Valentine Day Gift

Click here to read Sis. Magnusson's Valentine Day message

that I posted on our family blog.  

It Snowed!

 Sooooooooo, it has snowed!

me and sis newman...

 sis newman lookin' cute and me doing my floating free-throw stance :)

We were doing our weekly planning the church on Thursday and..... 

 ....bam! It was white by noon!

 remember this same spot like 3 weeks ago....

i love the snow! um, not really.....

'ello!

Sooooooooooo, it has snowed! It was really cold early this week. Then on Wednesday it snowed a little bit, not enough to stick. Then we were weekly planning the church on Thursday and bam! It was white by noon! This is very unusual for Portland. Last time there was a snow storm was 2009. Portland and the surrounding cities only have like 3 snow plows. The whole city literally shut down Thursday. School was let out early, people were leaving work early. It was crazy. We went to a lesson Thursday afternoon and it took us like 40 minutes to drive the 2 miles home. So many cars and everyone was driving so slowly. It was also scary because our car started sliding on a turn. Needless to say we having been allowed to drive till now. All the roads, all the sidewalks, all the parking lots, are slush. Sunday it was so icy. We had rain the night before so it froze everything. Even church was canceled because the roads were so bad. Our parking area in our apartment complex was literally pure ice. I could have ice skated on it. We have been walking around some but a lot has just been staying inside. It has given me cabin fever to the max. We have been inputting our area book into our iPads. Speaking of which......

So we had our iPad meeting on Tuesday and we got 'em. Everything is now on it. We have to put our whole area book in there. It is long and tedious process. It gives me a headache after a while. We have no more planners either, because they are now on our iPads. It's taken some getting use to. I miss our planners. We have till transfers (the 24th...happy bday sam) to get it all transferred over. Sis. Newman and I can input different information and the sync them and everything I imputed gets put on hers and vice verse. When we get transferred to a new area we simply just download that area book on our iPads and wha-la. No more call in reports because Pres. Morby and Salt Lake can see all our lessons that we did or haven't done because its all stored on our iPads. It's kind of hard to explain without showing you. We are one out of 30 missions in the states that is doing this. There is still kinks to the system so they want us to report any changes that should be made or suggestions to make.

We had our lesson with the married couple from last week. Plan of Salvation. It went good. You could tell the wife was thinking about it. The husband is more set in his ways. They fed us dinner. That was nice. I sure hope they progress. The gospel can just help families so much! She is the one that got a blessing a few months ago cuz she is having major health problems. Her LDS friend ask her if she wanted one. (yay for refferals! they are seriously the only way to go)

The lesson with guy we tracted into got canceled. Rescheduled for tomorrow. I hope it goes well.

Well, sorry not much to report on for this week. The snow just kind of threw everything for a loop. We tried to make visits to less-actives near our house that we could walk to thinking that they would be home because  everyone was just kind of stuck inside anyway but no such luck. We shall see what this week shall bring!

Love you all! Thanks again for everybody emailing me! It's makes me happy to hear from my family and friends!

Love,

Sis. Mag

"....Stay Tuned"

we treated ourselves to a thai resturant today...

shared a dish. got some pad thai. i love pad thai.

a random picture tracting

this family is from the reedville ward...they are cool

 

had lunch with this sister from the farmington ward 

because she works right by the library

it snowed twice this year...

and this is what it looks like when it does. 

it was sister newman's first time seeing snow

Hello Everybodeeee!

It was great hearing from everyone. Always is!

This week nothing terribly exciting. We did lots of tracting because we are trying to find people to teach. It's interesting because area is pretty much the same area as Farmington.  We did find a guy that is seemed genuinely  interested. We have an appointment with him on Tuesday. Should be good.  He’s in his mid/late 30’s. Stay tuned.

We are also getting our iPads on Tuesday. We have some 3 hour meeting with president and maybe some other people. Stay tuned.

We did have a really good lesson with a family last week! The wife is having some health problems so her friend who lives out of state and is LDS, asked her if she would like a priesthood blessing. She agreed so the Elders went over a few weeks ago to do that. Anyway, we go back and introduced ourselves and we ended up talking to them for a while. Talking about their snakes, their lizards, their cat, that sort of thing. They have a boa constrictor  and some lizard thing that is native to Australia so they made a connection with Sis. Newman. I can see some progression. They offered to feed us dinner next week! Always a good sign. Stay tuned.

Sis Newman and I taught District Meeting this week. It was on "Our Purpose". We showed that clip of Elder Rasband at conference when he talked about the process of how missionaries are assigned to their specific missions. That's a good talk.

