HAVE 10 DAYS LEFT IN THE MTC )insert correctly facing direction ) as well as 10 exclamation points because the key board I am using is kinda special and many of the keys are switched around....in case you were wondering, yes, it does make typing more difficult) I am still loving it here at the MTC and the language is still coming. Tuesday we were blessed to hear from another apostle. Elder Soares came and spoke to us about, you guessed it, obedience. But it was such an amazing talk. I am so grateful for all of the blessings we are promised if we are obedient to the commandments of our God. We actually had kind of a fun experience teaching this week. After teaching a lesson, Sister Stoker and I were having an evaluation with out teacher about how the lesson went. One of the first things that he said was that our Tagalog was magaling, in other words, our Tagalog was great. I kinda just looked at him for a second and then had to double check and make sure that I had heard him right because, well, I am fully aware that my Tagalog is less than ok, and then he and Sister Stoker just started laughing at me. Brother Lieshman, our teacher, then corrected himself and said that maybe it wasn't as great as he had originally thought because he likes to joke around...at least I hope. This week we also did an exercise where we were supposed to teach about what faith is in English and then teach it again in Tagalog. Can I just say that teaching in English was not only weird, but it was hard. I felt like I couldn't get all of the thoughts out that I wanted to say, how backwards is that. But I loved how teaching in Tagalog forced me to teach it more simply. Family and Friends I am so very thankful for the simplicity of the gospel of Jesus Christ and I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon that teaches that doctrine so clearly. EMAIL PAUSE BECAUSE I JUST RECEIVED FLIGHT PLANS. that is all, I got excited. Any ways, after we had the experience teaching about faith we were able to do a gospel study about repentance. I read the scripture 2 Nephi chapter 26 verses 24 and 27. (ten out of ten would recommend reading) so much joy filled my heart in that moment and my desire to the truth of this gospel increased dramatically. My friends, the Savior always has his hands reaching out towards us. He is always inviting us to come unto Him and to find peace and joy through his atoning sacrifice. In other exciting news, this Wednesday we hit our one month mark. Which is so weird because I feel like I have only been here for a couple days. but I am so excited to be heading out so soon. That is all for this week. I hope that this upcoming week you are able to see the hand of the lord in every day. I love you and am so grateful for your support. -Sister Haviland P.S. The email for all of the missionaries has changed this week. even with this change we have been told that our mail should be forwarded to our new email throughout the duration of our mission. My new email is hanna.haviland@ missionary.org Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Coleman West Back to Missionary Letters Hey everyone! I hope you all had a good week. This week has been pretty awesome and fun here at the MTC. It's been a bit hard though sometimes. I just can't wait to get out into the field and be with the people. It's crazy to think that in less than a week I'll be out there. Time is flying by so quickly already. It's weird to think that we are already in December. I know I've said it already, but I've felt the Lord's hand so much here. I've really felt Him continue to help me grow and learn. He has really magnified my efforts and is making me more than I ever could be on my own. I know He wants to, and will do, the same for you if you let Him. Not much else has changed from last week though. I've gotten to eat all kinds of new and fun stuff here in the MTC cafeteria though. They prepare food from all over Africa for us so I've had things like gizzard, a stew with cow skin in it, and a huge variety of ways to prepare rice. It's been super interesting and fun to try it all. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Much love from Ghana, -Elder West Pictures: -The temple from our apartments Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Talia Hansen Back to Missionary Letters Well kids it's about that time! I go home on Wednesday morning so this is my final email! Thank you all for supporting me so much throughout my mission. I've come to truly love the people here in Idaho and I've learned so much! I feel I've definitely come closer to my Savior and come to appreciate the great sacrifice that He made even more! He truly does know me and love me and YOU TOO!!! He knows each of us personally! I'm so grateful for Jesus! Anyways, I'm excited to be going home and to see all yalls beautiful faces! My family also says I talk different so don't be surprised when you talk to me and I sound like I'm "straight out of the wild west" (my brother Taner) I guess I did pick up an accent in Idaho `\0/` SEE YALL SOON! -SISTER HANSEN 💕 Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Veyo Bundy Back to Missionary Letters Road trips and Disney princesses Hello! Wow, this week was super eventful. All good things though. A few fun stories from this week! -we had another hour and a half long Bible bash! We love when people take up all our finding time so we can't talk to people who might actually be interested in talking to us ♡ we decided that we gave this fam a fair shot and they're just not ready yet. One day though. -On Wednesday my compie had an appt in.... LA QUINTA!! Soooo. We got to roadtrip down there and I got to see my home. Love that place. Also our roadtrip was a BLAST. We made PB and J sandwiches and played lots of Jesus music and it was a party and a half -Thursday we had zone conference in Rialto, so I got to see my OTHER old stomping grounds. Lots of good mems. We love the ghetto. ♡ -This weekened we had a giant service project at this big mansion in Redlands. The mansion used to be occupied by nuns, is definitely haunted, and now houses events for little kids. The event was basically like a drive through Disney thing and so there were all these Disney princesses and Jedis and all that fun stuff. Our job was set up and clean up so we didnt get to actually drive through but it was a party working with the zone. -today we had a zone activity at President and Sister McKinnon's house! I love being with the zone. It's my favorite thing ever. That's all. -we found a new person to teach and she is so awesome. She's a referral from a member of another ward and she is so prepared. We love her! Pray for her please, her name is Ramona. On a spiritual note, one thing that's been on my mind this week is the importance of family and of gospel learning in a family unit! I have been so so soo lucky to grow up in a family where we are all members of the church. So many people dont get that. I also re-read the Family Proclamation this morning during my personal study and I had forgotten how good it was. Go read it sometime! The Family Proclamation https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world?lang=eng Kk. That's all. Love you. OH! If you're looking for people to pray for->> Bryce + fam John Kim + Kyle Hajee Marlina Elizabeth Eddie Ramona Amy Dawn Luis Kayla + more if you want em. Also pray that we find families here in Redlands! Love you all!! -Sister Bundy 7000 central ave Highland CA 92346 Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Talia Hansen Back to Missionary Letters Idaho, Pocatello mission The Idaho, Pocatello mission was not affected very badly by COVID. We definitely had it a lot better than most missions. We were in quarantine for about 2 months and then we were allowed to go out and do service. About a month after that we were allowed to go back into peoples homes! So we were basically back to normal! But while in quarantine we set up zoom lessons and did lots of teaching online as well as Facebook. We made lots of videos and posts for Facebook :). We were even still allowed to hold baptismal services while we were in quarantine so it really did not stop the work! I know that the Lord cares about all of us on this Earth, so much that He was willing to suffer and die for us! I know that He wouldn’t want the missionary work and the teaching of His gospel to stop! I know that the gospel is the truth and that so much light, joy, and happiness comes from it. It’s been a blessing for me to be able to see that light change peoples lives. I know that Jesus Christ is our savior and that we really can do all things through Him because He loves us! Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Christian Martinez Back to Missionary Letters The Journey North Hey everyone! Hope your week went well! This will be a shorter email this week because I will be preparing to depart from Salisbury. This week transfer news came and I found out I was leaving. I will be going to Souderton, Pennsylvania, it's about 40 minutes north of Philadelphia, so itll be a long drive tomorrow morning up there 😂 This means I will serve in all 4 states of the mission which is pretty cool. Salisbury was a blessing, I loved being here, I will miss it greatly. But I will go where the Lord wants me to go, I hope and pray itll be a good time over there, but idk if much things will stop Salisbury 😂 this also means I am 1 and doning another companion, goodness hahaha. I will miss Elder Heck, easily the funniest comp I've had 😂 A talk I read this week was from the October 2007 General Conference titled "The Only True God and Jesus Christ" by Elder Holland. The quote I loved was "I bear this witness. I testify that Jesus Christ is the literal, living Son of our literal, living God. This Jesus is our Savior and Redeemer who, under the guidance of the Father, was the Creator of heaven and earth and all things that in them are. I declare that in His willing submission to death He took upon Himself the sins of the world, paying an infinite price for every sorrow and sickness, every heartache and unhappiness from Adam to the end of the world." May we always remember