time is even weirder without seasons...

"hola todos!" (-martha sharp, mormon battalion)

welp. mostly i cant believe it's the end of october. it still feels like august down here.

GEORGE is INCREDIBLE. he is going to be the best member of the church ever! he is still progressing very well. this week we had a lesson at the harrell's, our ward mission leader's house. we watched "joseph smith, prophet of the restoration" with him. that movie is a miracle worker, let me tell ya. he was so appreciative that we showed it to him, things made much more sense to him and it really touched his heart as well. (humankind... i swear that movies are the only thing left that really get people's attention. :P good thing heavenly father can use technology too!) the spirit was strong. during the closing prayer, which he offered, he said, "i do believe that this is christ's true church." :D GEORGE HAS A TESTIMONY! and then, the next day, the harrells brought him down to the mormon battalion and we got to give him a tour! he loved it. he kept saying, "i had no idea that the mormon church had such a rich history." and THEN, they took him to the temple grounds! he had a night full of the spirit and he just really enjoyed himself. the next day at church, he brought us a HUGE flower arrangement to say thank you!! it was SO sweet. he brought one for the harrells as well! (i don't know if i told you, but any time we have a lesson at a member's house and they provide treats or whatever, he sends them a thank you card. and he remembers the name of every single person he meets.) i was going to take a picture of it to show you, but i forgot. :( but i will send one with us and the harrells and him. i am so excited for george! last hurdle to overcome is coffee... we're teaching him the word of wisdom tonight. pray that his testimony is strong enough that he will be willing to give it up!

something else really awesome happened this week. we received a referral from mormon.org... usually those don't turn out very solid. but we always contact them anyway. we showed up at this guy's house--his name is ryan--and he invited us right in. that was the first shock. we sat down and started talking... and there were a couple of words he and his wife used that made me wonder how much they'd been around the church... like "ward" and "bishop." it didn't take long before we figured out that they were actually already members. i was kinda disappointed at first--i thought this was going to be a really solid investigator! haha. but then they told us what brought about the referral, and it's super cool... ryan is a convert, but he converted with his older brothers when he was like ten, so he never really gained a solid testimony. alyssa is a life time member. after they got married (they were never sealed), they went totally inactive. they've been inactive for about 10 years now. however... they also have two little girls. (kendall, the 6 month old, is SO. STINKING. CUTE. i get really distracted by her when we try to teach them. :P) and lately they've been thinking about what will be best for their family... so ryan put his own name in the referral system to request a missionary visit! this a change stemming directly from their own desire. we don't even have their records on our ward list, so we never would have contacted them. they asked us to teach them discussions... they really want help to get going in the right direction. HOW COOL IS THAT?? all day, every day, we ask people to change... we plead with them to make changes in their lives so they will be blessed. and here are two sweet people who want to gain a real testimony all on their own so their family can be happy! man. so amazing. we are so excited to help them back to the fold. :)

there's another man named bruce who is less active--can't remember if i've written about him before--that we're also teaching. when we showed up at his door, his first reaction was, "man, you guys just keep finding me!" but he warmed up to us after a while and told us we could come back. "when the boys come, i send them away," he said. "but i can talk to girls." :) bruce just needed sisters. so cool to know and feel that i am NEEDED. and that i could be an instrument in the lord's hands specifically for bruce. so we've taught him 3 or 4 times now... and guess what? :) this sunday, bruce CAME TO CHURCH for the first time in 50 YEARS. :) :) :) heavenly father was definitely smiling down on that one. (also, bruce needed some help putting up his brand new ping pong table, which i gladly agreed to... :) he he. that was fun.)

