Hi Family and Friends!

I had the most amazing week! Sister Hinton is so great! I love her so much already and I'm learning a lot from her each day. She just came back from outbound so it's great to hear about her experiences and learn from them. We've been working hard together and seeing miracles already! We love being zone leaders and we love our zone (of 22 sisters) so much! I know this will continue to be a fantastic transfer full of Miracles!

Christmas is here!!! Temple Square is beautiful and there are soooooooooooooooooooooo MANY people here! I love it! From 5pm-10pm the lights are on and the square is packed! It's great because you just walk out the door and you don't get 5 feet before you've found someone to contact and teach. Then you move on and find someone else. The first night Sister Hinton and I were on the square we probably got 30 feet in an hour! It was so great! Sister Hinton is really good at finding and sharing just the perfect scripture with the people we talk to I love it!  There are a lot of members who have friends they ask us to call so that we can share a message about Christ with and invite them to learn more. It's a great opportunity to share the gospel with people all over the world. What have you been doing to help bring The Savior into this Christmas season? One thing that Sister Gillette has given us is a paper chain with 24 references to the Savior each link has a different scripture to read each day :)

Oh Happy Thanksgiving! We had SO much fun. They closed the square at 1pm and we went to a place called "Noahs" (you could probably look it up online if your interested) and is was so great. I've never really seen anything quite like it, they had rented out the whole building and there was a big reception/dinning room, where they had a karaoke machine set up and then they had all these different rooms on 3 different levels with a arts and crafts room and 3 video rooms with different Disney movies playing and a games room with a ping-pong table they also had volleyball room. It was so fun! I really like it when all the sisters get together to do things President and Sister Gillette are so nice and help us know when to work hard and play hard. 

We had zone leader council yesterday where discussed what the focus of the mission is going to be this transfer and what we (as zone leaders) need to help our sisters with. It was great I always learn so much in those meetings. We (Sister Hinton and I) will be teaching one of the topics at a leadership meeting tomorrow. We are going to be teaching about how to overcome fear and have faith when it comes to calling in the teaching center. The teaching center is what we do instead of tracting except better because we are calling member referrals. We are also going to help the sisters feel more comfortable because, as we know, if we are prepared we shall not fear! I'm excited, I love teaching! Oh we will also be explaining the importance of calling less actives because the mission wasn't really focused on that before and now we are making it more of a focus and I think that is great! There are so many people that need the gospel and there are also so many people that need to be reminded of the covenants they made at baptism so that they can happily endure to the end. Just like God told Joseph Smith in Liberty jail that we need to "endure it well and then God will exalt thee on high and triumph over all thy foes" Not just endure but be happy! God's plan is the plan of happiness! Rejoice and be glad that He has given us commandments because He so very much wants to bless us.

As you might have noticed I'm emailing a little earlier today and that is because during the Christmas season our p-day is 10-6 instead of 1-9 so I will email you in the mornings this transfer. 

Our investigators are doing great! It is a privilege to get to know so many amazing people that are striving to change their lives to come closer to Heavenly Father. What a blessing it is to be a part in helping someone partake of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. There is nothing that brings me a greater happiness. 

Well I love you allllllll soooooooooooooooooo MUCH!!!!! Lots of hugs and love :)
Love Sister Turner


 
HI Family and Friends :)

Well we had Transfer Conference and I am.... STAYING FOR CHRISTMAS :) I'm so happy. I didn't realize how much I wanted to stay for Christmas until I found out that I would be! So I will most likely be going outbound on January 2nd or February 13th, if not then never but I'm pretty sure it will be in January because then I will be gone for 2 transfers and come back for two transfers and that's usually how it works. Sister King is going outbound! She got called to the Washington DC South mission and she leaves tomorrow. My new companion is Sister Hinton from Arizona. She is coming back from outbound, she is so sweet and I'm looking forward to a great transfer! I know I will learn a lot from her. I've never had a companion who has been outbound already. I will continue to be a Zone Leader of the East 2 zone which includes Temple Square, The Teaching Center, Beehive House, Guest Services and West Gate. It will be so great! They've decorated the Beehive house with Christmas decorations and it's so fun to be in there. They turn the lights on the day after Thanksgiving, so Friday at 5pm. I'm excited there are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many lights! Did I tell you they started putting them up in August! Yesterday they put up another nativity on the reflecting pool, it's so beautiful.