that God and Jesus Christ live, and love all of us. Christ suffered the worst so we wouldn't have to. I know that they appeared to the prophet Joseph Smith, and they continue to talk with the prophet today. Have a great week everyone! Love, Elder Martinez The last District Council Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Brogan Bingham Back to Missionary Letters So this week was a super eventful week as you can tell by my title. I have returned to Catanduanes Island if you remember the last time I was here I was in the farthest area out in the jungle. SO what happened is my companion went home early so he could enroll in a school which left President Abraham with the decision of what was going to happen to me. So this week we also had Zone Conference and we found out new plans for the mission but we still had no idea what was going to happen to me. After zone conference, I found out that President was going to Catanduanes for another zone con and I still had no idea what was going to happen to me. Then what happened is I woke up the next morning and got a call from the assistants that I needed to pack my bags because I was traveling with them to Catanduanes. In the car with President Abraham, I found out that I would be a Zone Leader out here on the island which was super surprising. He told me that he woke up in the middle of the night and received the revelation that I need to go to Catanduanes with them and be a Zone Leader. So here I am on Gilligans Island just me and my companion and 16 other missionaries. Pretty exciting but I gotta go and I will send pictures because I have a lot. Love you all and have a good week . Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Joshua Abbott Back to Missionary Letters Transfers😬 Hey everyone! This week was super awesome! We had MLC on Tuesday which was lots of fun. We talked about the new missionary handbook and becoming more committed missionaries. It was a good time and I definitely learned a lot. We got a good amount of snow this week, like 8 inches or so, which made being outside so much fun. We actually had a super nice family let us in and feed us dinner on a freezing night so that was super awesome. On Saturday we had a Sacrifice Saturday so we just went finding for like 8 hours with the Zone. We found lots of awesome people and hopefully helped out some other missionaries in the Zone with their areas. We got to talk in sacrament meeting yesterday, I talked about revelation and used the story of Joseph Smith as an example of receiving revelation. It was a great experience and made my last Sunday in the ward a great one. And with that being said, yes I'm being transferred... to Colville. That's a small town north of Spokane about 2 hours. I'm super pumped about it though because Canada is in my district so I'll be able to go up there for exchanges and stuff! I've loved serving in the Lincoln Heights ward so much and I'm definitely going to miss serving here, but I'm super excited to go serve more of God's children in another part of His vineyard. I know God lives and He loves all of you so much, have a great week! I'll talk to yalls later! Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Christian Martinez Back to Missionary Letters The Journey Home Hey y'all, I'll make this quick Due to the COVID-19 virus, and having asthma, my service in the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission will be stopped, and I was informed I probably wont be able to come back out, due to the amount of missionaries coming into the United States. I return home tomorrow morning. The experiences I have had while out here will stay with me the rest of my life. I've learned so much about me, others, and especially about the gospel of Jesus Christ and how much God loves us. I have loved every single thing about being a missionary and serving the Lord Jesus Christ. I love Him, and what he did for me, and all of Gods children. He walked such a long, lonely path, so we wouldn't have to. May we always remember our Savior, and what He did for us. This is His church. God lives, Jesus is the Christ, never ever forget God's love for you, it will never go away. I love you all! Elder Martinez Previous Letter Next Letter

Sister Alyson Cook Back to Missionary Letters The work will go on Hello everyone! My goal is to keep this short, so wish me luck. We are continuing to be quarantined until further notice, but this wasn't anything that we didn't expect. But we are continuing to be shown time and time again that the Lord knows what he's doing! Some miracles I've seen throughout the week; - We don't have enough time in the day. We have to be aware of every minute of time because everyday is filled to the brim! -Ariana is continuing to progress amazingly! It's so cool to be able to witness the gospel change her life right in front of my very eyes - Tons of missionaries from this ward have returned home due to Corona, and we have someone who has just been a stellar missionary! He requested 5 Book of Mormons already to give to his friends. Will update you on that! -Sister