Jan. 9, 2012

How are you all doing? It was good to get your email! I'm glad that you are all doing well and feeling better! It sounds like it's been another normal week? Back to school and the busy life of the Randall's. I enjoyed your story of wearing Austin's shirt to church. I still can't believe how grown up he is. I probably won't believe it until I see him in person..and maybe not even then ;)

 

Dad, as for your paragraph "The 3 kids all bore their testimonies today in church.  They all talked about how wonderful their family is.  Everyone now thinks that we are perfect.  I wasn't about to stand up and ruin that.  Let them think what they want." The scriptures tell us to avoid all appearance of evil, and I'm pretty sure it's a commandment to "not bear false witness." ;) haha. That's funny though. I'm proud of you all and I love and think of you often. We had a gentleman stand up in our Sacrament meeting and start preaching. He's older, he's a convert, and he's a less active. So, it was interesting, Bishop had to ask him to sit down. That's always awkward...

 

This week was busy, but it didn't show in our numbers reported for the week. We attended ZLC (Zone Leader Counsel) this week. That was a good meeting, and then we had Zone Training this week as well. So we had lots of meetings and interviews with President. I'm pretty sure I passed! ;) We taught Jenny 3 times this past week. She had her baptismal interview and is ready to go! We are so excited for her! This Saturday at 4pm is going to be the best week of the year (thus far). We were talking with Jenny and she found my mormon.org profile and then followed the link to my blog. She read about some of my experiences and I was relieved to find out that the last update was in September! It might be a little weird to read about yourself...with a different name. Ha. She's so sweet though. I love her so much and we look forward to meeting her friend from CA who is coming out this week!   It's going to be an awesome week! We are excited for school to start next week so that everyone is back! One of our investigators is still at home and we've had very limited contact with him. :( From what we understand he is still excited to learn more! We are excited for him. We are teaching a referral tonight, and we are hoping that that will go well. Anyway, we don't have a lot planned for the upcoming week, but I'm sure we will make it productive!

 

Next Monday we find out about transfers. We have no new sisters coming in, but next transfer we have 8 sisters coming in! I didn't realize they ever sent that many sisters out at once for our mission. I don't think we have any going home either... So, we will increase in number! Fun! Oh and Sister Clements was telling us that we are going to have a Sister's conference this month! How fun is that? For the first time we would have a meeting with JUST sisters and no elders. It should be really good and it sounds like we will be having some fun!

 

As for the insurance thing- I gave the doctor our insurance card, but then I think when the bill came into the office Elder Randall just went ahead and sent it through the MissionaryMedical instead. I don't know why, or if that's for sure. Anyway, that was when I went and got my inhalers back in like May or June or whatever. So you know, I got my flu shot the other day and used the insurance..it made it free for me! And today I'm gonna be going to the Chiropractor. I've been really tense and have been grinding my teeth for the last few weeks. I'm hoping that this visit will help me out a lot.

 

I think this is gonna be a short email this week. Not much is happening. I'll send pictures of us and Jenny next week! It's going to be a good weekend :)

 

Well, I love you all. I hope you are well and enjoying your "normal" lives! Keep working hard and know that I love you! Have an awesome week!

 

Love, Sister Gunga Randall

Jan. 2, 2012

Oh! My dear family! How are you doing this fine January of 2012? I really never thought this year would come...But, here it is!
I'm glad you seemed to enjoy the New Year! The Boats sound fun! It's a good thing Dad didn't tip over in the canoe...that would've been cooooold! I'm sorry you've all been sick! That is never ever fun. I like Bishop's challenge! We are currently, as a mission, reading 6 pages a day. It takes about 15-25 minutes to read that much. We are supposed to be finished by the middle of February. I've found that you get so much more out of it when you are looking for specific things in the Book of Mormon. Right now we are watching for the application of the Doctrine of Christ (Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End). I also have thought about going through and highlighting things like power and authority, commandment, love, etc. Choose an attribute you want to develop over the next year and watch for it, or similar attributes while reading. It's cool.
Our Relief Society president spoke in Sacrament meeting and used a talk by Marvin J Ashton called Be a Quality Person. I'm excited to read and study it. :) Maybe Miranda would enjoy it. It's directed to the singles.