i had an awesome "i can't believe i'm really a missionary" moment this week, too. last week we stopped a guy named randy on the street and talked to him for a minute... he said we could come back, but we weren't sure how interested he really was. he was really nice though, so we gave it a shot. on sunday night, we went back to his apartment, and he had TONS of questions, as did his roommate. they were truly curious though, and respectful--they weren't like "trying to prove you wrong" questions. suddenly, as i was just sitting there, it hit me how cool this was: here i was, sitting in a COMPLETE stranger's HOME, having a religious discussion and sharing my testimony with two men who had no idea who we were, but who let us into their house simply because we stopped them on the street and had the spirit in our countenances. THAT is the power and authority of my calling. THAT is why it's so cool to be a missionary. THAT is why i love what i do. and after i leave, i will never be able to do anything like that again. :( i'm really, really sad about that. i will miss those experiences with all my heart. but holy smokes, i am so grateful that i'm here! :) :) randy and ramon did not decide that they wanted to keep learning. but they said they would read the book of mormon we left with them, and i know our visit was a critical part of their eventual conversion. i have no doubt they will both find the truth someday. how amazing to see their journey from heavenly father's eyes. and all because we said hello and asked if we could pet his dogs. :) I LOVE THIS WORK.

so things are going well. we have some other investigators too that have a lot of potential. we're working on them right now, i'll let you know how they progress. :)

i love you! so much! :) thanks for all your love, prayers, and support.

with love,

sister madsen

i can't really remember what happened this week... i'm thinking about paris...

October 15 ,2013

hi everyone!

i don't have much to write about this week. mostly because i just got my brother's video that he is going to PARIS FRANCE ON HIS MISSION and i can't really focus on anything else. :) but just for quick updates:

1. tomorrow is the start of another transfer. (i keep trying to avoid talking about how it's my last. i'm in denial.) we found out this morning that SISTER BROWN AND I GET TO STAY TOGETHER! :D that will be four transfers for us! that's the longest i've ever been with a companion... that will mean SIX MONTHS together! a third of my mission! i'm really grateful. i love sister brown. she is my best friend and i wouldn't want to finish out my mission with anyone else.

2. george is doing well! he is sensing a lot of peace and understanding come in to his life. he believes that the book of mormon is true and that joseph smith was a prophet... we're just now getting to teach him about the commandments, which shouldn't be a problem for him. the only thing now is that he needs a witness that this is god's ONLY true church on the earth. but i have no doubt it will come. it is so gratifying to watch him progress in the gospel! what a blessing to be a part of this sweet, humble man's conversion. (if all goes well, he could get baptized before i leave! :) hope so.) the ward is doing great at fellowshipping him... he feels very welcome, and they all love him. MEMBERS PLAY SUCH A CRITICAL ROLE IN BRINGING OTHERS INTO THE GOSPEL.

3. funny story: we got a random text message yesterday from an unknown number. it was a man named cliff. he told us his friend john referred him to us because we do bible study. the kicker is, we have no idea who either of those people are! but he wants to meet up! so we might have this random new investigator who appeared literally out of nowhere... its an exciting mystery. we're gonna meet up with him tomorrow. :) (don't worry, we'll bring a responsible adult to make sure he's not a creeper. ha.)

4. we had a rainy day last week! probably the only rain i'll see til i leave. but it POURED. it reminded me of home, and it was so fun being out on the streets with out umbrella! and cool how it happened... we didn't realize it was going to rain, and we weren't prepared. so what did we do? we called the closest person we knew and asked to borrow their umbrella. that happened to be our member louesa, whose non-member husband we are currently teaching... he wasn't there when we showed up, and it was the perfect opportunity for louesa to tell us about some of his concerns so that we knew how to teach him better. :) revelation comes in a multitude of different ways. that was definitely needed revelation--and all because of the rain! :) when we taught him again yesterday, we could tell he was much more comfortable. heavenly father works in the coolest ways.

that's all for now! CONGRATULATIONS EASTON! :) best. news. ever. and it makes me SO HAPPY!

i love you! stay strong and smile and love your life! cause i do!

love,

sister madsen

welp. life is full of surprises. :)

October 8, 2013

oh hey.

so. last week i wrote some good news about baltasar and some bad news about george. welp... surprise! now it's the opposite. :) haha. baltasar decided he doesn't want to learn after all, which is a bummer... but he's still really young and he's got a lot to figure out about life, so i'm sure he'll get there someday. plus, his great grandma, who is 94 years old (but thinks she's 91) stood up randomly in the middle of conference and said that she wants to be baptized! haha. she decided she wants to be a mormon like the rest of her family now. she has no idea really what it's all about... she can barely hear or see. but somehow we're going to try to teach her... president says as long as she can answer the interview questions, she can be baptized. :) so that should be interesting. we're just gonna get that whole family into heaven one at a time!

