Happy 4th!

Happy 4th  y'all's

our hike from last week....

um, yeah

at the park for 4th of july ward picnic

the  three girls who we brought to the ward 4th breakfast....the taller ones are twins. 

we had a water balloon fight and i was like those girls only target.
 i got pretty wet. it was fun though.

we literally live right next to this place called heavenly donuts. pretty tasty. we go there kind of a lot. yeah, it's bad. we need to cut back. it's especially bad when we are exercising right outside our apartment and we can smell them

so, in honor of heavenly donuts, sis a's mom sent her this shirt. 

we were totally cracking up! greatest shirt ever!

hello there familia! 

my goodness, a lot to say, not much time to write. 

the YSA elders tracted into a lady......she is 30 with four kids so they gave her to us. she is going through so much right now.  seriously, it's trial after trial...things are really bleak right now. she said when the elders tracted her a week ago she was busy so couldn't talk to them. but they gave her a mormon.org card with their phone number on it. she said she kept feeling like she needed to call them so she did. i'll tell you what....i have probably given out hundreds of those mormon.org  cards while tracting and nobody has ever called us, but i guess sometimes people do. she said the elders showed her a couple of videos on their ipads and she felt a lot better after that. when we stopped by and she told us her situation. she says she felt better as well and feels like she has hope. she saids she is pretty open right now and is lost and by golly the gospel can help her with that! we will see how things turn out. 

it was 4th of july.....we had a 4th of july ward breakfast at the park. a lot of less actives and investigators came! we are trying to teach this lady who has has twin daughters.   we invited them to the breakfast and they came, rolling up on their bikes.  they brought a friend on a skateboard. we had a water balloon fight and i was like the only person they would get. it was pretty funny. afterwards when we were cleaning up they were like, "Can you guys come over today and play games!?" Haha, it was cute. We said we could if their mom was home. She actually wasn't home so we couldn't go over but it was cute how they really liked sister allen and I. 

President Ballard said that 4th of July was a non-proselytizing day but make it a service day and such. Okay prez! We did some visits then we helped a lady in the ward clean her closet. she was so appreciative! the lady is pretty cool.... Oh and we were allowed to be out until 11:30pm. Holy moly, there was no way I was gunna be out that late. after dinner with some members we stopped by our investigators and recent converts apartment complex and did some sparklers. i think we were home by 10:20. but man oh man, i was tired. and tired the next morning cuz we had some early morning sunday meetings we had to go to. 

this week it has been so hot. i think on tuesday it got up to 100. I WAS DYING! i was seriously so hot and we were helping someone move. i forgot about what 78 degrees feels like. it was everybody's conversation topic around town. sister a is from arizona so she was like, shezh, this is nothin' man. 

we meet president ballard and his family on wednesday with the whole mission. we were an hour late because we were helping someone, but apparently we only missed there kids playing the violin and some introductions. they have a son that just left for a mission and son that just got back from a mission that will be with them for the summer (i think) and then a  junior and  freshman boys, then two girls....maybe like 5th and 7th grade i think. sister ballard was being funny. she is loves taking pictures. so we got a lot of pictures while we were there. pres. ballard said we all just have to humor sister ballard and her picture taking fetish. pres ballard seems like he will be a great mission president. we have interviews with him this week. can you imagine interview 200 young single adults in one week. yikes.  

we had an awesome lesson with one of our investigators about temples this week. and she is SO EXCITED to go to the temple visitor's center with us on tuesday. we  are have having a YSA from the YSA ward take us. i am going to be the sister missionaries best friend when i get back from the mish. 

k, sorry i do have more that i could say but we gotta jet because we are going to go hiking with some other sisters at mt. hood. yippee!

love, 

sister magnusson 

"I'm grateful to be on this mission"

hurry, elder!  come into the picture before the self timer goes off!  

this was at a zone breakfast last week

our district

from a service project last week, weeding the berries

Hey family! 