Oh speaking of nativities the mission got to go see "Savior of the World" on Thursday! It was so amazing! I wish you could all see it! I loved it so much. One day you all have to come to Temple Square and watch it. It is a stage production but it's been created with the help of the First Presidency. They're practice for the show includes learning about how to be a missionary on the stage and to testify of the gospel through performance. It was the most beautiful play I have ever seen. I wish you could watch it! Maybe I will see if I can find a recording of it at Desert Book so you could get the general idea. It was seriously soooooooooo GOOD!

Mom Congratulations with your new calling! I'm so excited for you, I was looking at the new youth curriculum and it made me want to teach the youth when I get home, it's a lot like the way we teach our investigators.   I didn't realize how amazing a mission was until I got here but I highly suggest it to anyone who is thinking about it. It will and can change your life, if you let it. Just like "the fourth missionary" talk, they should read that! Anyway enjoy your new calling, you'll do great!

Dad thanks for the email! I'm sure your lesson with the YSA went great! Heavenly Father always qualifies us for the work if we have a desire to serve Him which I know you do! Whenever I get nervous about a lesson I always feel those are the better lessons because I completely rely on the Spirit who is a better teacher than me anyway. What have you been teaching them lately? I miss going to Sunday school, on our mission here we just have a early morning sacrament meeting at 7:30am. It's great because the sisters who are going home give 8 minute talks and there is always a musical number, we have so many talented sisters in our mission. Sometimes we have special guests come and speak to us, that's always nice too. 

This past transfer I decided to learn more about and apply the Christlike attribute "Charity and Love" (Preach my Gospel chapter 6) and I'm so grateful that we can constantly strive to become more like our Savior. I think sometimes in the past I've wanted to become like "that person over there" or "I wish I could be more like her" or "Why can't I be more like them" and then being disappointed because I never "became like them". The reason that never made me happy is because Heavenly Father wants me to be me but the BEST version of  myself. The way I can become the best ME is to strive to become more like the Savior. I've known this my whole life but I only recently started to apply it. It brings you so much happiness to be just be you! Now I'm not saying that we can have the excuse of saying "oh that's just they way I am so that's fine" no we need to always be striving to fulfill our potential but be happy with our imperfections and be grateful that you noticed them so you can change. Does that make sense? All of the Christlike attributes go together, for example when you work on "Charity and Love" you also become more "Patient" and gain a greater "Faith" as you see yourself grow. I love chapter 6 of Preach my Gospel and if you haven't read it I highly recommend it! 

I love you all! You are so amazing just remember how great YOU are! You are a divine being who your loving Heavenly Father has sent to the earth to learn and grow. Nothing is too difficult when we rely on the loving hand of our Savior Jesus Christ. 


Love Sister Turner

 
Hi Lovely family and friends!

 I got 3 beautiful letters yesterday from Sarah, mom and Suranyi nover! It's great to hear from her, her mission sounds amazing, I can't believe she comes home so soon already! April I think? Anyway thank you for your letters :) I met a return missionary from France yesterday and he said he knows Elder Ioannidis! Apparently EVERY missionary in France knows about Elder Ioannidis and how fantastic he is. You'll have to let Robert and Evelynn know, he had a lot of good things to say about him. 

This morning I was thinking about how fun it will be when mom and dad visit. I love you both so much! It now feels like it's been quite a while since I've seen you! 7 more months and we will be in Salt Lake together. I love being a missionary and part of me wants to be a missionary forever but I'm also really excited to see everyone again! Mom and Dad do you want to go to the Manti pageant while you're here? 

Next time I write you I will know what I'm doing next transfer, who my new companion will be and even if I will still be in Salt Lake! Isn't that crazy! This transfer has gone by so fast! I've been really busy so that is probably why. We have transfer conference on Monday morning and we transfer companions next Wednesday. I think Sister King will go outbound, she's one transfer ahead of me so she only has about 6 months left. 

It's been snowing here! It really feels like Christmas time here. They haven''t turned on the lights yet but they've put them all up including the life size nativity set by the North Visitors Center! It's so beautiful especially all covered in snow. I took some snow pictures but I forgot my camera cord again. Oh guess what! Speaking of Christmas The whole mission gets to go the dress rehearsal for the "Savior of the World" performance! I'm so excited! Also another exciting thing we get to do is that every night after the show 3 companionship's will go and teach people and invite them to learn more or if they have any friends who want to learn more about the church. There are so many amazing opportunities to share the gospel here! I love it!

I forgot to thank you for "inviting us out to dinner:)" Sister King really wants to go to "Wingers" and I remember Ethan talking about it so we will go there after emailing. I'm so hungry thinking about it. I will try to remember to take a picture. We are walking there in the snow so I'm looking forward to it. It's not too fat away, just far enough to get a nice walk in. The snow is kind of melting today but it's really bright and beautiful!