and george... man. i wasn't very hopeful when george randomly told us there was stuff happening at work and he would call when it was over. but guess what? he actually did. and although i feel really sad for him because he ended up losing his job, i know that's what needed to happen in his life right now because that's what has been taking him away from learning about the gospel. hopefully he'll be able to find a job elsewhere soon. so we taught him twice this week! the second lesson was on the plan of salvation... he told us he hasn't really thought much about life after death because it scares him. so when we showed him the plan of salvation outline... he said, "wow. that was really... moving." he was totally feeling the spirit and he didn't know how else to describe it. and he's finally been reading the book of mormon. and last but not least, he watched both sessions of general conference at bishop's house with us on sunday! he's really putting in the effort. :) and all he needs now is to recognize the holy ghost telling him that this is god's true church. it's often difficult to help people recognize their answers, when to me, they're clear as daylight! but he'll get it soon.

and speaking of conference... wasn't it FABULOUS?? :) i loved it. my favorite talks were elder soares's on meekness--that was totally an answer to my prayer--elder ballard's of course, elder uchtdorf's (i have half a mind to just print 50 copies of that talk and drop it off at the houses of our less actives).... well. i had a lot of favorites. i can't name them all. but suffice it to say that conference is the BEST and i can't believe it's passed already. luckily i get 60 some-odd more years of conference--and twice a year at that! :) i hope you all took good notes and got answers to your prayers. GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS. i have a testimony of that. and when your answer comes directly from his holy servants... there's nothing more powerful.

that's all i have time for today. everything else is going great, life is just fabulous. this might be the last week i have with sister brown! sad. (we are planning to write to president to make him think we are still having troubles and so we still need time to sort through them and learn from each other... :P ha. jk.)

anyway, sorry it's a short one. but i love you all and happy october!

love,

sister madsen

All Is Well In Zion :)

October 1, 2013 

hey hey.

so. i'm just gonna come out and say it. we had a pretty stinky week this week. but guess what? all is well in zion. :) why? because the lord is in control. and i have faith in him.

george left a message on our phone saying something came up at work and to please be patient while he figures it out--until then, he can't investigate the church anymore. he gave us no idea how long it would take... he just said to wait for his call. and christine... man. after our miracle with her last week, i thought she'd be good to go... but she, too, has stopped responding to our calls/texts--again. so i've been praying for a second round of miracles with her, but nothing's happened yet. even if nothing does, i'm comforted in the knowledge that she is not lost for good. i know she'll join the church eventually, and that will be a very happy day. :)

so that left us with... well, no investigators to teach. :P (we have a few others that are kind of wishy-washy here and there... nothing solid.) and it seemed like everything just kept falling through! our plans to go visit less actives, our back-up plans, even... we did a lot of running around and not much teaching. but for some odd reason, i still feel happy. :) i guess i'm getting better (a little late, i know :P) at looking at the bigger picture.... the grander scheme. for example: our stake president has really been making a push for the members to do missionary work by inviting people into their homes. not even to teach them the gospel--just to have them THERE, in a place where they feel the spirit and the love of god. that's the easiest piece of cake missionary work anyone can do! you don't even have to talk about the church! just have a party at your house and invite less actives or nonmembers. :) so that's been catching a little... our relief society president is really stepping up. and our ward mission leader. and once the MEMBERS are doing the work... heck, we won't HAVE any dead weeks. that may not happen in the next two months i have left... but like i said, in the grander scheme, it's going to be awesome! :)