So a lot went on this week. It started with going to transfers to say good bye to the Morbys. They left two days ago on Saturday. Crazy to think we have a new mission president now. We are doing a meet the Ballards thing on Wednesday from 10-2pm. The whole mission was there. We have gotten together as a whole mission a lot, which is pretty cool. I guess that's one of the blessings of having such a small mission. We have gathered together for Elder Christofferson, the mission Christmas party, The Dance Festival, and then this transfer meeting. 

The new Mission President and his wife, Craig and Melissa Ballard

Click here to read their biography

This is Kristine's whole mission at the Mission Christmas Party Dec. 2013

Click on the picture to see a larger view

Monday night we had dinner with a couple and it was really good. This was the second time I've eaten with them and the husband was actually pretty open during our after dinner message. We shared a message about prayer and committed them to say prayers together as a couple. They said they would....over their meals, but hey, it's a start! 

Tuesday we had a set appointment with a lady and we brought a member with us but she wasn't home. So we went to our backup, which is to see another investigator with our member. We have been meeting with this sister for a long time. She knows the church is true I'm pretty sure, but just has some things she has to work out in her mind.  Anyway, she is really close to a lot of members in Oregon City which is the town right next to Gladstone because she lived in Oregon City for like 20 some years or something and just recently moved here. She goes to Relief Society activities all the time in Oregon City. Anyway, she needs more fellowship here for her to progress. We felt like she needed to meet with the sister from our ward that was with us. They connected so well! … Anyway, that was kind of a random story.

Then after that experience, we saw  a member who is 25 and she got baptized just before I got here. She goes to the Young Single Adult ward. I really like her. She is so strong and has to do a complete lifestyle change but she is happy. She was introduced to the gospel through her boyfriend and they both started to learn about the gospel together.  She gained a testimony and was baptized. Anyway, her boyfriend still doesn't seem as excited about the gospel as she is and she is running with it but he is still lagging behind. This lesson was good because she was able to get a priesthood blessing (her first one since her confirmation) for some health problems and other things going on and it was such a sweet blessing. And she was asking about family history work! We explained a little about it and next lesson we are going to do some family history at the Family History Library! Which is where I'm actually typing this email . 

On Wednesday we had a really good lesson with an investigator.  So, most times when we have lessons with people they talk so much and we really got to work hard to jump in there and start the lesson but with this man it's kind of refreshing because he is such a typical man and he doesn't share a lot of commentary and we just get right through the lesson. But it's also hard because since he doesn't talk a lot we don't really know what he is thinking or feeling. But this lesson with brought a with us someone from the ward and they really connected! Basically because they are both big into hunting elk and stuff but hey, whatever works! 

We've had a couple lessons with our previous investigator. They were good but she recently started dating someone and he is already holding her back on things! Ahhhhh! Satan is really working hard on her because she is so prepared for the gospel right now. Goodness, it's frustrating. Her cousin went on the trek this week and she loved it! Hip-hip hooray! But we are so glad it was a good experience for her.

Alrighty, we got to get crack-a-lackin! We are gunna go on a little hike. I'm glad Sister Allen likes to hike and do stuff outside :) The church is true and I'm grateful to be on this mission in good ol' Portland, Oregon! 

Love,

Sister Magnusson 

There is a lot going on!

Sister Magnusson sent a lot of pictures and didn't have time to write a commentary about them.  So, as the editor of her blog, I have titled these pictures:  It's a Jungle Out There!  My guess is that she took these first few pictures of the beautiful Oregon wilderness on her preparation day. 

These next few pictures looks like Kristine is at a service project with other missionaries that are serving in the mission.  It looks like Sis. Magnusson made friends with a snake!   

As you read through Kristine's email, you can click onto the colored links to learn about what she is teaching the people there in Oregon.  

Hey everybody!

So today is transfers and Sister Allen and I are staying together. It's the Morbys last transfer meeting. (the mission president and his wife are going home July 1st) Everyone is invited so Sister A and I are going to go. The best part is that we have permission to drive to Lake Oswego and we don't have to rely on members for a ride to and from. Transfers always happen at the Stake Center right next to the temple in Lake Oswego. (Did you know the temple is actually in the city of Lake Oswego, not Portland?) 

A lot has gone on this week…..

