THIS WEEK IN THE CFM:

Photo credit: David Hernandez

-we had the annual mission turkey bowl, where we don't keep score and the trash talk is quoting scripture. That was a fun time. 

-We had three thanksgiving dinners. P.s. when you get a priesthood blessing the day before thanksgiving that says...be weary of food....it throws a whole new aspect on thanksgiving. It was still a good time though because thanksgiving is not nearly as much about turkey as it is about being thankful and I have a lot to be thankful for. 

-I have two Polynesian companions now. I'm outnumbered and eating more corned beef than ever before. (Sister Soifua is a visa waiter and will be going to the Philippines next transfer probably)

-the light the world video came out and I took a selfie to get your attention if you only look at the pictures. The daily videos are SO COOL. Really actually go to mormon.org to find out more. 

-I went back to TULARE for a baptism. I loved it so so so so so so much. It was "grandma Mary's" baptism. The first lesson we had specifically for her was my last lesson in Tulare....it was so good...she has been so prepared!!! Ruben gave a talk at the baptism wearing a new tie he had bought for himself and he is a ward missionary now!  Special thanks to my mom who made Christmas come early for all of them...Ruben loves his new BYU shirt...and still plans on naming his first son Hooper. 

I saw Sister Burnside at the baptism....we talked to each other super fast the whole time and only finished telling each other half of our stories because we were so excited to move on to the next one. One hard thing about being a missionary is that you spend an entire four and a half months with someone you love a whole lot and then you do not see them at all for a month and a half.... the hard part is not seeing each other for a month and a half not the being together for four and a half months. 

LIGHT THE WORLD STARTS THIS WEEK. DO IT. 

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Ya'll are blessed this week because I saved the weekly for last and I don't have time to make this long and hard to read but here are all the important things. 

-transfer calls came: Sister T and I are staying together AND we are training a new missionary. We are both super excited about that. 

-THE LIGHT THE WORLD VIDEO IS COMING OUT ON NOVEMBER 24TH PLEASE PLEASE WATCH IT. (enjoy this picture of Dianne promoting #lighttheworld)

-The Tolman girls ​​are the cutest and the cute hug they ran up and gave me at church on Sunday was the tender mercy of the week! I love them soooo much. 

-go to mormon.org on november 24th to see why I keep talking about this light the world stuff please. I know it will change your Christmas. 

Also the most important thing........

-Your father in heaven loves you. To Fresno and back and even farther. 

-I love you all to Fresno and back too! 

Mission Leadership Council with Elder and Sister Echo Hawk November 9, 2017

Mission Leadership Council with Elder and Sister Echo Hawk November 9, 2017

The Mission was blessed to host Elder Echo Hawk of the Seventy and his 

wonderful companion Sister Echo Hawk. Always a spiritual feast to counsel 

with and be taught by special witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Elder and Sister Echo Hawk visit Zone North Conference November 9, 2017

Missionaries from the Merced, Fresno West, Fresno, and Fresno East Zones

at Mission Tour by Elder and Sister Echo Hawk. Nothing short of awesome!!!

Every feast of the soul should be followed by excellent nourishment for the body

to maintain proper balance. And this was a wonderful feast on both counts which

accounts for the expressions of joy and rejoicing.

#LIGHTtheWORLD #lighttheworld #LIGHTTHEWORLD

                                               Sister Cluff & Daughter                         

heads up: this email is a bunch of proof that the gospel is a real thing that really blesses people. 

(No subjec

-PETE. Sister T and I met Pete late on Saturday night and we had a super brief conversation but we set up a time to go back on Sunday. So what happened on Sunday was this. We show up and start teaching and Pete is super excited about learning about the gospel. As we talked he told us that he had felt like he had a dark cloud hanging over him all day and THEN he met us, even though our conversation was short he said that automatically his day started to get better and it turned out a day that started pretty crummy turned out amazing and the turning point was talking to us. Anyway we are super excited to start teaching him and more important than that HE IS SUPER EXCITED to start reading from the Book of Mormon. 

-Brother Mills continues to be incredible. Did I already tell you that he called the time we ran into him a 'divine appointment'. He told his work that he would no longer be available to work on Sundays. GO BROTHER MILLS. WAY TO EXERCISE FAITH. He told us the first time he walked into a church building after we met him he felt so good, like he needed to be there, he said simply walking into the building allowed him to feel the Holy Ghost. 