another miracle of the week was baltasar morrison. :) he is the 18 year old son of our recent convert family, the mendiolas. he's the only one in their family that didn't get baptized with them. in fact, he didn't even take the lessons--he didn't really want anything to do with the church. well, his family have been praying their hearts out for him, of course, and recently he had a run-in with the law... so heavenly father has been softening his heart. :) he agreed to meet with us on sunday! we couldn't believe our ears. so we went over and taught him... once we established that we weren't there "just to make him one of our followers," he warmed up to the idea of learning. he understands about free agency and that no one can make him do anything... he also understands that man has highly corrupted the doctrines of spirituality, and he doesn't know what to believe because of it. (this is everything he's been thinking about on his own, btw--not anything we explained to him.) so it will be SO COOL to explain that yes, man HAS corrupted the truth--BUT IT HAS BEEN RESTORED TO ITS FULLEST, PERFECT FORM, and he can KNOW it. :) :) :) (we didn't really have time to get to that part--his dad talks a lot. ha.) so we're excited. please pray for baltasar!

oh!! i also wanted to share something from a couple weeks ago that i totally forgot! (or maybe i did share it...? haha i dunno. you might be getting this twice.) when i went on exchanges with sister lehmitz, she shared this with me during study. it was EXACTLY what i needed at the time. and i just think it's a powerful concept. we've been talking/sharing a lot about god's love with people lately... in fact, sister brown and i both bore our testimonies about it on sunday. anyway, here it is:

bible dictionary under "fear": "...fear is spoken of as something unworthy of a child of God, something that “perfect love casteth out” (1 Jn. 4:18). The first effect of Adam’s sin was that he was afraid (Gen. 3:10). Sin destroys that feeling of confidence God’s child should feel in a loving Father and produces instead a feeling of shame and guilt. Ever since the Fall God has been teaching men not to fear, but with penitence to ask forgiveness in full confidence of receiving it."

i LOVE that. and i have been learning this lesson SO MUCH on my mission. i hope it gives you as much encouragement as it did for me. :)

i love you all SO MUCH! :) hope you are doing great. the gospel is true and its mind-blowing! KEEP LIVING IT. (and remember that to live it is to share it. :) )

love love love

sister madsen

christine at church and george with a date :)

hey fam,

hope you're all having an awesome week and a fabulous september. :) i'm missing the changing of leaves around here! i remember writing about that last year... don't worry mom, i still have the fake leaves you sent me, i'm going to break them out soon.

we had another great week this week! christine and george are progressing really well. george goes out of town for work a lot, though, so it's hard to keep him steady... but he was finally back in town yesterday and sister brown and another member (we were on splits) met with him last night. they said the lesson went really well and he accepted to work toward baptism at the end of november! :) you know, it's pretty crazy how sometimes, one companion's strengths are needed more than the other's. sister brown is more bold than i am, and she does even bolder things when i'm not around. ;) but i know that's how it was supposed to happen!

in the meantime, i had a great lesson with a less active family in our ward. i just want to say that often the people you least expect to change can really surprise you! this was the second lesson we had with them... the first lesson was pretty... difficult. there were 4 kids under the age of 5 who were pretty distracting... the chargers game was on, too. (don't worry, i only peeked at the screen twice. :P) so we weren't sure, when we walked away, how much they got out of it. but i was happily surprised when i returned last night and found out that both of the sisters had actually read in the book of mormon! our visit really did have an impact... and these girls, who are both single moms and who haven't been active for years, ACTED on what they felt. :) what a humbling experience!

christine came to church for the first time this sunday, too! she enjoyed it, and she really took something away from it... the very first talk was about searching for answers through the scriptures and the holy ghost! it was perfect for her. she also has a goal set for baptism. :) and after church she told us she had read 8 chapters of the book of mormon the night before! we are so excited for her. please pray for both george and christine, that they can continue to be strong and overcome any obstacles placed in their path to receiving the gospel.

we did a really unique finding activity yesterday... he he. :) we took our ward mission leader's puppy to the dog park! (we didn't really think about asking permission... we realized after we got in the car with her that our fleet coordinator might not approve of a canine in a mission car. oops.) poor abby actually hated the park... haha. she's not a social dog AT ALL. she loves humans, though. :) anyway, we got to have some great conversations with the people there... they're all really friendly with each other, and were even friendly with us--because we had a dog with us, of course. :) but now that we know the ropes a little better we'll probably try it again and see if we can turn the conversations into added investigators! (oh, and in case you were wondering, EVERYONE in san diego has a dog. it's NUTS.)

