so..what did they just say?

     Ok, So much has happened to me in the last week and a half since I last wrote. Obviously, I am safe and sound in California. After I talked with you guys in the airport I saw my roommate DeeDee from UVU. I was super happy to see her! She just came and gave me a big hug because I cried a little when I got off of the phone :) Oh the tender mercies of the Lord! The flight here was great! We met President and Sister Lewis in the airport and then drove to the mission home for lunch and orientation. After a few hours there we were able to drive to the Sacramento temple. It is beautiful! I can't wait to go inside, whenever that is. We get to go 4 times a year here. After the temple we went to President and Sister Lewis's house for dinner and pictures. The sisters stayed the night at a members' house and met up at the mission home the next morning where I met my new companion! I also saw Elder Moss's brother, who went home last Thursday. 

     My new companion is Hermana Toro from Milford, UT. Her dad is from Argentina and she live there for 8 years growing up so she is super fluent and sometimes it is hard to understand her Spanish, but I pick up more and more every day. We are laboring in the Lodi 4th area in Lodi, CA. It is a little ghetto, but I love it! We live in a little apartment which we inherited from the elders. Side note: ALL young men preparing to serve a mission PLEASE LEARN HOW TO CLEAN!!! We spent most of our first day cleaning and still have a long way to go...got to love the elders, I guess. So, the area we are in is new because they just split the Lodi and Galt areas. Basically, we are shotgunning an area and we did not inherit any investigators from the previous elders. I am now professional at knocking on doors. Talking to people is another story. I never know if they are going to be Spanish or English. We kind of have to go off of the look on their faces when we speak English to them-it is similar to the face that I have when people talk to me in Spanish :) Hermana Toro does a lot of the talking. I am pretty useful for reading scriptures and saying si a lot of the time :) My new favorite phrase is, "So, what did they just say?" We are, hopefully, going to teach our first lessons tonight. We (and by we I mean Hermana Toro) semi-taught a Jehovah's Witness last week. From what I understood it was interesting. She wouldn't accept a Book of Mormon or let us pray with her, but she was very nice to us.

     One of the biggest problems in this area is keeping the members active. We have TONS of menos activos. We are really trying to get the members excited to do missionary work. The ones that I have met have been super bueno! I don't understand everything that goes on, but they are really helpful in repeating things I don't understand and being very patient when I try to speak. I love them for that! Yesterday was my first Sunday in Spanish and I totally lucked out. There is a member there who is leaving on his mission this week and he speaks English so he spoke half in Spanish and half in English. I was pretty excited for that! I got asked to say the closing prayer in Sunday School, which gave me a mini heart attack on the spot but I managed to sputter out a very short prayer :) Relief Society was good too! The lesson was about having peace in the home. We met with the sister who is teaching Relief Society next week and I shared a scripture with her while we were in her home and now I am sharing that scripture and a brief thought in Relief Society next week. Pray for me!

     Well, I don't have too much more to talk about. Right now we are just trying to find people to teach, which is pretty difficult, but I know that the Lord will help us if we continue to work hard an be obedient :) I love you all an appreciate all of your prayers for me! Thank you so so much!

Love always, Hermana Freestone

So pumped to be a missionary!!