When does school start back up? Are you doing another semester? What happened with the house? Did you get the house? As for remembering things...I feel like the older I get (and I'm only 22) the more I forget! What is gonna happen to me? :S


This was a really good week. I have not had a week like this in a long time, if ever. We really thought that we would be struggling to reach our goals during the break, but the Lord has worked miracles. We met or exceeded 9 out of 12 goals that we set. The only areas we struggle in was teaching Active members (we aren't really getting fed or seeing many members during the week) and in contacting--but even then our contacting numbers are up from the last couple weeks. Anyway, we got 5 new investigators this week! :D Jenny is doing great! Still going strong for January 14th. She doesn't really understand the difference between this baptism and when she was baptized as a baby. So, we are going to take her down to the temple and walk by it, and then teach her about the restoration of the Priesthood in the chapel right next door. It'll be great!
On New Year's Eve we went to Downtown Minneapolis and walked around. It was beautiful, all the lights and the city...amazing. It started RAINING (Yes, December 31st and it is raining). It was a lot of fun. We met a really neat kid that we will hopefully be teaching tomorrow. We can call him Gerald. He asked us if we could exchange information and he was asking a lot of great questions concerning the Plan of Salvation. It was really cool. And by the time we got home that night the rain turned to snow, the moisture on the ground froze and now we have ice. But, the temperature is supposed to get up to the 40's again this weekend! We have talked to a couple older people who have lived in MN their whole lives and they say that they have never seen a winter this warm! Boy, am I grateful for this weather! :D
Last night we taught an awesome lesson. We started out and he kept asking questions and saying things like "i don't think this is for me" "something just isn't clicking..." So, right off the bat our joint teacher jumps off and well, he was pretty much trying to teach the lesson, and as hard as we tried we couldn't take control of the lesson. Finally, the guy we were teaching was like, I'm gonna go meet up with my friends and go to the movies, if they haven't left yet. So, we were gonna teach his friend-who is a recent convert to the church. But, before we could start teaching her, he came back. But the RC was like, can we still do my lesson? So, Sister Cook, bless her brilliant and Spirit guided mind, said "yes, of course. Today we are going to talk about the Restoration." Which is what we'd been trying to teach our investigator. So, we taught the Restoration, directed to our RC and the Spirit was SO strong for the ENTIRE lesson. He hardly said a word, and neither did our joint teacher. At the end of the lesson our investigator said "This much I will say, this is real (touching the Book of Mormon). The Book of Mormon is true. Buuuut, it's not for me." However, he agreed to meet up again. He has some concerns and undoubtedly very non-supportive friends. But that is the strongest I've felt the Spirit in one of our lessons since Moses back in my first area. It was amazing.

I'd say those were the highlights of the week. We've kept busy. Oh, yeah! We went on exchanges. I went to North St. Paul with Sister Benson. They have been starting a new kind of work there. Sister Benson has been learning Nepali and they work with a lot of people from Nepal. So, I got to meet many of the new converts and investigators from Nepal and even received a Nepali name! My name is Gunga. Or, in Nepali: Mera nam Gunga ho.  (My name Gunga is.) I also got to play a Chinese flute called a "Bawu" I don't remember how to say it, but that's how it is spelt. I want one! And I got to play a Nepali flute called a "Basuri". The Nepali flute is like a thin pipe almost. It's interesting. I had a lot of fun!

We finalized our lesson plans for our class about God and have decided to make it a 3 week course and by the 3rd week have invited them to meet with us outside of the class. Of course, they are welcome to keep coming, but we'll be covering the same material. Anyway, I'm blabbering. So much has been going on. I'm loving Dinkytown. Transfer day is like 2 or 3 days before my birthday, and I really don't want to transfer! But, God's will be done.

Well, it was good to hear from you. I hope you all get to feeling better. I love you all and miss you and hope you are doing well. Oh...yes, we have a freezer and for my birthday I don't know what I want. I'm good on winter materials... a "Bawu" would be cool, but it might be a couple hundred dollars. Cheaper than my flute! ;) umm, I don't know. Not Candy. I feel fat and have no desire to eat candy for a really long time. And I'm collecting lots of stuff...I don't know where it all came from. I'm sure I'll end up leaving a lot of the winter stuff I got for free behind. But, anyway. I'm sure whatever you send will be great, or you can send me a card and save the money for when I come home and need clothes that aren't missionary clothes.... well, I love you. Be safe and enjoy your winter!