We had some awesome lessons with one of our investigators this week! We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Word of Wisdom. During the gospel of Jesus Christ lesson with committed her to pray about July 26th to be baptized. She said she would. During the lesson when we were talking about the Holy Ghost, I asked what she thought the role of the Holy Ghost was and she gave like a dictionary definition, it was so awesome! She said something it was God's way of talking to us since he can't be right beside us....or something like that. And the cool part is she really has no religious background, she is just prepared. And she is plowing through the Book of Mormon which is great. So we knew she smoked and we didn't know if she knows that we don't do that. So we were like, well I guess the next lesson will be Word of Wisdom but we were both really nervous because we didn't want to all of a sudden throw stuff at her like, you can't do this, or this, since she is praying about a date. But the Word of Wisdom lesson actually went really well. She has been smoking since she was 16 (she is now 21) so this is going to be hard to quit. She also has a baby and we asked if she was able to quit while pregnant and she said she tried but couldn't. Yikes. It will be a tough one but man, if she can quit the blessings that are in store for her will be so amazing! 

So, our investigator's cousin is going on the pioneer trek that the stake is putting on this week. They leave tomorrow and come back Saturday. Sister Allen and I had a feeling she probably had no idea what a trek even was so we had a movie night at the church on Friday and watched the movie, 17 Miracles.  You can see the trailer to the movie by clicking here  Our investigator and a friend came too. 

The movie turned out really good.  The cousin was crying through it.  They all really liked Albert.  She's like, "if I have to eat flour and water for the meals, I'm not going!"  We assured her she would be wlll taken care of.  

We had another "lesson" with a past investigator.  We decided to drop him. He really has no interest in what we have to say. We were with him for an hour and he pretty much talked the WHOLE time. We barely managed to show the Because of Him video (we were planning the Plan of Salvation but no time for that and he didn't want to hear it anyway). Interesting fellow. 

On Saturday we "street" contacted down by the rivers. That was fun. I actually talked to a family that was at the river that was from Reedville. I knew because  the boy just came from a baseball game and he had a Reedville uniform on and his sister had a Century High School Band shirt on. We were able to strike up a conversation because we asked the mom to take a pic of me and Sister Allen and I asked if they were from Reedville. And I was also like, "Oh, do you know Mr. Dunlop?" Mr. Dunlop is Brother Dunlop from the Reedville Ward and he is the super good band teacher at Century High School so we were able to make that connection. And he also took the band to Hawaii last year for some parade thing they performed in and he took them to the PCC. So we had that connection too. See, it's when missionaries can have normal conversations like that with people on the "street" that is the best kind and then it's not all awkward because you aren't going up to some stranger saying, "hey, do you want to know about Jesus Christ?" Ya know, what I'm saying? That's why contacting at the river is so great because people are usually relaxed and happy down there and are more willing to make pleasant conversation. 

Okay, gotta go to transfers now! This is our last time with Pres. and Sister Morby!  

Love,

Sister Magnusson

"This was a different week fo' sho'!"

 Sup Everybody!

I was so happy to get everybody's emails! I'm so happy that Sam graduated and sisters were able to come!

And now Sam is teaching swim! That's so exciting. I remember my first week was pretty bad. I was always exhausted but you get the hang of things and then you realized it's like the best summer job ever. So you gunna put Sun-In in your hair Sam? Your hair could get very blonde like mine :) Or how it was. It's not so much blonde now. 

Well this week was a different week fo' sho'! We had Zone Conference went took up the whole day. From 8pm to 5:30. It was President and Sister Morby's last Zone Conference. So sad. They are such incredible people! Our Zone Conference was focused on the Gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, gift of holy ghost, enduring to the end). We talk about it a lot in Zone Conferences. President loves to teach about that. 2 Nephi 31 is all about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Have you guys read it as a of late? You should, it's pretty good.

We had an awesome lesson this week with someone about...The Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He is probably going to get baptized. He is going out of town for a few weeks to help his brother out....hopefully he doesn't fall out of the loop. He came to church yesterday but we didn't see him much because he was with his fellowshipper but we were able to talk to him for a little bit. He is so sincere and so in tune with the spirit. He knows a lot about the Gospel and already talks like a Mormon....like when he was explaining how he needed to get his answer and feeling promptings from the spirit, etc. 