Our investigators are doing so great! Monica has been reading gospel principles along with the Book of Mormon and Enoch has set a firm baptism date with his parents :) We have a couple new investigators who are just great! I'm looking forward to teaching them this coming week. I love studying for others it makes the time I have to study so much more effective. How is the Book of Mormon challenge been going? I have to admit I'm a bit behind. This transfer has been so busy. I need to take more time out of my lunch and dinner breaks to read it. Lately Sister King and I have been listening to John Bytheway when we go home for our meal breaks and it's fun but I need to catch up on the Book of Mormon. Now I've told you and you can follow up with me next week :) 

Oh I think I told you about teaching the mission at the Zone Conference. Well if I didn't tell you about it before Sister King and I taught about how we receive revelation through church attendance to half the mission last week at a meeting. It went really well, but as always with my teaching I always feel I gain more studying about the topic then those who are listening. That is why we always give our investigators commitments and assignments I guess. It went well and to be honest I've never thought about going to church with a specific question or concern before. I always think about that going to the temple to receive revelation, I guess I just never thought about it in a church context before. I love how I learn something new everyday! I want to keep that up through the rest of my life. 

Speaking of the Temple I got to go to Temple Service again! I love the Temple! It is so beautiful! We cleaned the baptistry area. The pioneers are such an amazing example of diligence and hard work and the blessings that come along with that. I have gained a great respect for the pioneers and for what they taught us about sacrifice. 

I bought a new bag last p-day. Sister King helped me pick one out because my old one was very, very ripped, I actually saved the old one from a past companion who was about to throw it away. It kept falling off a random moments so I decided it was time for a new one that would stay on even if it was loaded with books and stuff. We went to Ross which is just like Winners except a little cheaper! You would like it mom, we'll have to go when you come :). I looked for boots but I couldn't find any comfortable ones my size. So far my black boots are fine so I will probably stick with them for the winter unless the rip gets bigger. So far they are keeping my toes nice and warm so I'm happy. 

Thought I'd send you an exert from my letter to president: 
"I've been continuing to work on Charity and Love this transfer and it has been going well. This past week I've been looking for positive things to say about others and it's really made me realize how blessed I am to be surrounded by so many amazing people who are children of a loving Heavenly Father. This coming week I will be looking for opportunities to serve an then acting! We've also committed one of our investigators to do the same thing. I'm looking forward to discussing this together with him next week. 
I continue to learn so much every day and it is a blessing to be serving as a missionary! I want to take every opportunity to fulfill my potential as a missionary and become more like our Savior."

Well my time is up!  I love you all, you continue to be in my prayers and I know Heavenly Father is watching over us all so I don't need to worry. 


Love Sister Turner 

 
Hi family,


 I've discovered I dislike talking about ending my mission. I actually had a nightmare about my visa expiring and having to go home early. It was awful. Not that I don't want to see all of you. I love you so much. It's just hard to think I can never ever come back to what I am doing right now. 

Oh I was going to tell you about the Haunted village we went to! It was so fun and so scary. It wasn't like gross scary because it was at Heritage Park but it was still scary enough to be fun! The person in charge is friends with President Gillette so we got to go for free and then do service a couple days later so that was really nice. I loved the service project as well. It was fairly difficult though because they had us pull re-bar out of very hard ground. We worked at it forever and had got about half of them out when someone who worked there came over to try and when he couldn't do it he have us another assignment :) So we took down the rest of the graveyard. I will send pictures if I can figure out how to send them on this computer. 

Our investigators are doing well. They have their trials but as we continue to have faith in them we see their faith strengthened by their trials. I love them so much! I can't wait to meet them one day. I don't know how possible it will be but there are at least a couple I fully intend on visiting. Enoch will be easy because he lives in Vancouver. 

This was a busy week. We have been making a motivation board for the mission. I don't know if that makes sense but I'll take a picture some time for you. Sister King is an art major so we got to paint a lot. It will help track the referrals, investigators and baptisms. It's hard to explain but it's exciting. When we teach it is so much more then a number, we are bring souls unto Christ. We also have goals to help us stay motivated. It's like a pendulum, on one side you have no goals and no focus and on the other all you care about is numbers. You need to be always in the middle with a perfect balance. 

We have also been busy preparing a lesson for half the mission about the importance of receiving revelation through church attendance both for ourselves as missionaries and for those we are teaching. It's been going well. We are teaching tomorrow and I feel very prepared so I am happy. I love to teach.


Well I love you all soooooooooooooo MUCH!!!!
Love Sister Turner :)