Love,
Your Daughter, Sister, Granddaughter, or Cousin (but in any case your favorite Sister missionary),
Sister Randall :)

Dec. 26, 2011

Hello, my dear family! I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas! Not too much has been going on lately. All the students left this week to go home. So, campus is dead and will be for another 4 weeks. They have a long winter break. 

Thank you for your cards and gifts. I really appreciated all your kindness and thoughts. It's good to see that you are all doing well!

So, I'm mostly writing this email for the benefit of those of you who were not present with my parents and siblings when we Skyped, but not all of this was shared in our conversation. But, the most exciting news is that Jenny texted us this past weekend and asked if she could be baptized in January! We told her of course and she is now scheduled to be baptized on January 14th! Her friend will be coming from California and we are so excited that she has decided to take this step. Her parents are very supportive and her dad wants to read the Book of Mormon as well. It's very exciting! When at first she told us she wanted to be baptized in Spring we knew we couldn't talk her out of it or even push it too much. So, we still talked about the importance of baptism, but never specifically about her being baptized, unless she brought it up. Which she did. We trusted Heavenly Father that He would help her to feel the Spirit and increase her desire to be baptized in January. Jenny is one of those special people who has been prepared by Angels and came to us. She is such an incredible girl!

We taught Stewart again and resolved and talked about some of his concerns with family and divorce. We finished teaching the Plan of Salvation and finally answered his question. He is so sweet and so sincere. He also accepted a baptism date of January 21st, but we think it will be pushed back a week. He is currently at home and we aren't sure of what he is thinking or if he went to church, but he has also been prepared by Angels. It's amazing to see the way that the Lord takes care of His children, He is willing to lead us where we need to be, if we only give heed. 

Tuesday we went Christmas caroling. It was us, the elders, and 2 people from the Institute Choir. It was a lot of fun and we actually sounded pretty good. Someone told us we were the first carolers he had seen this year. Which doesn't surprise me since this is a college town and everyone is stressed about finals. 

Thursday we taught our first Who is God? Class. It went pretty good. 2 girls showed up (one of which is actually here right now playing ping pong with the Elders). We are learning a lot about their culture and how to explain words and where to put the emphasis. We are hoping to have it pretty well figured out before school starts up again. Thankfully we have a couple members who served Chinese-speaking missions and are helping us figure it all out. It's wonderful. The two Chinese girls came to church on Sunday! Us and the elders made breakfast for lunch and had the 2 Chinese girls from the class and one other Chinese investigator join us. We also had another member join us. It was all three of the Chinese girls first Christmas!  It was fun to be able to be a part of making Christmas! I enjoyed it a lot. 

Friday was Elder Ruesch's Birthday. We went to Sushi to celebrate. It was my first time and it didn't go over very well....   Anyway, We had a fun Christmas week/weekend. We are looking forward to the upcoming weeks! We are wondering if/when the weather is going to change to FREEZING. Today it is 50 degrees. Isn't that amazing!? 

Anyway, I hope you all had an amazing Christmas! I love you and have an awesome week!

Love, Sister Randall

Dec. 19, 2011

Isn't it just a wonderful time of year? I'm glad school is wrapping up well! I should be able to Skype home around 4pm. We will be going to a member's home in Hudson Wisconsin--which is about a 45 minute drive. Sister Cook is going to Skype around 3ish. If anything changes I'll let you know--somehow. I'm super excited to see and talk to you all! I really hope you get to enjoy a magical Christmas this year! :D I'm sure Santa will pull everything through and everyone will have the gifts they have ordered. I think I decided that when I get to start making Christmas traditions I'm going to try to do some sort of service something-special for the Christmas season. Service is good year round, of course. :) I hope you all enjoy your vacation from school and work!

Tell Jimmy congrats! Is she gonna be moving here? Weddings are so exciting :)

Well, for the usual update... *Jenny is doing well! She went to Chicago this weekend to a concert with her sister and some friends. She got home last night and leaves today to go be with her family. We will miss her. She made us cute little presents for Christmas, I will attach a picture :D She's awesome. 