We also had an awesome lesson with another person on the Restoration. It started out kind of scattered because there was just a lot going on at the house and her cousins were kind of being distracting so we taught up to the Joseph Smith part and watched the movie. (Editor's note:  Click on the movie link to learn more about what Sis. Magnusson is teaching.)  With talkers we have found that watching the movie works best so then we can get through it and it's a good way to feel the spirit. Plus it's super good. We asked her if she feels like Joseph Smith could be a prophet of God, she said yeah, she believes it. AWESOME! She is so solid. We just need to get her to church! She couldn't come yesterday but maybe next week. 

So there have been like 5 or so stakes in the area practicing for this Dance Festival since January and they performed this weekend at Liberty High School in Hillsboro next to my old areas. It's been a pretty big deal. Like there was no Youth Activities for a while because Dance Festival practice took it's place and they practiced on Saturdays and all this stuff. Anywho, the peeps in charged asked President if the whole mission would sing We Are As The Army of Heleman. President was pretty reluctant to take a whole proselyting day off to do this but he agreed. So Saturday morning the whole mission met up at Liberty High to do this. We were able to watch the first performance and the other two performances we waited in the Auditorium. The actual performance was in the basketball gym. Man oh man, there were a TON of kids performing. Like 1,300 I think I heard. That's nuts. It pretty much was the definition of E over G. (effort over gain) But what they had us do was the performance before ours we waited by the doors to the entrance of the gym and then after this girl on the screen started talking about the theme of the Dance Festival (which was Stand, Believe, and Shine....I think....) we come in and start singing the Army of Heleman. It was kind of a weird arrangement but we were singing with a soundtrack that already had a choir singing so that was good or else you probably wouldn't be able to hear us. Anyway, I think the audience really liked it. There was a performance at 11am, 3pm, and 7pm, and at the 3pm and 7pm performances we got some real enthusiastic applause!  After the 11am performance the head honcho guy came into the auditorium where we were waiting and said some people said we were their favorite part of the performance and he even said he was tearing up when we came out. It sure was weird watching the performance and hearing real music again.

all the sisters in the mish...sorry it's fuzzy

I think Sis. Magnusson is on the top row in the middle of the picture

chilln' like a villian in the auditorium

me and sister A with some random elders

i found the greens from the reedville ward!

the gutierrez family from farmington!

Well, I think I'm gunna go. Sorry, I feel like my emails don't even cover a portion of what I'm doing. We have seriously been so busy. We didn't even have time to weekly plan this week. Probably will do it tomorrow...maybe. It's also been kind of emotionally draining. There was this one day we were meeting with someone that we see pretty frequently that has a lot of baggage and she was just unloading on us so it made us pretty weighed down. Sometimes people just tell us everything....it's like, well maybe sister so and so you should tell that to the bishop. Then our other investigator that just got out of prison and is trying to turn his life around is having a hard time. He literally has no support except us and the bishop. He is trying so hard but it seems like society is just against him. He's 25. He is going to go to FHE with the singles ward tonight. That should be good for him. He needs good friends that will influence him to do good things. We ALL need good friends that influence us to do good things! 

Well, church the church is true and I love my family!

Love,

Sister Magnusson

Editor's note.  I was reminded of this short video when I read about the young man who just got out of prison who is turning his life around.  

You can also watch the video by clicking here

Portland is__________

.....(fill in the blank after reading this email)

 

lunch with our district

sister allen, elder cantrell, and elder walters

me and sister allen with a recent convert

we had dinner at a member's house 

and they made some really good fish and they had cute fish plates.

 

'Ello Everybody!

Thanks for all the emails! I might not have time to reply to any of them but I read them! A lot of them were pretty funny. Actually all of them were funny! A lot of happenings around here. Congratulations to Sam for graduating from Duarte High School. It was a blessed, blessed day when I graduated myself.  I am so blessed with an incredible family!

Well, Sister Allen, and a member who was baptized 2 years ago, and I went downtown today just to do something outside of Gladstone. This is my second time in downtown Portland.

