One Of 70,246

Hi everyone!

 

I am so glad to hear that everything is going so good at home! Sister Ball and I are continuing to teach quite a few lessons each week. This week we made it to 21 lessons. We are slowly but surely making upward progress. I will be very sad to see Sister Ball go (when she does), because I absolutely adore her! And we also have 3 baptism dates for this upcoming transfer so it would be sad for her to miss them. Transfers are coming up again on the 10th of July. I can't believe that I have been on my mission for almost three whole months now! It really is crazy how fast the time goes, yet it seems like I have been here for a lot longer than that. I am feeling pretty good. I have to carry tissues around with me everywhere because my allergies are actually really bad here. But I take my allergy pills each morning, and that helps with all of the symptoms except for a runny nose, which is just something I will have to deal with. My shoulder acts up every now and then but it's not a big deal. I just ignore it and move on. It also helps that Sister Ball rubs my shoulders a few times a week for me to help me out. She is amazing! I love her to death! But I am still doing well and loving every minute of my time here! That's exciting that you went to the broadcast. I haven't seen it but I love listening to Elder Holland so I'm sure that it was amazing! Hearing an apostle speak is always an uplifting and edifying experience. 70,246 is a lot of missionaries in the field (and I'm one of them!!!), with so many more coming out soon. The work of the Lord is definitely hastening on. In answer to how you can help the missionaries, give them good referrals. Tell them the names and addresses of people that they can go visit. The people don't have to know that you sent the missionaries, but it is hard to do all the finding on our own. It's really nice to get referrals, or you can also just invite people to church functions. Summer is here so I'm sure that there is a lot of fun things going on that you can invite people to.

 

Just as you are all reading the Book of Mormon, I read the Book of Mormon every single day, and I love it! Actually, Sister Ball, myself, and a recent convert are all racing. So far, I'm in the lead. I'm in 3rd Nephi, Lynne is in Alma, and Sister Ball is in Mosiah. We'll see who wins! So a couple weeks ago (2 weeks in a row actually), Sister Ball and I had the most new investigators for our companionship in the whole zone. So on Wednesday when we went to District Mtg and met up as a zone, we got a prize. The prize was Karjalanpiirakka. It is a Finnish recipe that one of our zone leaders (who is from Finland) made for us. It was really good, and I will make them for you all when I come home. I also have a recipe for Banoffe Pie, which is so good! I can't wait for you to try it! As I mentioned earlier, Sister Ball and I have gotten 21 lessons this last week, and we are hoping to get even more this week! Not a whole lot happened this week. Oh, except that the Queen of England was five or less miles away from us for four days in a row. We tried to go see her, but apparently Heavenly Father didn't think that was a good idea, so we didn't get to go. But His will, not ours be done. It is such a great experience to be on a mission! I am loving each and every minute of my time here, and I would encourage anyone to serve a mission if they want to! 

 

I know that the Lord will bless all of you for the sacrifices that you have made, and He loves you all very much. I know that the power of prayer really works, and if you ask Heavenly Father for anything, with a sincere heart, and real intent, then he will answer you. Thank you so much for loving me and supporting my decision to serve the Lord. I hope you all have a wonderful week and I am excited to hear what this week will bring you. I love you guys so much! 

 

Love,

Sister Connery

Hastening His Work

Hi guys!

 

Sounds like you are enjoying your summer vacation! Bike rides are fun, but I haven't been on one in a really long time. Sister Ball and I are going to name our sandwich shop "The Sisters' Sandwich Shop". Not very exciting, but it will taste good! That's great that you are all going to read the Book of Mormon. I absolutely love to read it! It's so hard for me to put it down. I just finished Alma, and I have started on Helaman. As missionaries we are supposed to do three hours of service every week. Last week, we did more like five hours of service. All of which were outside in people's gardens. We did service for two less actives, pulling weeds, cutting back, and strimming (weed whacking), and more weed pulling and strimming for a member family. And today, we are going to the chapel to clean the building as service.

 

Well, the best part about this week was definitely going to London to see Elder Ballard. He was actually supposed to be in Russia but the visa didn't come through so they had him come here instead, which was great for us! It was an absolutely amazing experience! We have been so blessed and have seen so many miracles in the past few weeks. This last week we have four new investigators, and the two weeks prior to that we had five new investigators each week. The past two weeks we have also upped our lessons to 20! So we are now teaching 20 lessons each week. But with the help of Heavenly Father we know that we can do even more. We are now doing something new and are extending baptism invitations to as many people as possible. It's actually surprising the response that you get. Most people are like, "Yeah, I would get baptized if I found out it was true." So that's been fun. We also have another baptism date for August 3rd. Another investigator has accepted that date. Hopefully Sister Ball and I will still be together next transfer because I am actually almost done with my training! Crazy how fast the time goes! Other than those things, not much else has happened this week. But Sister Ball and I have blessings and miracles coming from everywhere! For some reason the Lord is blessing us, and we are going to do all that we can to (hopefully) keep the blessings and miracles coming. It definitely shows that the Lord is furthering and hastening His work. 

 

Thank you all so much for you love and support while I am here! I couldn't do this without any of you, and I am so glad that you all have my back on this. Because of your sacrifice, I know that the Lord will bless you in all of your endeavors! I pray for each one of you, every single day, and I know that Heavenly Father will bless you and guide your lives for good. I hope that this email will find you all doing well, and I can't wait to hear what summer vacation will bring for you this coming week! I love you guys so much!!!