Last Sunday one of our members brought her friend, *Jessica, (I think I'm drawn to J names or something?) so we taught her the Restoration, and she was pretty open. So we went to the Job Core and taught her again on Tuesday. It was a super good lesson, the spirit was strong and our member pointed it out to Jessica. Jessica recognized it as the same feeling she had felt while praying that morning. We invited her to be baptized on Jan. 21st and she accepted. So, on Saturday we drove to her family's home (she's home for the holidays now) and gave her a Joy to the World and met her parents--they were super nice. It was good. Hopefully we can continue to teach her over break. 

Friday was an amazing day. We were eating at our weekly Friday Lunch Devotional when Brother Miller came and told us someone was here to meet us. So, we went out into the hallway and Brother Macdonald introduced us to *Stewart. Stewart had walked into the institute building to learn more about what we believed. He was raised and confirmed Catholic but soon realized that he didn't believe in the pope, so he couldn't be Catholic anymore. Then, he started going to a Protestant Bible Study, but didn't feel that that was right either. He'd passed the Institute building several times and just felt compelled to come in and learn more. So, we taught him the Restoration and he came to church on Sunday. And the lesson for Priesthood/Relief Society was Exaltation and they talked about becoming gods. That's always a good lesson for an investigators first Sunday... We taught him afterward and started teaching him the Plan of Salvation. He was super calm and was willing to listen, and wasn't freaking out about it. It's amazing how much the Spirit can teach people. He had also told Sister Cook after Sunday School that he had read 3 Nephi 11 like we'd asked and that it was all new and different but he felt very calm while reading it. The Lord is preparing people to receive His gospel, it's amazing. 

Also, our member that brought Jessica brought her friend Jarrell to church and he was very skeptical and asked lots of questions, but he kept realizing that everything made sense! I'm not sure how open he is, but he was a nice kid :)

Last night the Mission put on a Musical Celebration of Christmas. We got to go to that, it was cool. At the end the missionaries sung "He Sent His Son", it was cool. Then, Sister Cook and I got to stand at the tables in one of the foyers and hand out Joy to the World DVD's, copies of the Book of Mormon, and other materials. We had some really cool conversations with nonmembers and I was surprised at how many nonmembers there were present! It was cool :)

We have definitely stayed busy this past week. This week we are going Christmas caroling, at least once, we will be having our Christmas Conference as a mission on Tuesday morning at 7:30am (why soooooo early!?), Thursday we will be teaching our first class about who God is. We still don't have a name for it, and we don't know if anyone is coming, but we are certainly going to try. Finals week is difficult with students, and everyone is going out of town. So, for the month of winter break we are going to probably spend a lot of time tracting and giving referrals to family ward missionaries. Thankfully it's been pretty warm! It's been surprising. The coldest it's really been is 25. Yesterday evening around 9 it was 42 degrees! It was so warm! :D Best. Winter. Ever. 

But, that kind of takes care of what's been going on. It's been a good week and we are excited for Christmas! :D I love this time of year! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with family! I love you lots and I look forward to talking to you on Christmas day!

Love, 

Sister Randall

pic 1= Jenny's gift to us, she made them!

pic 2= Sis. Cook and I ready to go talk to people :D

Dec. 12, 2011

It was so good to hear from you this week! Indeed, I got the package! Thanks so much! And, don't worry about the straightener, I don't need it...nor do I really want it. I go through random spurts where I wish I could straighten my hair, but then I remember how long it takes and how much I like my curly hair. :) Isn't it wonderful!? Haha.

I'm glad that you had a busy week! It sounds like you are all doing well! I have tried hard to remember your birthdays, but I think I missed Erin's, sorry Erin! Only 1-2 more birthdays to remember now before I return to the land of my fathers. Yes, I just tried using scriptural language. haha. Sorry, I'm sort of in a silly mood. The Christmas party sounded beautiful and fun! Our ward had an open house thing at our bishop's house, but we chose to not go. However, our bishopric provided Christmas dinner after church yesterday. We did attend that! We had homemade soup bowls (the bread with the center cut out) and different soups. It was fun! Maybe someday I'll be creative enough to come up with those adorable center pieces that Sister Riley made! That's so cute! I admire people's creativity!

