{So I bought a coat! All is well!}

Oh that makes me so happy that people are reading my letters and enjoying them :) I'm doing my best to bring light into the lives of others. It makes everything easier when I focus more on helping other people than on helping myself. I often wonder how much I've already changed. I'm going to be in that "awkward return missionary phase" for a long time after I return home! It'll be.... interesting. We'll see :) 

-Dinner appointment: We went to an older couples house for dinner last week. Their son  (probably around 40) and his kids live there too. One of the kids, around 12 years old, was exactly what I would imagine a grumpy Nacho Libre to be. And he is.....someone who farts a lot. Awesome. It was the most awkward dinner ever. I can't even tell you. Hahaha.

-Members in lessons are the best thing ever! A member named Brother Purnell came with us to our first lesson with Jeremiah, a former investigator. IT WAS SO AWESOME! There was such a strong spirit and witness of all of our words (sister Robinson's, Brother Purnells, and mine). Jeremiah could feel that The Restoration was true. We are hopeful that he will accept the invitation to be baptized. The only problem is he is crazy busy so appointments fall through a lot. We will see what happens! 

-Bailee Zym the cat: we got an online referral from someone who wanted a bible...when we stopped by she yelled at us, and then we asked her if Bailee Zym lived there, and she said it was her cat. All around, very confusing and funny for sister Robinson and I . 

-Listening to a prophet is like listening to God... He receives revelation to lead Christ's church. How blessed we are for this knowledge! 

-Imagine if Moses from the bible was coming to speak...would you go? That's exactly like having our modern prophets today (who have the priesthood authority of God). So prepare yourselves for general conference because it is going to be awesome! 

-Less actives are also my favorite! We teach a less active named Shelley Macdonald, and she is the sweetest. We teach at the church every week because she lives with her brother and he doesn't support her in the church. She has such a strong desire to grow her knowledge of the gospel. AND she follows through on commitments. Go Shelley!

-"If you don't want to slip don't go where it's slippery"  we have a member who is trying to quit smoking and we talked about making sure we don't put ourselves in situations that will make us vulnerable to our temptations. She quoted this slippery quote, and I just thought, 'well that makes sense!' 

-I'm 14 apparently: we stopped by another former investigator and after she made a comment about how raising children is hard, I said 'yeah I'll know one day soon enough'. She look startled and was like " oh my goodness I thought you were like 14!" I thought to myself....'seriously? Ugh.' Hahaha but she thought Sister Robinson was 16. So I don't know. It was interesting. 

{This picture depicts all of the garbage on the ground everywhere! Gross.}

-Role play with Joe...we met real Joe!: during companionship study one day sister Robinson and I role played a street contact and made up the name Joe...that day we actually street contacted a Joe and he was really nice! It was awesome!

-Jeanie- "I prayed and all I got was that the church is true": Another less active, named Jeanie, is being retaught the lessons. When we came to follow up on the first lesson about The Restoration of the Church, we asked her if she read The Book of Mormon and prayed to know if it/this church was true. She replied by saying yes, and said, "I prayed and all I got was that the church is true."... Hallelujah! The Church is true!!! It was even more neat because she continued by saying that she was actually surprised, and that she didn't think that she would receive an answer so quickly! Jeanie has been inactive for quite a while, so hopefully with this renewed faith she will come back to church! 

-Elder and Sister Christoffer golden (They are from South Africa and sound British): We had a mission conference this last week and it was intense. I sat in the very front row directly in front of Elder Golden of the Quorum of the Seventy, and we had to sit there for 5 HOURS. Anyone who knows me well--well actually, you don't even have to know me well, I basically have narcolepsy. And Elder Golden was standing two feet in front of me, making eye contact with me on and off for 5 hours. Yeah, I struggled. 'Stay....awake...Sister Neal' I thought. His message was awesome though. At the beginning he promised that 'the veil' would be very thin if we were attentive during the meeting. It is very frustrating when I want to pay attentive and be attentive so so so badly, but can't. I still did a pretty good job though. The Lord has helped me while I've been out. Elder Golden mostly talked about how to become a baptizing mission...We don't have very good statistics in Edmonton. He was still very kind and loving though. SO, all around, it was great. He spoke at Stake Conference and held a fireside that week as well. 

-Elder Watson: bright and light countenance....infectious smile: Okay okay, this is my prideful moment. One of the senior elders came up to me after the mission conference and told me that as soon as he saw me at transfers, he could feel me radiate enthusiasm, and told me that I had an infectious smile! Yay me! He said that that was very important for a missionary to have, and that Sister Robinson make a great pair. He truly made my day! 

{Sorry all we take pictures of is ourselves! There aren't many pretty things here in Clareview... Maybe when I move to a new area the pictures will be more interesting.}