! Ok. Let's start with
 the fact that I have been here amonth already! What the what??? If the
 next 17 go by this fast I will be home by tomorrow....no bueno. Don't
 get me wrong, I love you guys, but I'm really starting to love it here
 (not MTC here, but mission here). In fact, my district had become my
 new family and I am beside myself sad that I only get to spend another
 10ish days with them. We all decided that we are going to go on a
 cruise when we get back in all of our "wealthy" post-mission glory.
 Really though, I am goint to miss them all so much!
      My Spanish improves daily so thank you for any and all prayers in
 my behalf. The gift of tongues is real because there is no way I would
 be able to do this well on my own. Funny thing though, I am learning
 more about English as well. Added to my vocabulary in the last week
 are subjuntive, noun clause, adjective clause, gerund, and all of that
 other stuff that i was SUPPOSED to learn in high school...One thing
 that has been super cool this week is really teaching and learning by
 the Spirit. It's amazing how, in a lesson, I can recieve a prompting
 to share a certain scripture or say a certain thing that I didn't
 previously know. It's kindof hard to explain unless you experience it
 for yourself...just know that I am working super hard with Hermana
 Syphus.
      So, the highlight of my week was probably our devotional on
 Sunday. *Quick side note: fast Sundays here are insane and I'm pretty
 sure that is the first time I have legit fasted for 24 hours. Anywho,
 the devotional was Chad Lewis. You know, played for BYU and the
 Philedelphia Eagles for 9 years, is now the NFL ambassador to China
 because he served a mission in Taiwan Chad Lewis. Yeah, that talk was
 more like an intense pre-game pump-up speech. Like, Ray Lewis got
 nothing on this guy status. He basically told us that our mission
 starts here in the MTC and it should never end-even when we are
 released. We need to make the commitement to be missionaries ALWAYS!
 He also told us that in our most challenging times we need to focus on
 our blessings. Strange how we never realized how blessed we are until
 we don't receive them, huh? The best line, though, was when he said.
 "When you are tired, DIG DEEPER!" Yeah, it sounds like a stereotypical
 sports guru, but it really got to me. It made me want to work that
 much harder this week. Let's be honest, I have never felt more pumped
 to be a missionary! And this week has probably been the best because
 of it. I have never felt so blessed before in my entire life. This
 gospel is amazing and the Lord is really shaping me :)
      So, one thing that our branch president told us this week was
 pretty funny. He was telling us about his stepmom who passed away when
 she was 94. He asked her what she has learned in her 90+ years of
 resisting Satan's temptations. She just waved her hand like it was no
 big deal and said," Whenever Satan tries to get to me I just look him
 straight in the eyes and tell him to go back to hell where he
 belongs." No joke...he said that and I about died laughing! But it is
 so true. Satan wants us to fail. He wants us to focus on the hard
 things in life-especially the missionaries! He wants us to focus on
 home or school, or being lazy, or past sins you committed. It reminded
 me of a quote, "When Satan reminds you of your past, remind him of his
 future." Don't let him get to you!
  

Love Always, Hermana Freestone

is it time for Sacramento yet?

 I got a letter from Grandma Freestone telling me that there are
now more sisters in the CCM than elders, which doesn't surprise me.
Last week at Relief Society there were 1258 sisters, plus all of the
sisters who had husbands in leadership here (branch presidencies,
etc.). So yeah, it's like someone kicked over an anthill of
missionaries here. They have started to put people in the housing that
they stole from BYU and bussing missionaries up here. Our schedules
were all changed around to try an accommodate for all of the incoming
missionaries. We are starting to get the wave of college students, but
the real chaos will hit in June when all of the high school boys come
flooding in. I am super happy that I won't be here for that because we
are already living on top of each other here :)
     So they do this thing here called TRC ( I can't remember what it
stands for) but what happens is people from the community volunteer to
come and let us teach them in the language we are learning. This week
Hermana Syphus and I met a couple named Brother and Sister Gale. They
both served missions in Texas a long time ago. They have been married
for almost 48 years now and they are regular volunteers. They are just
the sweetest couple ever! It's funny how you meet people for only 20
minutes and you love them! I secretly hope we can teach them again. I
felt the Spirit so strong with them!
     Oh! Wednesday was Hermana Syphus's birthday. We had a blast! The
other girls from our district covered the door in sticky notes! We
gave her cards, candy, chap stick (she's addicted), and we even sang
in Spanish! And, since Hermana Boothe's dad works in the kitchen, he
hooked us up with a birthday cake for her! You should have seen the
look on her face! She's the greatest companion ever. I sure am
blessed!
     Nothing else too exciting has happened this week. The cold is
going around in our branch so Hermana Boothe is practically on her
death bed today...poor girl. Our two roommates left this week so
Hermana Syphus and I are the only two in our room right now, but we
will be getting 3 new sisters next Wednesday. It seems like it was so
long ago that you guys dropped me off here, but there are other days
where I can't believe how fast the time is flying by. I leave the CCM
on the 21st. That is less than 3 weeks! Yikes! I am ready to leave
here, but I am not nearly prepared enough to go out. We are now
teaching 3 investigators. All of your investigators are your teachers
and one of ours cut back his hours so he could study for the MCAT
(genius child) so we have 3 now. It adds to the stress load and the
work load but it is good preparation for the field.
     Last Sunday's devotional was Stephen B. Allen, the managing
director of the missionary department. He gave a really good talk, but
it made me pretty homesick. He talked about the things that we gave up
to be here and how Satan wants us to think that those things are more
important than our work. That totally makes sense though. I was
telling Hermana Syphus the other day that Satan is probably going
after missionaries the most. I mean, missionaries teach all around the
world. They basically make or break the church. During the talk I felt
sad because there was a girl who got here last Wednesday and left on
Saturday night. Poor girl...but yeah. Elder Allen straight told us
that we cannot have one foot in the CCM and one foot at home. If we
have one foot at home then we need to bring it here, unpack, hang up
our pictures, and get to work.
     Well, sorry this letter is really short. Hopefully I will have
more to write about next week. I love you all so much!
Love, Hermana Freestone