I love "Still, Still, Still" our institute choir sang that in Sacrament meeting this past week. It was pretty. Wish Shaelyn the best of luck with being the anchor. That sounds like fun! :) I hope that you were able to enjoy Shae's birthday. The past 1 1/2 months has been full of events! Halloween, Thanksgiving, Mom's, Miranda's and Shae's birthday and soon to be Christmas! So, that's probably more like 2ish months. But still! It was crazy busy!

Austin sounds like he is leading an exciting life and being, in his words "awesome". :) Good work on doing your chores buddy!
The furry critter doesn't sound like a fun thing to meet. I hope you can get him out! Best of luck with finals! I'm glad you aren't stressing out too much for them. It's good to be calm!

I can Skype! If we can find a member with a computer that will still be around. Which, is hard in a singles ward. We will see what we can work out. We will make some phone calls and what not this week. Our church service is from 10am-11am. So, Sister Cook and I will talk about times and figure out who will call when. It will probably be between 12:30 and 1:30. I'm excited to talk to you all! I'm excited that Sam and Erin will be home! :) I'm in the same area I was in last time I called. How funny. What if I'm back here again next Mother's day?

Tell Charity congrats--and Uncle Jimmy :) That's cute. Wow, first child on the Randall side of cousins. She won! ;) Not that it was a race or anything.

Well, this past week we met with Jenny. We followed up on all of the commitments that we've given her and she'd kept only one of them--and that was to pray. Not church, not reading and not the Word of Wisdom. She had had a terrible week on top of it all--but she recognized the correlation, which was very important. She talked to her boss, and got Sunday mornings off so that she can come to church. When we met with her we read from 2 Nephi 26, the Spirit was strong and it was an incredible thing to be able to feel and understand what she was feeling and thinking. You could tell that the Lord was chastening her through the scriptures, but the end of the chapter brought reassurance, love, and hope. I think she left with a stronger commitment to live the commitments she'd received. She also now wants to be baptized earlier, the only problem is getting her friend and her friend's family safely from CA to MN in the middle of winter. We just love Jenny so much. She's wonderful!

The snow melted again. I can't believe how long we've gotten without tons of snow. It's been in the upper 30's today. It feels great! All you need is a sweater with a jacket! It's great! :) I'm hoping for a mild January and a white Christmas. :) Well, that sounds like our week. We have some Christmas events coming up and we are excited for the Christmas season :)

I hope that you are all well and warm and enjoying the holidays! I love you all and wish you the best! I'll write next week! Thanks for all that you do!

Love,
Sister Randall

Dec. 5, 2011

Hey!!!
Well, it was transfer calls today. Sister Cook and I are staying but one of our elders is being transferred out. It kinda makes me sad, having him around was like having a little brother on the mission with me.

The Thanksgiving event we went to was in one of our members home, but his roommates and other friends were there and had plenty of alcohol. So, it was just there. Anyway, it was a random event on my mission.

It sounds like all is going well at home. How is Christmas preparation? I am not going to miss the holiday shopping. Not at all.
This is really hard to know what to write this week, since I wrote last Thursday. Thanks for the package! I'll keep an eye out for it. You are all absolutely awesome!! :D

We have been working on our group thing for people who don't know who God is. And guess what we've figured out! Preach My Gospel has it all! We'll start with the first half of the Restoration-- God is Our Loving Heavenly Father, Gospel Blesses Family, Dispensations, Christ's Earthly Ministry. It'll be awesome. And we will keep moving. We still have a lot of kinks to work out, but it will all end up well. The most important thing is to have the Spirit there. Maybe we can start with "I am a Child of God". Anyway! I'm just rambling.

Well, the snow melted, but it snowed again. I think it's here to stay this time. We made it until December! Which is awesome! It's getting pretty chilly. I picked up a long skirt that was left behind by one of the sisters, plus I have one, and they are gonna be my favorite skirts this winter--because I can wear sweats underneath! *I WILL SURVIVE!* haha. I am very nervous for January though. :S I hear it's the worst. Anyway. I'm just gonna say: I love you very much. I am excited to talk to you on Christmas. Oh, do you know Sam & Erin's plans for Christmas? Well, I'm gonna go. I hope you are all doing wonderfully and enjoying this Christmas season!