This is the video that Sis. Magnusson showed at her District Meeting and is well worth watching.  It explaines the process of how missionaries are assigned to their area of service. You can see the different areas of the world where Sis. Magnusson's family has served by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom of the post. 
 

We went to the Relief Society presidency meeting to talk about the Ward Mission Process. This ward doesn't really know how it works but between us and the elders hopefully we can see it implemented. When it is put into gear I know it can really be effective. Farmington ward did a good job with it.

 Okay folks, sorry this is a short email. Pretty slow week. But that's okay. I'm learning more and more, even when it doesn't seem like you are doing anything as a missionary, you are. Just sometimes you can't see it till later.

Love,
Sis Magnusson

It Was a "Good Week!"

This was a random sign on a  street.

This was a message from Kristine's companion to her family and friends in Australia

"Happy Australia Day all the way from America!! —"

 Hello Everybody!

Good week! We were able to go to the temple and hear an apostle! Elder Christofferson is so great! He is such a gentle man. The whole time he was talking I kept thinking how he reminded me of Bryce or Alec. (Kristine’s cousins) Kind of funny and random. Maybe because he just has some Albrecht mannerisms. He was down for a stake conference in the area. All the Oregon Portland missionaries were invited. There were a lot of us scrunched in the chapel. We were asked to be seated early so we could practice singing "As Sisters in Zion/We'll Bring the World His Truth". (always think of Bro. Miller and bell choir when I sing that song) Since I've been a missionary I can't sing with a large group of missionaries without crying! There is an unseen power felt when you hear a group of missionaries singing. It's pretty cool. (To hear the song click here and scroll down to the end of the article by Meridian Magazine and click on the arrow by the speaker.   Also, click here to read about another experience of Kristine singing that song in the MTC)

Also before the meeting, Elder Christofferson shook all of our hands. We went row by row up to greet him. President and Sis. Morby spoke and the stake president of the Sherwood stake (or Tulialitan stake....can't remember) spoke too. They all did an excellent job too. President and Sister Morby are pretty awesome. Elder Christofferson said that we all could be very successful missionaries in many different missions. But the Lord wanted us here. There was some reason that we had to be here and part of that reason was to be associated with President and Sister Morby. I believe it. He did a question and answer type deal. Some of the questions were pretty good. I like I how he truly thought about each question and took time to think about it and answer from his heart and from personal experiences. Sharing personal experiences is probably the best way to learn. He gave us some blessings too. I wrote some of them down but President Morby wrote all of them down and this was in his weekly email to us....

 "He also blessed each of you with the following:

· Ability to teach with Power

· Ability to testify with greater persuasion

· The Lord will not leave you without the words to say

· The Lord will let you know you are approved

· The Lord will bless you with angels to attend to your needs

· To go forth in His care.

· Service will bring success – rejoice in the service to the Lord"

It was all things I needed to hear. I feel so blessed that I can have these experiences!

This week in Reedville has been pretty slow. Our "investigators" (that we never met) that the elders gave us are really good at avoiding us. Each night  this week we have an appointment with somebody so hopefully they will all come through.

Yesterday as Sister Newman and I were coming out of Ward Counsel, a 20 year old girl from the Farmington Ward came up to us and said that she was looking for us.  Her dad is not a member and maybe she has some siblings that are not LDS. We've tried to work with them but things always fell through. She has twin brothers coming back from a mission next month. She said that we were the first sister missionaries she's really ever met and she wanted to meet with us because she is thinking about going on a mission. She said she was so sad when we left to go to Reedville because she really wanted us to meet with her family. She feels like she might want to go on a mission. It was really good talking to her. I felt like I had some kind of impact on her even though we never really done anything with her or her family.  I don't know kind of random story.

On Thursday our bishop calls and tells us of a sad situation. A less-active member had a baby that was born on January 9th and died January 10th. It was a real shock because the baby was completely healthy, but there was just complications at birth. She also couldn't have children so this was her miracle baby. So sad. The bishop wanted us to meet the family and participate in the funeral. We met the sister of the mother the day before the funeral. She, herself, just had a baby and her sister lives with her so that makes it hard. Their mother (the grandma) is on hospice. The funeral was at a funeral home and the family didn't really put a program together but bishop was conducting. He asked if sis Newman and I would sing. Um, sorry bishop that will not be happening but we told him we would speak. That morning in studies Sis. Newman and I put some thoughts together. I ended up speaking. It was hard. I never want to speak at a funeral again. It was really difficult that morning coming up with something  to say. I was a complete stranger to this family, speaking at their baby's funeral that lived less than 24 hours, and 99% of the attendance was non-members. I spoke for about 5 minutes.