 

Love,

Sister Connery (Casey/Bug)

Best P-Day Ever

Hi guys!

Sorry I didn't email you yesterday. We had something super exciting happen, which I will explain about later in the email. Anyway, well it sounds like you are all doing great! Yes, some English men are quite friendly, and yes, receiving kisses is against the rules, but unfortunately, they are usually surprises. We had just finished teaching a man this last week and he surprised us both with a kiss on the cheek. It's pretty awkward. Anyway, Elder Grachyov does speak English quite well. Sometimes he gets confused and he'll talk to us in Russian and we have to say, "English please". But he and Elder Treadway are both good missionaries and they are doing well in their area.

Sister Ball and I have seen so many blessings and so many miracles happen in the past few weeks! Abu accepted a baptism date for the 13th of July! Hopefully he feels that he will be ready enough. He is going back to Spain for a few weeks, so we may have to push it back, but he is progressing so well! I am continually getting better (I think) at speaking up in lessons and talking to more people. It's an ongoing thing that we all have to work on. Sister Ball and I also got called as the Zone Music Directors, so every time our zone gets together we are in charge of picking the music. By the way, did I already mention that Sister Ball and I are going to open a sandwich shop when we get home? It was our Zone Leader's idea. We also got to go to Zone training last week which was a lot of fun! We got to have interviews with President Millar so see how we are doing. He and his wife are so amazing! We absolutely adore them!

So this last week Sister Ball and I had a goal of 16 lessons. We reached and surpassed our goal and ended the week with 20 lessons! Sister Ball has been wanting to reach 20 lessons for her entire mission and we finally did it! She hit her one-year mark last week as well, so she is now slowly dying. :( My grandma (Sister Ball's trainer) also died (went home) a few weeks ago. Unfortunately I did not get to meet her. But on the bright side, we got 20 lessons and five new investigators this week! Heavenly Father is blessing us greatly! He is such a merciful Father in Heaven!

Now, back to why I didn't email you all on the right day. We got to take a trip into LONDON to see and hear ELDER M. RUSSELL BALLARD of the QUORUM OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES!!! It was the best p-day ever!!! We were in the third row, and he walked right past our row at the end of the meeting! We were less than five feet from an Apostle of the Lord! It was such an amazing experience! We didn't know until yesterday morning at 10 that we would be going, so it was a last minute thing but it was such an amazing talk! He talked to us all about missionary work and how we are doing such a good job, but we can do so much more! Unfortunately, only select zones from the mission that were close enough could go to see him, but luckily I was close enough and we got to go! It was an amazing experience that I will never forget!

May Heavenly Father continue to bless you all in all of you righteous endeavors! Enjoy your summer and have fun! I miss you guys a ton, but a mission is the experience of lifetime! I would definitely recommend it! I love you all so much, and I'm excited to hear about what you are up to this week! Love you!

Love,

Sister Connery

An Holy Kiss

Hey There Everyone!

The new missionaries have arrived! We now have Elder Grachyov (from Russia), and Elder Treadway (from Austin, Texas). They will be a great help to us here in our area. That's so cool that you guys are doing a Book of Mormon read! I am actually reading the Book of Mormon as well. I'm about halfway through Alma now, and I started reading when I got on my mission so I'm not doing too bad. Being on a mission really increases your desire to read it, and you read it with so much more understanding. I love reading the Book of Mormon so I am happy that you are all going to start doing that.

This week for us has been absolutely full of blessings and miracles! I already mentioned that we got new elders, but we taught lots of lessons this week! We reached and passed our goal! Our goal for this week was to get 15 lessons and we got 16! We are going to try to get up to at least 20 lessons a week! With the Lord, anything is possible! We also got five new investigators this week! The Lord is definitely blessing us, and we are already seeing the work go forth! I am getting better at helping Sister Ball teach lessons, and I am speaking up and teaching principles a lot more. So that's good. We also had fish again last week. I am willing to try it all, and I have done pretty well so far, but this time the fish was just wet and, well, fishy. Sister Ball thinks it's funny when we get served fish, especially because I always tell her what we are having before it even gets to the table. As soon as we come in to the members' homes I can smell the fish, and I always say to her, "We're having fish for dinner." And every time, I have been right. Oh well, I was still polite and ate as much of it as I could. We finally got to teach Abu again after not seeing him for almost two whole weeks while he was sick. But we taught him again, and he came to church on Sunday. He said, "It was excellent!" The next time we see him we are going to try to extend a baptismal date again, and we are hoping and praying that he will accept it!

Some interesting things happen on missions. Like the other day, this guy rode by us on a bike and he slowed down and said, "Excuse me, but you are very beautiful, and I just wanted to tell you that." How sweet! Sister Ball and I just said thank you, and then laughed a little because it was so random! And then yesterday, (this was awkward), we talked to a guy on the street who said he wasn't interested but before he left he grabbed our shoulders and gave us both a kiss on the cheek! I was dumbfounded. But we went about the Lord's business anyway. It was just awkward as a missionary, but there's not much we could do about it. It was an interesting experience. Not much has really happened other than that since I last emailed home. I miss you all, but I know that the Lord will bless you. He always answers our prayers, and works miracles in our lives. I can't wait to hear what happens this week, so make it a good one! Have a great week! I love you all a ton!

Love,
Sister Connery