Happy Monday

January 22, 2018

Hello everyone! I can't believe it's Monday again!! I have noticed on my mission that the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days. It's crazy! Not a lot happened this week but here were some highlights. 

-Last week we tracted into a lady whose mom and sister are members in Calgary. She has a yoga studio at her house. She did not really want us to teach her but she said we could come and do yoga for free so we went last week. It was fun! Also a member in another ward here teaches Caribbean dancing so last monday for pday she taught us a mini class. It was fun! 

-We got to watch the announcing of the First Presidency. I am so grateful for the leadership we have in the church. We are so blessed to have such inspired and worthy leaders!!! I am looking forward to hearing them speak, already counting down the days until general conference!! 

-We got ANOTHER online referral. That is 4 in 2 weeks. which is very rare. The Lord answers prayers!!! Not all of them have worked out as we would have hoped but hopefully we are atleast planting some seeds and later down the road this will help them to accept the gospel!

-There is a member in our ward that fed us this week, their names are the Lafontaines and he is from Tonga. He looks and talks exactly like Maui from Moana. It is super crazy! And it's funny because they have an 8 year old daughter named Moana! 

-It was a bit warmer this week and so we went street contacting at this big lake that people walk around. We met a lady who lived in Utah for a while and her daughter was baptized in Minneapolis a couple years ago! She is getting married in the Logan Temple this summer!! She told us we could come over so I am super excited about that. It was a miracle! I hope that things will go well with her. 

We also met another lady at the lake who talked to us for 45 minutes about how the word of God has saved her. She LOVES the King James version of the bible. I was super excited because I thought she was so prepared. But when we finally got a word in and tried telling her about the book of mormon she wasn't very accepting.. She kept telling us how heavenly we were and how she wants to read the bible with us. So maybe we will go read with her and soften her heart so she can accept the book of mormon! 

-I let sister gatten cut my hair this week! It was her first time but she did great!!!:) 

-Linda, the lady we have been teaching english and slowly teaching about the gospel came to church this week!! It was the best. I don't think she understood much but I hope she felt the spirit and will come again, and bring all her kids too!! She is the best! 

-I spoke in church this week about how my spiritual preparation has helped my missionary service. It helped me realize how important it is that we are spiritually prepared to face the storms of life. THat is what will help us face our trials and challenges. Read your scriptures, pray daily, go to church, and listen to the prophets!!! 

I loved what President Nelson said about being a covenant people, staying on the covenant path, and if we have fallen off the path, GET BACK ON!!! Also to wake up eager for the day.. That is something that I sometimes struggle with so I thought it was just what I needed to hear. One thing he also said that I loved was, "You can face the future with optimism and joy when you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." That is SO true!! 

Love you all, have an amazing week!!! 

Freezing Rain

January 15, 2018

This week was good! A little bit of a slower week. We had zone conference and it was great as usual! We got a lot of training on member work so we are trying to work with the members more! THat really is the best way to do missionary work! We just have to get the members on board and excited as well! After zone conference on tuesday we walked outside and it was raining! But it was freezing rain so the roads and side walks were SUPER slick. Both me and Sister Gatten fell at least 3 times in about an hour. It hasn't really melted either so the whole week we have had to be super careful. No serious injuries though! At least one of us slips every day haha. The next morning we got in our car and instead of scraping the outside of our car we had to scrape the inside. I am not sure what made it do that but it was kind of weird! Our investigators that set wedding/baptismal dates last week have had some set backs this week. It is crazy how Satan works:( They both want to wait a while before they do anything. Hopefullt we can rekindle the spirit they felt and get them back on track!! We met a single dad this week with a 12 year old daughter who has leukemia. He is super prepared and wants to learn more! She actually had a bone marrow transplant recently and he was the donor. I was able to relate to them a little bit with that! It has been a struggle trying to get members to our lessons so that we can actually teach them but hopefully we will see some more progress this week! Also I got all the Christmas cards this week! Thanks everyone, that was the greatest!! 

I was thinking a lot about my time in Warroad this week and about something that one of our investigators said. She was talking about someone that had been a member but then stopped practicing it and doesn't believe that it is the true church anymore. It made me so sad! But I was thinking about how it makes sense that this lady would lose her testimony because she wasn't doing the simple things like going to church, praying, and reading her scriptures. It's like with any sport or hobby, if you don't practice it, you will lose it! So my advice for this week would be to never stop "practicing" the gospel. It is the greatest thing that we have here on this earth and will bless us most in the eternities. Practice so you don't lose your testimonies!! You are all so awesome! I appreaciate the love and support!! Have a wonderful week:)

 

pics: bowling with the zone on pday, our investigator linda, inside of our car, wild bunnies!

Miracle filled week!

January 8, 2018

This week was so great!! We saw many miracles. Here is what happened:

-I got to go on exchanges with my trainer Sister Stokes this week! That was super fun!! It was a bit weird to be with her again. Brought back lots of good memories! We were able to teach some lessons together and find some people for them to work with in her and her companions area. 