Goodness, I didn't like doing it. But the aunt of the mother came up to me (I think she was LDS) and said she really appreciated what I said and that it was just right. Whew. Glad I didn't blow it because I was worried.

Alrighty, got to go. Thanks for all your love and support!

Love,
Sis Magnusson

First Week in New Area

oh, hey there hawaiian licence plate...haven't seen you in awhile

(Kristine lived in Hawaii for 4 years while she attended college before her mission)

we would have family home evenings with these two families every friday night from farmington ward. they took us to downtown portland a week ago.

  aspen grove! we have some members in the reedville ward living here.  

(Kristine worked at Aspen Grove family resort in Utah last winter for a few months)

this family is awesome. i really love them! they fed us a lot. 

this is the most awesome/incredible lady. she is the stake relief society prez. and so missionary minded! she is constantly having people over at her house for dinner, always thinking of people and how to introduce them to the gospel, always giving people stuff from her garden. she is so cool.

we made jewerly yesterday! 

i am wearing the necklace i made..... :) 

Hola! Happy MLK day. Hence the no email yesterday....libraries closed.

Well, first week in the new ward. It's funny because we are in a "new area" but really it's a lot of the similar sites....ie, same library, same Winco, same church building. BUT it was nice to be around different houses and a different neighborhood. I like how the houses look in Reedville ward. 

Starting in this new area is bringing flash backs of starting in Farmington... blizting the potential investigator list, contacting lots of less-actives, meetings with the ward mission leader and writing down lots of random lists of who we need to visit, what their story is, etc. BUT this time I know what I am doing! I was completely and totally loss those first few weeks in the mission field. The elders that are already in the ward gave us a few of their investigators which was nice. They have all canceled on their appointments that we have set up which is not nice. Whatevs, this what a lot of missionary work is...having appointments fall through. Agency. Sometimes it works against ya.....

We met a couple of cool people tracting. One is this 70 some year old man working in his garden  We go up to him and say hi and then he starts yacking our ear off. That was a nice reversal. Usually people don't want to talk to us when we randomly strike up conversations on whatever they are randomly doing. He is not interested in us coming back but it was really nice to talk to him. 

On Thursday we got to go to the temple! Yay! My first time going inside the Portland temple.... well we did have lunch in the cafeteria a couple of weeks ago when we had a training meeting at the stake center right next to the temple.

You can learn more about Mormon Temples and why Kristine loves the Portland Temple so much by watching this video.

You can also view the video by clicking here.

Soooooo guess what?! We get to hear Elder Christofferson on Saturday! I guess he is here to do a stake conference in the area and he invited all the Oregon Portland Missionaries to a special meeting with him. COOL! We are stoked! AND we had an iPad meeting on on February 4th! Crazy. I remember sitting in the hastening of the work broadcast and hearing that missionaries would start using iPads and for some reason I didn't think it would be me as a missionary. But it is. The Lord is hastening His work. I am seeing it right before my very eyes!

So on Sunday we went to Farmington Ward sacrament meeting even though we are no longer in that ward because a lady from Farmington that we are still working with was coming. She enjoyed being there and even went to Sunday School and Relief Society. Yay, for ward fellowshippers that have befriended her! We went over to her house yesterday to make jewelry because she makes a lot of jewelry and has a lot of beads and stuff. It was great because she said she likes having us over because it's easier for her not to have inappropriate or negative thoughts after we visit. I really like her. I would love to see her progress enough to go through the temple. It would make her life so much more happy.  I pray that she will have enough faith to continue on the path she is on.

Love you guys! The church is true!

Love,
Sis Mag

First Transfer

A sighting of Kristine from the Mission Home's webpage page.  

It looks like some sort of training is going on.

This was New Years Eve...

We were at the church building waiting for our dinner appointment.
The cultural hall was all decorated for the youth stake dance.

At the temple before a zone meeting.

We had lunch in the temple cafeteria.

This is a fun family.  She was the YW President. They are cool

This is the Farmington bishopric!  

The bishop is standing next to me....

He looks like Pa and acts like Bishop Hatch

This is an Awesome family.

They are the ones who had us for Thanksgiving.

 Powells Bookstore

This is the smallest park in Portland

It is in the middle of the intersection.

Hilarious.

 Voodoo Doughnut

This picture is dedicated to Bro. Seamons

Remember.....

Hi ya everybody!

So this week...