Picture 1: This is my room! Where all of the...sleeping happens :)
Picture 2: Our door on Hermana Syphus's Birthday

line upon line precept upon precept

 Things here are still
super busy. Every minute of every day is scheduled for me. The only
thing they forgot to give me when I got here was the headphones that
tell me, "breathe in, breathe out..." Personal time is non-existent,
which makes sense because I am not here for me I am here for the Lord
so I am on his time. On Sunday the BYU men's choir was our devotional.
They are really good! I kept waiting for them to serenade me with
"Hallelujah" but since we are in the MTC they only sang
hymns...bummer. After the devotional I was able to watch the movie
"The Testaments." With all of the kissing and flirting it was a bit
racy for the MTC but the message was SUPER BUENO so I guess that's why
they let that slide. Anything that has to do with the Savior always
makes me cry now so I was really working hard to hold back all of
those tears. The Spirit tends to do that to you...
  I've gotten so many
e-mails, letters, etc. telling me how cool it was to see you put in. I
ran into one Sister Kami Call last week and that was way cool to see
her. I asked her about dad getting put in and she said it was awesome.
It was also nice for me to see another familiar face. So, talking
about familiar faces, you'll never guess who I ran into this week?!
Larry and Vickie Smith (for any not acquainted with my extremely large
family tree, Larry is my mom's uncle). But yeah, I was so shocked to
see them because everyone and their dog failed to mention that they
were serving a mission. I guess that they just got their call a couple
of weeks ago and they are serving in the new Salt Lake mission working
on computers and stuff. They left on Thursday, but it was nice to see
some family again. They were super excited to serve and it got me
wondering when my grandparents were going to do that *cough cough*
*wink wink* *nod nod* you know who you are...
     We are starting to learn things about Spanish that I haven't
learned before so it's really starting to get difficult. We are
learning how to conjugate verbs in past tense, which wouldn't be so
hard if there weren't two past tense conjugations. It's just crazy
trying to learn when to use each conjugation because they have a
preterit tense and an  imperfect tense-which doesn't exist in English.
We use one past tense. Our teacher said that it is really hard for
native English speakers to grasp the concept because we don't use two
tenses...so that's how things are going here. I just pray SUPER hard
every day and really try to study hard. There's not much else I can do
except just have faith in the Lord that He will help me with it! Just
remember, "Line upon line; precept upon precept; here a little, there
a little." I found some scriptures this week that are really helpful
for that: Doctrine & Covenants 30:11  "And your whole labor shall be
in Zion, with all your soul, from henceforth; yea, you shall ever open
your mouth in my cause, not fearing what man can do, for I am with
you. Amen." And Doctrine & Covenants 31:3 "Lift up your heart and
rejoice, for the hour of your mission is come; and your tongue shall
be loosed, and you shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto this
generation." These really helped me this week!
     My comp and I are getting along pretty great. We have our moments
but it's pretty much me just being impatient or selfish. Shocker,
right? No. I can definitely say that I am learning to become more
humble because of this. She helps me to be a better missionary so I
know that we were put together for a reason :) It's her birthday on
Wednesday so our district is going to really try to make it special.
We are even going to have Hermana Boothe's dad try to smuggle in some
cake for her. I'm excited!

     Well, I love you all and  enjoy hearing things from home! I know
that I am where I am supposed to be no matter how hard it gets. Until
next week.
Love, Hermana Freestone

At the MTC (hope this works!) -mollie-

                                  

Hermana Becca Elton and Elder Richens (Morgan Utah)

Hermana Cisalee Oldham

Elder Richens (Morgan Utah)

Hermana Olivia Carter

Group from the MTC

 I never sent an e-mail last week because my companion and I basically totally forgot about e-mail. Don't ask me how that happened...we were just so emotionally spent. The first three days here in the CCM were super exhausting and probably the longest 3 days of my entire life. One of my roommates, Hermana Wankier (yes, the Wankiers in our ward are her cousins) said it best, "The first few days here is like drinking from a fire hydrant."  