Rosenbeck and I have been praying to receive revelation for our areas worm, and everyday we've been able to pinpoint moments where we were lead by the Spirit in what we need to do! - So many lessons! I don't know if it's that my other two areas were slower, but quarantine seems to have increased the amount of lessons we are teaching to people. We're so busy! I'd like to share a scripture that I read this week. It's been on my mind a lot lately. It's from the Book of Mormon (Alma 17:10) and it's talking about the sons of King Mosiah and Alma the younger preparing to go to the Lamonites, or unbelievers to share the Gospel to them. The verse says "And it came to pass that the Lord did visit them with his Spirit, and said unto them: Be comforted. And they were comforted." The next chapters go on to share about their mission over the next 14 years. They were cast into prison, they starved, they were beaten, and many many other trials. At the end of this story, they were bring 7 Lamonites cities to the knowledge of Christ, which is amazing! But that wasnt for a long time. I'm sure that in the middle of their trials I'm sure that they thought "why the heck am I doing this?" Many times. But the Lord, in all His goodness, knew exactly what they were going to go through beforehand. To prepare them and give them assurance that that was truly the right direction, before they ever set out he visited them with His spirit and gave them peace. So when they would be going through it, they would be able to recall that experience and know with assurity why they are there and that God is with them. That's a truth that can be applied to lots of different situations, so I invite you to read that chapter (Alma 17) and ponder how the Lord gave you peace before the trial. I love you all! Thank you for being in my life :) Sister Cook Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Nathen Abbott Back to Missionary Letters The Last One Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great week. My week was pretty good. I shall explain it to you. First of all, disclaimer, this is not my final email. Just want to point that out to you. However, we just had transfers, I am now on my last transfer, and my group is currently the oldest in the mission. So that's pretty crazy. It's so weird to think about. But anyways, I'm doing good. Despite everything that I thought, I am in fact transfering. I will be going to Trenčín to serve with Elder Hamilton as Zone Leader. It will be good. He is a fun Elder and one that I have already served around a lot during my mission. It will be a good transfer. This also means that I will have officially served in every area in Slovakia 🥳 Except for the two areas in the east (Košice and Prešov). I've only been there once. But maybe I'll get to go there a couple times this transfer. We'll see. We visited with a couple members this week. It is always so much fun. I love the members here so much and getting to know them. It was good to be able to visit a couple of them these past few days before they left. Fun stuff. We met a new guy this week! That was way lit. He is very cool. He answered to the ad that we made about the bible, and actually had interest in meeting so we met. We talked about the Bible and mentioned the Book of Mormon and the story of Joseph Smith and how he used the Bible in order to find answers that he was looking for. And then we talked about other stuff that he kind of brought up and used the Book of Mormon to back up things that he was saying and reading from the Bible. He really loved it, and at the end even talked about how much he liked the scripture we shared with him in 3 Nephi 11 where Jesus comes to the Nephites, yet they don't understand the spirit at first. It was a way sweet meeting. This week we had other meetings, but just meetings with other missionaries like MLC, SMS calls, Office meeting, District Council, and so on. So it was a lot. It made for a busy week. The ZL's stayed the night again and then stayed the whole next day with us. It was wack, but it's whatever. I got icecream like 2 or 3 times this week. That was also a nice highlight. Not much else to tell you guys about, so I'll just end here. Have a great week everyone! Love you all! Previous Letter Next Letter

Elder Jeremy Perkins Back to Missionary Letters Hey guys! Hope all is going great! We had an awesome week. The fire is out and the rains have started to come. We even received an alert on our phones saying flash flood warning! My family is in Oregon! I am going to the temple tomorrow to receive my endowment! I am so excited and grateful for this opportunity and experience I will have. My mom, dad, and older brother will all be able to come. The silver lining in all of this is that my brother is able to go, in which if Covid-19 never had happened he wouldn't be. The Lords hand is in all things. It will be a memorable one for sure. Kinda weird to think that they are actually here! Sorry I know this is a short one but I will make sure to write more next week. Love you all, stay awesome! Previous Letter Next Letter