Thursday we had Zone Meeting. Had a training on how to teach simply. It was good. For our training we all went into the cultural hall and there is a bunch of little kids running around (like from ages 2-5) and each companionship sits down with one of the kids and we are suppose to teach them about the Atonement. Can't get more simple than teaching the Atonement to a 3 year old, that's for sure.

President Morby was there. He is so cool. I really like him. And Sis. Morby. Sis. Morby kind of reminds me of you, ma.  Anyway he had some good things to say too about humility. Afterwards he 's like, "Sis. Magnusson, Sis. Newman, I need to talk to you guys together afterward." We are like, oh no! What did we do? But he told us that we were being transferred to Reedville Ward. Reedville Ward meets in the same building and that ward is actually the ward that got several of our ward members added to it a couple of weeks ago. So with the boundary change it turns out that our apartment complex is in the Reedville Ward anyway. Sorry, if that didn't make sense. So we got transferred but, in a way it doesn't seem like it because we are living in the same place, with the same companion, meeting in the same church building, having some of the same area as before, and working with some of the same people.

The Farmington Ward isn't getting anymore sisters. So sad. They were so happy to have us because they haven't had sisters for a looooooooooooong time. I'm going to really miss some of those ward members. I wish I got more pictures with the families we got close. too. We are going to continue working with one less active lady in that ward because she is progressing and elders wouldn't be able to get in there. It was so cool.  She came to church yesterday for the first time in many, many years! She is 51. Every talk was perfect for her. She was crying through some of it too. She told Sis. Newman afterward, "I belong here."  YES! That was so great. Then after sacrament meeting, a less-active guy (in his 40's) that we were working with that is making his way back came up to us and said that he will miss us and thanked us because we were the ones that gave him the extra umph to come back to church. YAY!

We met with the bishop of the Reedville Ward and the elders that are also in that ward on Saturday to go over things (this is the first time that they are getting sisters for a few years).  It turns out that one of his sons served in the Arcadia Mission around 2001. Crazy. The bishop's wife texted him and asked if he ever served in Duarte. Haven't heard back yet but, if he did that would be completely ironic.  Because, if he did, that would mean he would be serving when pa was bishop and here I am serving in his ward when his dad is bishop. Last name of Ray. Does anyone remember an Elder Ray?

Today we had some members take us to downtown Portland. There are lots of old buildings... probably a cross between NYC and Pasadena.....ish. I don't know.  We went to Powells Bookstore, Made in Oregon Store, and Voodoo Doughnuts. Powells is the coolest bookstore ever. Goggle it. It's full of new and used books and it is HUGE. Sis. Newman wanted to find an old Book of Mormon that is blue with the Angel Moroni on it but they didn't have it. They had a lot of other Mormon books though.

Teenage boys dropped us. Bummer. One of them said he learned all he needed to know from us. Hmmm, must be nice to be 18 and know everything already. Actually we aren't to sure where the other kid stands. We gave them to the elders because we are out of that ward anyway. Maybe things will work better with the elders.

K, I gotta go. Love you guys!

-Sis. Mag

"Hello Everybody!"

Hello everybody! Thanks for all your emails and such!

This last week was a little more exciting. We started teaching a couple of teenage kids, 18 and 17 year old guys that are the friends of some members in the ward. We started teaching the 18 year old the plan of salvation at the member's house when the 17 year old just walks in to hang out with the 18 year old and the member's sons. He didn't know that we would be there. So we teach him too. He was asking some good questions and seems like he could really benefit from the gospel. His family life is not so good and I think that's why he likes hanging out at the member's house so much. The member  family is way cool. They really add a good spirit to the lesson and the parents always have good things to say that just make a lot of sense. I want to be like their family when I grow up. I also want to be like  the Stake Relief Society President in the ward.  She is absolutely amazing. So missionary minded, ALWAYS! Always inviting people over for dinner. Always giving people stuff from her garden. ALWAYS SERVING! Such a good attitude about everything even though she has trials and has been through a lot of stuff. So great.

Anyway, back to the boys. I can see the 17 year old progressing. Not so much the 18 year old. We will see. I really hope he keeps his commitments and prays! Oh my goodness he could benefit from the gospel so much! Everybody can.

New Years was pretty anti-climatic. It came and went. We played some games with some members for a little bit.

Had a few more lessons with some less-active families. So many of these people want to come back but they just don't know how. If only everybody knew how much we were loved by our Heavenly Father and it's never to late to pray or go to church or read your scriptures or change.

Next Monday is transfers. So if I don't email next monday its because Sis. Newman or I are being transferred and I will email Tuesday.

Thanks again for everybody writing! I love hearing from you guys! Keep up the great missionary work!