January 11th Email

Hello everyone!

This week has been such a blessing! Our investigators Fredi and Itzel FINALLY made it to church! The ward just scooped them up and loved them, and I am so grateful. Itzel loved it, and Fredi volunteered to help the Elders Quorum shovel snow after church. Fredi also asked for his own Gospel Principles manual and wanted to go to play basketball with the ward members on saturdays. I'm so happy! One of the best things I have learned on my mission is how I want to be when I go home. I want to be the person who will give people rides to church and help missionaries be a little less stressed out when sunday rolls around!

So the Missionary department has been doing this big push recently. Missionaries are to spend one hour each week on Mormon.org. We are to get familiar with it and encourage members to become familiar with it so that they can help lead others to it. ALSO, we are supposed to invite everyone to create a profile onmormon.org! I don't know if any of you have been on it recently, but it's amazing! It's so cool. people from all over have created profiles and just share their testimonies and answer FAQs about the church. It's neat. SO.... Of course, I am going to challenge you all to create one! If you have a facebook, you can certainly create a profile on mormon.org! And... for any of you who are not members of the church, I encourage you to go on mormon.org and learn more about it. It answers all sorts of questions, and you can see that we truly are just like everyone else, but we have something that brings us more joy than I can describe.

Each visitors center has a director. The Mormon Trail Center director is Elder Hoyt Brewster. He and his wife are amazing! I love them so much. I get to see them every time I work at the TC, and every saturday we have trainings by our TC trainers and by Elder Brewster. He's a genius. He's been a mission president in Holland, and an MTC president in Australia. He also has written 12 books. I love to just sit in his office and ask him all sorts of questions. He's great. I know he loves us all too. Anyway, He and sister Brewster are at the end of their mission, so this week we will be getting a new director, Elder Watson. We are excited, but of course we will miss Elder Brewster so much!

Sister Stanger have been on many adventures, but we're pretty sure that our fun companionship is coming to an end. We have been together far too long. When it comes to a point where you go tracting in an apartment complex, and start doing the moonwalk between doors, you know it's time to switch companions. Quiet dignity has never been our strong point...

It snowed ALL day yesterday and ALL night before that. It hasn't snowed this much yet. Our cars were grounded, but thankfully we were in the TC yesterday. I did eventually have to drive home, and it was scary, but there were no casualties involved in the journey. If there is one thing I've learned on my mission, it's that I will not be living in the snow when i have a family of my own! It's not my favorite! However, it is pretty to look at!

I love you all, keep me posted, write me letters!

Sister Bonelli