last but not least, I went on an exchange with a sister at the battalion named sister lehmitz this week. she has only been out about 3 months... and i can't even tell you how great she is. she has the PUREST heart of any missionary i've ever met. she serves strictly out of love for her savior and the people she teaches. she is the kindest, sweetest, humblest sister i've ever served around, and we had some powerful lessons that day. and it made me want to be a lot more like her. i love how heavenly father places other people in our lives at just the right time to motivate us to be better and change our weaknesses into strengths.

that's all for today! keep up the good work in your own lives and in the lives of others! i love you!

love,

sister madsen

i'm really getting bad at this... :P sorry!

hey all,

so... i'm struggling to write good emails lately! haha. i feel like i've been out for so long that it's just normal life to me now and so... writing about normal life doesn't seem as exciting. :P i'm trying to think of good things from the week to write about...

first of all, i got to go through the temple with LILY last week! :D it was soooo cool. we got to the temple and changed, and then when we walked to the staircase that leads up to the session, there were a couple people from the black mountain branch that were there waiting for her to finish initiatories. so we waited with them. when she walked out with nicole, her escort, there was a group of 5 or 6 of us there to greet her in her white dress... ah! she looked unbelievable... glowing from the inside out. she had kind of an apprehensive look on her face at first--not in a "what am i doing here?" kind of way, but just in a soaking-it-all-in kind of way... and then she turned to nicole and whispered, "am i allowed to hug them?" :) she's so cute. nicole nodded and lily came straight over to me and gave me a HUGE hug!! oh my goodness... how special that was. and then we went to the session and to the celestial room... i wondered what was going through her head, of course--being a missionary you're ALWAYS worried about how your investigator/convert is receiving new information :P--but she was just smiling like nobody's business and saying, "that was amazing." :) ah! this will always be one of the most special memories of my entire mission. i am SO GRATEFUL for LILY!! she is one of heavenly father's choicest daughters. i can't believe it's been a year since she was baptized! and now she's the ward mission co-chair. oh--and engaged to be sealed for time and all eternity. :) :) THAT is what missionary work is all about! (take note, family... i WILL be heading back for her wedding in april... so in case you want to plan a vacation in advance or somethin... ;) )

let's see, let's see... other good things that happened this week... most other things pale in comparison to that. :P george went out of town, so we didn't get to teach him this week... and christine had jaw surgery, so we didn't get to teach her either... we will tonight though. the mormon battalion is doing good, just way slow now... when school starts it goes dead for a couple of weeks. :P but then fall breaks/holiday season it picks back up a little. oh! i had a really cool conversation with a kid from germany who is agnostic... i could tell by his reactions during the tour that he kind of thought the whole "believing in god" thing was a joke. he was cool enough, though, that i could be pretty blunt-but-still-friendly. :) i looked him straight in the eye, and i promised him that god would TRULY manifest himself to him if he sincerely prayed and asked. the spirit was definitely in my words, because his little smirk fell off his face... he knew and felt that i meant what i said, and he humbly nodded. i challenged him to pray that night, and he said that he would. i don't know if he ever did, but i know that was a solid seed planted.

one more sweet story: i went on splits with sarah mendiola, my recent convert, on saturday. we were just doing some contacting and went to a former investigator's house... we were halfway up his walkway when all the sudden his neighbor was waving excitedly at us. that's really abnormal for random strangers to be excited to see missionaries. usually they run in their house, shut all the screens, lock all the doors, close all the blinds, board up the windows, and hibernate for 42 hours until they're sure we're gone. :P so i wasn't surprised when sarah suddenly shouts, "christie??" and runs over and gives this lady a huge hug. turns out she was her co worker... they live 2 miles away from each other and never knew it. i also doubt that christie knew that sarah is now a mormon. ;) so we get talking, and guess what?? just the DAY before, there were two sister missionaries that were in the doctor's office where christie works... they had a long conversation with her and told her to come visit them at the mormon battalion, which she agreed to. (yes, they were sisters i work with!) isn't that crazy?? first at her work, and then a day later at her home! and this was sarah's first time on splits! NOT A COINCIDENCE. heavenly father has PERFECT placement. :) this also happens to be a hard time in christie's life... she's going through a divorce. so it's even more obvious that heavenly father is trying to reach her... hopefully she'll pick up on these signs!! she and sarah are going to plan a day to come visit us and we'll go from there. :)

okay. i think that's sufficient. :) THE GOSPEL IS TRUE! i refuse to believe i only have 11 weeks left to share it. :( it's too good to stop!!