     Ok, Spanish is improving slowly, but steadily. I can now say a simple prayer, bear a very short testimony, and can carry a fairly decent conversation. We had to teach a lesson our third day here. Talk about nerve-wracking. Since then we have taught three more times and committed our investigator to baptism. Granted, we were teaching our soon-to-be teacher, but we were still able to feel the Spirit. My companion's name is Hermana Syphus. She is from St. George and she is going to Buenos Aires North. She is a quiet little thing but secretly funny. I love her to death! Though, parts of her personality are definitely testing my patience, which isn't much. So I've been developing my patience here :) I was originally put in a trio when I first arrived because one of the girls in our district never showed up (I'm convinced she got engaged the night before). My other comp was Hermana Boothe. She is from Orem going to Fresno and her dad actually works here in the kitchen so that's who you got the picture from dad :) Last Friday we got a new Hermana in our district named Hermana Boomhower, who we fondly refer to as Boom. She was originally going to Las Vagas West English Speaking, but she broke her foot in the first gym class she had. Well, her whole district left after two weeks and her branch president didn't want her to keep learning the same things over and over again so he gave her the option to either go home and heal or learn a language, so she's learning to speak Spanish now. There are 8 people in my district: the four girls, Elder Moss (from Arizona going to Buenos Aires North), Elder Evans (from Los Angeles going to Beunos Aires North), Elder Morrow (from Virginia going to Fresno), and Elder Bang (from Maine going to Sacramento). So we have Elder Bang and Hermana Boom in our district! It's pretty awesome :) Apparently there were two bombs that went off at the Boston Marathon (we are totally cut off from any outside news) and Elder Bang's family was there because his parents were running in it. Thankfullly no one was hurt, but it was still pretty scary to hear about.

     Erm...oh! Every Tuesday we have a devotional here and gues who we got this week? Richard G. Scott! Yeah...I just said Richard G. Scott. Can I just tell you how awesome that was? He talked about how we need to better communicate with our Heavenly Father. He also talked about recognizing the Spirit in our lives. He talked about the three ways that the Lord answers our prayers 1) He gives us a feeling of peace and comfort 2) an unsettling feeling that we may not be doing the right thing or 3) not at all (basically, He has something better in mind that we need to wait for OR He trusts us to make the right decision). After we sand a closing hymn he stopped the girl coming up to say the prayer and started talking again. He said something that really made an impression on me: The Lord has called us to succeed, not to fail and He will fit the tasks to our abilities. WOW!

     For Relief Society the sisters get to watch Music and the Spoken word, which is a BEAUTIFUL thing because we aren't allowed to listen to any music here :( A lady named Mary Edmunds came and spoke to us. She is so amazing! One thing she said that I really liked was that, of all of the millions of missions that have been served since the church began, my mission has never been served and never will be served. I am the only one that can serve it. Nifty huh? She is also hysterically funny. She said, and I quote, "DO NOT touch the Elders...but keep track of the ones you want to touch (insert devilish grin here)." The entire audience busted a gut.

     I am really starting to like it here. The food messes with your insides like you would not imagine, but it's alright. I live for gym time every day. My arms are actually really sore right now from lifting yesterday (don't worry Mom, I run too). The dorms are really cramped because there are six people to a room that is roughly the same size as mine sans bathroom. I have to wear flip flops in the bathroom because that many girls in one bathroom equals lots of nasty! I just have to do my best to ignore all of the hair...yummy. We spend most of the day sitting in a classroom and eating. I was able to go to the temple this morning, which was so nice! It's not fair having to look at it every day but not being able to go. It literally feels like I am living in a compound. We are surrounded by a fence and security gaurds are all over the entrance. You also have to have a swipe card to get into every building. But really, it's not that bad :)

 

     Well family/friends, I love getting your letters and DearElders so please keep them cooming! Mom and Dad, did you get my last letter?

 

Love always, Hermana Freeston

¡Adiós!

     Well, the day has finally come! I am getting ready to go and be set apart as a full-time missionary! I appreciate all of the well-wishes and the support you all have given me. I love you all and will see you in 18 months! Mollie will be keeping up my blog so if she starts to slack let me know lol!
     I know that what I am about to embark in is truly the Lord's work and it will bring blessings of great magnitude to myself and my family. I'm so glad that they called me on a mission! :) 

¡Adiós!

Missionary Work & The Atonement

   
     In the Spirit of Easter, and highlighting the fact that I leave for my mission in just over two weeks, this video seemed very appropriate. It has changed my outlook on my mission. I loved when President Holland mentioned that, if we have not known or felt anything of the experience of the atonement then how can we bear true testimony of it? "Salvation is NOT a cheap experience," he said! I know that what I am about to do will not be easy, but it WILL be worth it!