 Man oh man, Portlandians are different. Portland is just an odd, odd place.

It definitely would be fun to serve down there though. But it just might be an Elders area, bummer. We went to this really good ice cream place called Salt and Straw. They have some wacky flavors, like Lavender Honey, Strawberry Balsamic w/ black pepper....yeah, those are the only ones I remember. I got the most normal one, Cinnamon Snickerdoodle. Good stuff. 

We took the MAX down, it's like their Metro. How is the Metro construction going anyway? I think it should be down around the time I get home right?  Oh,  happy 8 months to me today of being out on my mission. Next month I'll be over the hill.

This week we had a baptism!  She is 8 and a half.  She is a super bright kid, full of energy. 

We went to the temple visitor's center after the baptism 

and that was REALLY GOOD too.

So we are teaching this family....They live in this apartment complex that is like a gold mine because all the people in that complex love the sister missionaries and always talk to us. Anyway, their cousin, and her sister were suppose to move to Iowa last week. Well the cousin left on the Greyhound bus and her sister said she was staying because she lost her ID so can't go. Well, that day when she was suppose to go, we were over and she asks for a Book of Mormon and said she always wanted one but she was never home when we were around so couldn't get one. Absolutely, you can have one! We had a scheduled appointment with the cousin and then Sister Allen and I were like, hey, why don't we invite the sister (she's 20 by the way), so we do and she is like, "sure." Sweet! So we teach the Plan of Salvation at this member's house who are pretty on board with missionary work and it was awesome! The Plan of Salvation clicked with her! There is definitely a reason why she lost her ID and didn't go to Iowa. And she read the first 4 chapters of the Book of Mormon even before the lesson.

Oh and we taught someone else the Plan of Salvation as well! It was great! We asked when he knows that these things are true will he be baptized? He said that it is the direction he wants to take so yes, when he prays and finds out if it is true he will! He came to church on Sunday but me and Sister Allen didn't even see him to talk to him because he was being shepherded around with his ward fellowshipper, who we brought to one of his lessons. Which is totally awesome. He took him to Gospel Doctrine class...I wonder how that went. I guess we'll find out when we meet with him next.

Man, there is so much more I could write but we don't really have time. We taught 13  lessons last week.

After one of our our lessons, their dad took us to some place to get nochos. 

I am really glad I am serving my mission in the states because it is sure teaching me a lot about my own people and culture. I am seriously learning so much. It's kind of hard to describe. It kind of feels like I'm a member of the Church but I'm from the outside looking in. Like I feel as missionaries we can give people a lot of opportunities for blessings, it's all within reach but they just gotta reach! They answers are here! We have them! The members have them! But they just have want them bad enough to work for them! I don't know.  Did that make sense? Probably not. Like I said, it's hard to explain.

Well, I love everybody!

Love,

Sister Magnusson

Loving the LONGER Days for Preaching the Gospel

 another week in happy rock.

we went to a cowboys store last monday.  I don't know who the cut out is.

enjoying some wendy's for lunch

we got some clear sunglasses at walmart.  

they have 100%UV protection but they are clear! 

and we look hipster as well 

 HI Y'ALLS!

Well it's been another week in happy rock! It's been busy, busy, busy! So in my last areas we always had the problem of finding stuff to do after 8pm...now it is the opposite. We have a hard time getting out of people’s houses after 9pm! It's crazy! We even set alarms to go off before and after nine so we can tell members, "Oh sorry, that's our alarm for our curfew...." Then they are like, "Oh okay...." Then they just keep yackin'! Goodness gracious! It also helps that it's still super light at nine so you can't even tell it's late. I didn't like when it would get dark like waaaaaaaaaaay early in the winter. People didn't seem to want to talk to you. You would get weird looks cold contacting at 7pm, like "What are you doing here this late?! We are going to bed!" But that's not the case now.