i love you all (that is, if there's even multiple people reading this. ha.)! :)

love love love

sister madsen

p.s. san diego has these crazy weird spider seasons... we found this one walking back to our car the other night. they're everywhere! yuck. :P (you should see sister brown freak out... haha. i thought i was bad.)

miracles still happen :)

hey howdy hey,

we got transfer calls this morning. sister brown and i are staying together in mira mesa! no big changes. :) we are excited to be together still. she is seriously my best friend! we've gone through so much together (including a DEAD area) and our relationship is so strong because of it.

we had SUCH a great week this week! :) we finally saw some changes in the area... we had two investigators at church after having 6 weeks in a row of zeroes! that was a miracle and a half. :) we are especially excited about 2 of our 4 new investigators that we added this week! they seem solid-- the first is george, the second is christine. we met george during our blitz a couple weeks back. he was a former investigator, and odds are when you show up at a former investigator's door, they don't really want you back. but for some reason unbeknownst to us, george said we could come back! but just to give him a call first. he wasn't really willing to talk right then though, so we didn't know how sincere he was being... but when we called him, he set up an appointment, and kept it. :) during that appointment, we found out that he has a long history of involvement in different christian religions, and lately there had been a couple things happening with the churches he had been attending that made him second-guess if he should be there... and then we showed up at his door! he said he took that as a sign from god that it was time to move on and try something different, and hence, he wanted to listen to what we had to offer. :) SO FASCINATING how people are prepared at different times! the last time missionaries taught him, he didn't want it... and now, through a series of events, god has prepared his heart and placed missionaries in his path again. :) george is so, so, so nice. he is filipeno, very soft-spoken, in his late 40's and never married. he's also a navy seal doctor, so that's pretty awesome. :)

christine is also amazing. she has been renting a room from one of our members for quite a while, and she too, has slowly been prepared. she is an excellent cook--went to culinary school and everything--so she's fed us dinner twice before, but we still didn't have the opportunity to really teach her/ask her if she wanted to learn. however, now that we look back on it, we know that was because christine is one of those people who needed to build a relationship with us first before she would listen/trust us. finally we went back this sunday to visit, and we just straight out told her how much we loved her and that we felt prompted that we needed to give her the lessons. for some reason, we were so nervous! it's interesting--we talk to random strangers on the street everyday and ask them if they want to learn, but we felt so much more nervous asking someone who was already our friend! i think it's because we fear rejection more so from people who REALLY have potential. and christine really has potential. "this house is different," she said. "i've been to plenty of other homes where people claim to be christian, and this house just has a sense of peace... and i really think it must be your religion." :) ah! we're so excited.

fun things:

1. we had a ward luau this week that was a HUGE turnout! :) lots of less-actives and nonmembers. and great food. :)

2. we went pedaling around coronado island last week for p-day! it was so beautiful, and SO FUN! i'm sending pictures. :) YES, this is where i LIVE!! :D

3. i'm going through the temple tonight with LILY! my convert from a year ago!! :D aaahhhh!!! so proud of her. and so honored that i get to go and be a part of her endowment. what a special thing!

TWO MORE TRANSFERS. that's 12 weeks! for some reason, 12 weeks sounds like a lot less than 3 months. i dropped sister mendez (one of my lovely battalion sisters) off at the airport today to fly home... and it totally weirded me out to be there! GAH! don't make me leave!!! i SWEAR sister madsen will be my name for life!

i love you MUCHO. mucho mucho. :)

love,

sister madsen