-We set a baptismal date with an investigator named Kenny. We are super excited for him....(it's in December). He is about to have his first little baby...probably this week! 

-THE DOMANTAY FAMILY WENT TO THE TEMPLE. It was suchhhhh a good experience. 

I loved being there....and it was so cute we got there a little later than everyone else and our ward mission leader had just finished baptizing people and then he went right back up to the temple worker when we got there...he had just put his street clothes back on and said...."I want to baptize my missionaries" and changed right back into baptismal clothes. It was good to be in the temple and it was good to think about all the times being in the temple for baptisms with my friends that I dearly love. It was however pretty weird to be in water. 

GOT TO GO. 

LOVE YOU. 

#LIGHTTHEWORLD

This week was soooo good.

                                                   November 6, 2017

okay. okay. okay.

I'll try my best to tell you all the reasons why it was so good. 

-BROTHER MILLS. I have felt many many times that I've been in specific areas for specific people but never like this before. Brother Mills lives in the same apartment complex as us, he was a street contact we had met and as we talked to him he mentioned that he had been a mormon before. We didn't have a lot of time but we set up a return appointment. When we went back we learned more about his past. At one point he had been a super active member of the church. He had gone to the temple, held callings, all of it. The reason he left is because he had expected to find an eternal companion...and long story short he hadn't. He told us he had tried to go back to church a couple of years ago but he found out that it wasn't going to be as simple as he thought because he actually had entirely removed his name from church records. As we taught him we could tell that he had an incredible testimony, he had been missing the church, and what stood out most to me was that he was needed in the Fresno 5th ward. I told him that he needed to come back, not only for himself but for everyone else because he has sooooo much to offer the ward. The next time we met him he told us about this time that he had visited the Elder that taught him in Utah shortly after his baptism. While he was there this Elders mom said that she felt inspired to share with him the same words that Christ had shared with Peter. That Satan desired him, to sift him as wheat, but when he was converted he was to strengthen his brethren. It's been such an incredible experience teaching him. I'm so excited about it. 

-KEVIN AND ANITRA. Sooooo once again the Lord put me right where I needed to be. It was Saturday, I was getting all sorts of anxious because we had only found one new investigator so far and I was not about to end the week like that. We went to go talk to a super solid potential investigator and the beginning of the conversation went so well and my heart was beginning to take courage....well cue the jealous girlfriend to come in. Who basically kicked us out. Anyway we decided to go talk to someone else in the area who I was significantly less excited about. Anyway we go over to the house and the person we were looking for wasn't there...but his dad who is nick-named Jabber was there...and let me tell you that man can jabber....and also his friend kevin was there. Kevin was so awesome he literally just gave us his address and then asked when we could come teach him. We taught him a little bit then and went to his house yesterday where we had an awesome lesson with him and with his cute wife!!!! So all is well that ends well. 

-Halloween happened but really we just had a mission leadership council where we talked about how we could effectively start using the Christmas initiative and we got permission to start listening to Christmas music.....so I feel as though Merry Christmas is much more appropriate than happy halloween. 

-BYU came and played Fresno State which provided all sorts of cool things but mostly a devotional with the President of BYU with whom I had a good chat with about the missionary work in Fresno 5.2, and mark wilson (who is a big enough deal to make a whole family of non-members come to the devotional and be super solid potentials) brother mills went and kenny and a whole bunch of members from the north stake who I was excited to see. 

-We had lunch with Sister Mackay and toured the new mission home which is basically a temple. 

-fasting still works. I was fasting to be prepared for the zone conference this week with a member of the 70. I wanted to get as most out of it as possible. Shortly after I ended the fast I heard from President Mackay that I would be one of the missionaries he interviewed. 

-exchanges were a really good time. 

-I'm so excited to be a missionary for christmas. 

- I love being a missionary. 

-I love all of you. 

-Thanks for reading. I'll be back next week. 

I LOVE YOU ALL. I really love the gospel, I love seeing the Lord's hand in my life and seeing him lead me right to where I need I need to be. I know that HE IS ALWAYS THERE FOR US but I also know that we see that more and feel that more and are benefited by that more when we turn to Him. 

Have a good week!