Monday, November 28, 2011

Sunday November 27, 2011


Hey everyone!

This week was SOOOO busy! we had to organize and get the baptism all planned and prepared for while still trying to maintain the quota of twenty lessons a week and fasting and praying for our other investigator stephen, but i'll talk more about that in a minute!

Anne's baptism was fabulous! I'll send a program your way! Sister Cuff and Sister Pelletier two sisters in the ward that know Anne well gave the talks and me and sister Milburn sang "learn of me" by Janice Kapp Perry! Everyone said it was beautiful. The water was warm and a part
of me wishes they would hold her under longer because it just goes by too fast for all the work we do! haha about 60 members of the ward came and we had lots of treats and goodies to eat. We decided to continue my tradition of getting those who attended to write their testimonies on index cards for Anne so that we could put a book together of pictures and testimonies. We also got her ordered a quad of scriptures with her name on it ! i know she loved it! Anne also
invited her "boyfriend" Neil, who's 84!!! haha he's so cute, and i really want to start teaching him this week too we'll see!
we also taught Stephen this week and had a really intense lesson on the second half of the plan of salvation. he has so many questions and the language barrier is hard! ..... well we prayed that night and the next morning we got a call from him saying he wants to come to church and come to all three hours to experience the whole thing! i was so happy! he came and every meeting went sooooo well! he participated in Sunday school and everyone came up to him and was so friendly :D i can't wait to see what he really thought at our lesson this week.

Well that's really all the excitement this week! I'm really loving
sister Milburn, we get along great and she's so excited for missionary
work.

love you all! and miss you a lot..... especially this time of year! :D

love sister kara wotherspoon

Saturday, November 26, 2011


Church Building in LaCombe, AB

Kara & Sister Milburn-Day 1!!!

Kara with Senior Missionaries from Stettler AB

Hey Everyone!

Wow it's been an INTENSE week! so much going on, so much to write about! here it goes...

As you all know I am staying in Lacombe here and training a new missionary! Her name is sister Milburn and she's from Bonnie Lake Washington, just outside Seattle! It's so crazy how we grew up only a couple hours away from each other, had the same temple growing up, we're the same age and she went to BYU too. she's really nice and sooooo excited to do missionary work! i just love her! she's so fun and likes to talk! the members are just loving her and everyone is being so nice and loving to me. I just feel the missionary work booming!

So Wednesday we woke up early at 5:30 and drove into Edmonton. We had great weather and went to the riverbend stake centre where the Edmonton temple is under construction for the trainer meeting. It was great and I picked up sister Milburn! the sisters then went out for lunch at red robin for sister Thomas who was the only sister going home. I just had a feeling we should get sister Milburn a winter jacket and boots instead of waiting till pday and president agreed and thankgoodness we did! the NEXT day we had a huge snow fall and it got down to -26 during the days this week. I was so nervous to drive but took it slow and we are still in one piece! We went to dinner at the stake president's house that night and invited Anne with us to dinner and then went to the Addiction Recovery meeting with her. Anne is doing fabulous! she's gone 8 days without smoking and her Baptism is a go for this Sunday i'm SOOOOOOo excited!!!!

Thursday we found out that our district has been changed so we are meeting only every two weeks with the senior couple in Stettler and a companionship from red deer. so we didn't have district meeting but we taught anne, some member lessons really trying to get more referrals and went to the farmers market in lacombe. they had a huge Santa Claus parade in the snow and then a moonlight midnight shopping day where all the shops were open till late and the farmers market was at the convention centre. we went around talking to people and i hope something comes out of the contacts we made! we also did a little tracting and found a guy who wants us to come back! I'll keep you updated!

Friday was our planning and we also met with our investigator Stephen the french speaking guy from Quebec. i found out he's twenty six and he read from the book of Mormon. We had sister cuff come because she served her mission in France and the spirit was so strong as sister milbu
rn
asked him to be baptized! he said it was a big question but that he would continue to pray to know if the book of Mormon was true ! we are really excited for him.

This weekend was stake conference and we had a visiting general authority of the first quorum of the seventy come elder Johnson? he was GREAT! and Anne loved it! we also heard from the temple president and our mission president. the spirit was so strong. The general authority recounted a story about his daughter saying that she had bought her daughters some beautiful jewelery boxes for Christmas and a smaller one for their cousin. when she showed the little girls the small one they just started balling their eyes out because they wanted it so bad. he related it to how our heavenly father has greater things then we could even imagine waiting for us! i loved it.

Emails were changed to today because we volunteered at the festival of trees in red deer and set up garland and decorated trees! it was intense! and so fun. really got me into the Christmas spirit!

well this is all for now. I'm glad you are all doing well and hope to hear from you really soon.

lots of love!

sister Wotherspoon

Sis, Randall, Kara, Bro & Sis Cuff

Tyler Wotherspoon & Kara @ Red Deer


Monday, November 21, 2011

Hello my family!

This week has just flown by! Last pday we were having issues with getting mail but of course you can't stop sister wotherspoon.... so we got a member to drive us into red deer and get our mail and i wrote lots of letters which was wonderful. i knew this pday would be busy with transfer news so i'm trying to be prepared. We had a great teaching week we made our 20 lesson goal by teaching 21 lessons even though we only have one investigator. Unfortunately Anne is still smoking and hasn't been able to quite. The devil is working really hard on her through her former church and through her family, lots of drama, so we met with her on Sunday and she told us all about it. it's exhausting..... as much as i love people i can't do everything for them! so i prayed about it... and as i was pondering the thought about having her go talk to a counselor with family services came so I called the bishop and she went to see him that night for a referral. She has been through so much abuse and drama i think it would help her best if she could talk to professional and get the skills she needs to help her over come and deal with her family so the quality of her life can actually change! i love ann so we'll keep working with her and keep helping her prepare for baptism!

Friday night i had a call from the new high councilor in the stake over missionary work that he was going to be speaking in our ward and wanted me to be his speaking partner. He told me to talk on the conference talk by president monson to the priesthood on standing alone. It was amazing! i learned so much and i gave a great talk on how in the world today moral decisions and dilemmas are seen as personal and different for each individual but we know differently. God has always and continues to reveal his laws and what is right and wrong. we are always to stand as witnesses of him. i tied it in to our role as missionaries to invite people to come to know truth and have strong testimonies in the savior and also to be baptized and make the covenant to stand up for God at all times, in all things and in all places. Something i loved is i recited doctrine and covenants 4 verse 2 that says "o ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart might mind and strength that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day". i then asked the question "Brothers and Sisters, can we stand blameless before God at the last day if we are not willing to stand for him in this latter days?". it was my first talk on my mission and i learned a lot! :D One of the women in the congregation came to me and said she had came up with a nickname for me, she calls me "nephi-a" haha she's funny.

Wednesday we were able to take Anne to the Addiction Recovery Program in REd Deer and it's aamzing! the spirit was so strong and i just loved being there and sharing and learning from others. I honestly felt the strength of the spirit similar to the spirit i feel in the temple. When i asked the stake president why that was he said ti's the spirit of the atonement at work. so cool. if you ever have a chance to go , please do it will change your life! It's open to all members and non members and is great for any changes you want to make in your life.

Well not too much else exciting! O ya... transfer news! I will be staying in Lacombe and training a new missionary! i guess the lord really trusts me with his fresh and ready servants! I'm excited for a change and i know sister randall is excited to go to my first area up in the north end of Edmonton. She'll do great. We've come to be good friends.

love and miss you all so much, thank you for all your support i love hearing from you!

sister wotherspoon