-The cord that we use to plug in our car at night has not been working so we had to go get that fixed this week. It was a bit of a pain and we were stuck at the car dealership for a while but hopefully it is fixed now so we can plug our car in! It warmed up this week so we were able to start it without problems but last week when it was in the -40s it was a bit rough! I am grateful it is fixed!

-Sister Gatten let me cut her hair this week. So that was fun!! 

-Two of the investigators that we are working with committed to baptismal dates this week! Both of them have been living with less active members and working with missionaries for quite some time so it was a miracle that they had a change of heart and want to get baptized! We just have to plan weddings now... So that may be a bit interesting haha. We are excited though! If anyone has any wedding planning tips send them my way:) 

-During our weekly planning this week we decided to pray for referrals again. Me and Sister Knight did this in Warroad and we got a referral about a week later so me and sister Gatten decided to do it! That day we received TWO media referrals from salt lake. One was a guy requesting a book of mormon and another was a lady requesting a bible! Unfortunately the lady wanted the bible already had a book of mormon and didnt want to meet with us but we have high hopes for the guy! We are meeting with him tomorrow!! 

-We had some fun experiences tracting one night! Me and Sister Gatten both had to use the washroom really bad.. So we at one of the doors after the lady told us she didnt want us to come in I asked if we could use her washroom. She was happy to let us in for that haha. Turns out she had went to the Regina Temple open house so we got to talk to her about that!! Another lady opened the door and screamed like she was super excited. We were a bit confused and soon after we realized so was she, turns out she thought we were her friends. It was kinda fun to get that reaction though. Another lady answered the door and said "What did I win?" I replied, "A unique message about Jesus Christ from the missionaries." She was not very amused and shut her door.

That's about it for this week! I was reading in Preach My Gospel about the Book of Mormon this week and it talked about how it is the keystone to our religion. I thought about how the Book of Mormon is also the keystone to our lives! If we remove it and stop reading it daily we will crumble!! I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon. It truly is the GREATEST book we have on the earth. Don't let your life crumble by not reading it DAILY!!!! I am also grateful for our beloved prophet President Monson. It was so sad to hear about his passing but I am so grateful that the Lord has provided a way for us to always have a prophet! I love this gospel and I KNOW that it is true!!! God truly does hear and answer our prayers! Have a wonderful week!!

Love, Sister Godderidge

Me and sister stokes on exchanges!!

hair cutting:)

At the subaru dealership doing our studies.. 

Happy New Year

January 1, 2018

We had a good, cold week here in Canada! Luckily it was in the -30s most of the week so we were still able to do active proselyting. It got below 40 on Friday and Saturday but we were blessed and were still able to stay busy stopping by potentials and having a few lessons. Unfortunately our teaching pool is pretty slim right now and so we have been trying to do a lot of finding, which is a bit harder in the cold. We can only bear it for about 30-40 minutes and then we have to get in our car and warm our feet up before we can go back out. It was so cold that they only had one hour of church this week! Also probably because it was New Years Eve. I am still trying to get to know the ward members but it has been harder with the holidays! While tracting this week we have tracted into 2 less-actives!! One of them was not interested but the other one let us in and invited us back! So that was a miracle! We have been teaching a lady from Tanzania english and that has been kinda fun. She has the cutest kids!! One of them this week asked where we were from and we said Utah and then he said, "Utah Jazz?" In a cool accent. He said he had watched them on TV!! 

We had a couple member lessons this week and one of the ladies we went to was an older sister who is a convert to the church and her husband is not a member. We started talking about the celestial kingdom and she expressed to us that she just didn't feel worthy to be going there. We tried to assure her that as long as she does her best here, the Savior will make up the difference and she will make it to the Celestial Kingdom. The next day in Sacrament meeting Elder Atkinson, an elder serving in our ward gave a talk. He talked about how most of us don't feel worthy to go to the celestial kingdom but we are usually too hard on ourselves. I looked over and saw this member crying. I know it was just what she needed. God works in powerful ways and I believe that it was definitely inspired that Elder Atkinson said that in his talk. That was just a cool experience from this week! 

Another cool thing that I learned this week from my studies was in Moses 1:39 when it talks about how God's work is the bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of men. He does this through us! Women are given the power to bring life into the world, and men who hold the priesthood have the power to help us return to our Heavenly Father through Priesthood ordinances. Each of us have vital and important roles in our Heavenly Father's plan!! 

I hope you will all set goals for the new year! In preach my gospel it says, " Goals reflect the desires of our hearts and our vision of what we can accomplish. Through goals and plans, our hopes are turned into action. Goal setting and planning are acts of faith."

Pics: Two of the kids in the family we are teaching english

-We did service and had dinner at one of the elders investigators house and they had a tigger costume. SIster Gatten loves Tigger so she had to put it on haha!!