So, we discovered that part of the Williamette River is in our area! And the Clackamette! They join together at some point in our area too! So on Fridays we don't have dinner with members and from 5-7 we find people to teach. So we either tract or we street contact. This Friday was awesome! We started tracting but no such luck. I don't like tracting anyway, not very effective. So we go walking on the trail by the Clackamette River (it was such a gorgeous day too!) and we talk to a whole bunch of people and it wasn't awkward at all! It was awesome! And then when we were eating our dinner after 7pm on the Williamette River so people just started talking to us and we weren't even actively proselyting...we were just sitting on the bank eating our dinner. 

And we were weekly planning on Saturday on the Williamette and it was so awesome because it was sunny and i got a little sunburned (i should've put some sun-in, i wasn't even thinking of it) and people were talking to us there too! See....the water has a calming effect on people and they will talk to you. I love the water! It was killing Sister Allen and me staring at the river for two days and not being able to do anything about it but, that's okay. It's gunna be a joyous reunion when I get to jump into some water again!

We were able to have 4 member present lessons this week, that was good! And we went on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders. I went to the Clackamas (sp?) area with Sister King. I've only been on splits once before and that was when i was brand new, like 3 weeks out and I didn't even know what exchanges were. Tuesday night I spent the night with Sister King and Sister King's companion, Sister Munger, spent the night at our place and we worked in each other's area. Sister King and I taught a sweet lesson to a lady. We taught the Restoration and she was so open to it. She has a lot of kids and most of them practice a different religion and she is trying to find something that can fit for all of her kids and unify them. She was so open to the Restoration and it was great! She was excited for us to come back...well, it won't be me next time, it will be Sister Munger, but it will be interesting to hear how it goes with her.

We taught the Restoration to a husband and wife this week. The husband is awesome. He is like 60 some years old and knows a lot about Mormons. He is 7th Day Adventist . He is also pretty open and he's already been to church twice. We brought a brother from church to our lesson. He is in his 80s and joined the church in 2009. They hit it off real good.

We taught a girl who is 15 and a spunky kid. She came to the Young Womans' activity with her neighbor and another  girl we are working with. Usually she is pretty easy to read but not during the lesson. Hmmmmmm, I want to know what she is thinking about all this. She enjoys meeting with us, so we will see how it goes with her next lesson.

There is a family that we seeing a lot who has some hard trials. We had dinner at their house and we watched the Restoration movie with them and it was so great because the seven year old got really excited about when Joseph Smith had his vision and was being baptized. I've never seen her get excited like that. It was cool to see.

We taught someone we taught last week again but we will probably drop him soon. We just can't get a word in and he goes off on crazy tangents. But the sad part is most of his beliefs are so spot on with ours! Like amazingly so. He is just not open at all and he holds on to some teachings that he is not willing to let go (like the fallen star from heaven is not Satan but Mohammad...) 

We had one of our investigators come to church yesterday! It was so stressful before church trying to get him a ride because usually he rides his bike, but he had a flat. And we were able to teach him the Plan of Salvation at a member's home. It was good because the member is a recent convert so he shared some things that connected with him that we couldn't have shared. That's why member present lessons are so good and important.

So, I got some sister missionary figurines from Dad's roommate's family from 1974 that lives in Ohio, along with some other fun things! It was so great to get the package! We are filming a District 3 here in the Oregon Portland mission featuring Sister Jones/Sister Peterson and Sister Johnson/Garcia....stay tuned folks! It's going to be sweet. You can get a taste with some of the pics.

We had Zone Meeting this week. President and Sister Morby were there. They leave July 1st. So crazy! They are awesome. We had a training on finding then we went out and tracted around the church building that we had our meeting at with a different companion…..All 12 pairs of missionaries. It was great. Transfers are only 5 weeks this time because something to do with our new mission president, President Ballard's, schedule. Then the next transfer is going to be 7 weeks so it will all even out. I hope Sister Allen or I don't get transferred.

We are going to take the MAX to the Rose Festival gardens in Portland today. It's gunna be sweet.

K, gotta run. Love you ALL! Summer is approaching! My favorite time of the year! A time for sun, water, sunscreen, and long days! Longs days for preaching the gospel! Love it! The church is true!

Love,
Sister Magnusson

Editor's note:  You have heard of Where's Waldo.  In this post you can look for different sightings of the sister missionary figurines in the different pictures in this post.