Well Hey There!

Wow sounds like a lot is going on there with the politics! That is so neat that dad is so involved and that so many in our ward are involved also!

Okay so things are going pretty great here. Much better than last week! Two of our investigators who had dropped us last week randomly came to church! That was a nice surprise! We have 4 potential investigators that we are really hoping will become solid investigators this week!

Thank you for the fun St. Patricks day "GO GREEN" buttons! those were fun to wear! Sister Crawford especially loved it! Good choice! :) St. Patricks day was pretty good. We had a meeting with the Easter pageant cast! It's huge! There are over 400 hundred people in the cast! I know the guy who will be playing Isaiah pretty well, we eat dinner with his family quite a bit. His name is Steve Kroll. He also helps with a lot of the producing now too. I have to find an 'in' with people so that I can be in the pageant when I get home! So many people try out and even though there are 400 cast members MANY are turned away. Anyway at the meeting with the cast they had us missionaries walk around and train them and role play with them on how to invite the people in the audience to learn more about the church from missionaries and also to go into the visitors center before and after the showing of the pageant. It was really neat. The cast members are so nice and so willing to learn and do missionary work. The cast members will be walking around in costume before the pageant starts and talking to people. President Ellsworth talked to them and said that our full time missionaries wear a badge that helps them feel a bit more confident and be a little more bold than most people can be, and you have your costume that gives you that same confidance and authority to teach testify and invite. SO neat.

Another thing that is really neat is that President Ellsworth has felt inspired to only have sisters work the Easter Pageant this year. This is something that they have never done in all the years of doing the Easter Pageant. They have always of course had the sisters only doing the visitor center, but they always had Elders working the crowds outside on the temple grounds. Now we are having only sisters out there. All the VC sisters will still be inside, but the full field sisters will be outside, and also the tempe mission sisters are coming to work the crowds outside! pretty neat right? This has never happened before and what a neat opportunity for the Tempe mission sisters to be able to work at the Easter Pageant! It will be fun getting to know some of the sisters from the other mission during this time! Also Sister Crawford is the only full field sister that will be working inside the VC because she is my companion! Cool right? She is so super stoked! I am grateful that she gets this opportunity. Easter Pageant really will show miracles! Sister Beckstrand is doing a VC choir with some of the VC sisters so that is being fun. We are just getting together and learning music and singing together. Sister Beckstrand is a fabulous pianist! incredible. She has also asked all the VC sisters to try to memorize The Living Christ before Easter Pageant! YIkes! I am excited to try because this is a goal I've had forever, but that only gives me 10 days to learn it! haha, I might be late- but ima gonna do it!

Well I gotta close, sister crawford has a doctors appointment to fill up her medication so time is short! Loves to all! thank you for all the love and support! MWAH!!!

~ Sister Chelle

Oh man! Sorry -another computer mal function here in the family history center, it erased my whole email! HAHA Oh man we've just got to smile and keep going when things like that happen! I'm starting to wonder if it's the computer or me since this keeps happening.... hahha

Well I have to go in 5 min, so this'll be brief but here goes!

Marcelo Certoma is BAPTIZED!!!!!!! That is Romina's husband. It was such a beautiful baptism and his confirmation was wonderful! Aw those two are already blessing the ward so much! I will try write more about all this in a letter.

The work here is moving along and we were really blessed this week. We are working hard to fulfill President Ellsworths vision of doubling baptisms at least in our area. The Harmony ward that was struggling so badly before now has alot of potential investigators that we are working on turning into solid investigators that we can teach! Pray for Harmony ward- and for us to find and be able to teach those that are prepared there!

Beth is doing alright. We were supposed to teach her with her husband and kids this week for the first time, but they all got sick so it's rescheduled for this week. Pray that it goes well. Her baptismal date on the 17th of march depends on it going well, since she needs her husbands approval and consent for her and the kiddos to be baptized. Also please pray for Brians (her husband) heart to be softened and that he will let them do this and realize it's a good thing and even want it for himself- that would be the best!!

Aw there is so much more... lets see. Well Sister Crawford and I are doing well together. We have decided that together we make the perfect OLD person. She can't hear.. at all! She needs a hearing aid- like for reals. ha and then there is my memory. It's just non existant. Really it's gotten worse here I think.. I don't know. It's awful, luckily sister Crawford does have a good memory so she helps me out there. I think it's good that she can help me with that, because it helps her feel needed in the companionship, which is so important when you are being trained, because you just feel so helpless! She is doing well though. Except when she doesn't get her sleep! Ha ooooh boy sister Crawford needs her sleep or else she is just an emotional and cranky lil sister! haha. Well lets see I guess that's all I get to write for now. Hopefully I can get a letter out! Love you all!

~Sister Shurtz