LOVE YOU!
Love,
Sister Randall

Dec. 1, 2011

December DEFINITELY snuck up on me! I can't believe it's already December 1st. Weird. Anyway...how are you doing? It sounds like you enjoyed your Thanksgiving. I don't think I knew Stephanie had another baby...maybe I did? That's fun that you got to see everyone! It sounds like everyone is doing well :) I do vaguely remember the Christmas tree being thrown out Christmas day.... you have got to love the bothersome, yet funny events in life. We had one this week too, I'll share it later! How is school going? Are you getting ready for finals? I know everyone here is already freaking out about finals, it feels like midterms just got over. College students just THINK they are busy. In all reality, if we were better at managing our time, we'd realize that we have quite a bit of spare time. Silly kids. (I think I fall under that category still..and probably will for a long time.) Our Thanksgiving was good. It was the first gathering I've been to that had alcoholic bevereges in my whole life. Funny that it happens on my mission. But, the turkey was really good. It was definitely an interesting experience. You've got to love college students.

 

We've had a long week, but it's been good. Sunday we fasted for strengthened faith in finding and to be able to find people to teach. Monday we did SO well. It was incredible. Plus we found a couple people out of the area book. It was a cool experience. Tuesday was gonna be awesome and we were going to teach like 6 lessons, but we only ended up teaching 3? Our first lesson was sick, so hopefully next week we can meet. The other one stood us up. And I don't remember what the other one was. It was a hard day. Yesterday I was feeling a bit under the weather and I blame it on the apartment. Speaking of which, we got a phone call yesterday from Elder Randall asking about the apartment and telling us that we needed to make a couple of phone calls and see if we can find a member to live with. Because of the situation and timing of the call, I'm pretty sure I'm staying in Dinkytown for another transfer. But, I think Sister Cook is getting transfered :( Which is sad, because I really have enjoyed serving with her and I love her so much. She's taught me a lot. But, I'm sure I'll love my next companion as well. I'll know by Monday what is happening.

 

Today I got a letter from Taryn! It was AWESOME. She sent a whole bunch of pictures from her travels this summer. Over to Turkey and Paris and Bulgaria? Maybe. I can't remember off the top of my head. Then her, Amanda, Sarah, and Danielle all went to Harry Potter World. It looks SO cool. It was fun to look at them. Taryn pointed out that she GRADUATES next December. It makes me feel so behind in the world. I haven't even finished my 2nd year of college. :S

 

(This is the bothersome yet funny event) So a couple weeks ago, I don't remember if I told you about him, we taught a Chinese kid how to pray. He was super sweet and when we were walking away he said, "Oh! In the name of Jesus Christ, have a good day!" It was so cute. Anyway, he was going to come to church around Thanksgiving time, so we emailed him when we hadn't seen him, and this is the response we got:

Hi, I went to the church the weekend before Thanksgiving, but I didn't see you. I sang the songs, and eat the bread with red wine. I had a great time talking with the pastor, Dan is a very good pastor. People who work in sanctuary were very nice. That visit really changed my impression about church. Final exams are coming, I am busy these days. I may have time after the finals, but I am not sure. Again, thank you very much for keeping in touch with me. May God's sacred light shining down on you and on all of us, Amen.

So, my guess is that he went to the building right next door that actually looks like a church building, instead of the institute. Woops! We emailed him back to tell him it wasn't the right church--which was a difficult email to write-- and invited him this next Sunday. But, he's not available. :( Hopefully he'll come and notice a difference. I think we struggle the most with explaining who God is. Do you have any suggestions? It's like teaching an intelligent child who God is. They've lived and understand so much, but it's so hard to explain and comprehend who God is when they've gotten this far in life. Anyway, it's a fun challenge. We've been talking about doing a class 1-2 times a month to explain about who God is. But, before we do that, we have to figure out how to teach it. But, we would advertise it mostly to the Asian students, and it could be really successful. Especially when it's winter break and the only people still here are the international students. It seems like this group of students would be more likely to show up to a generalized group invitation, than to agree to a sit down lesson with 2 random missionaries. We'll see if we can get that going.

 

Anyway, that's where things are at for now! It snowed last night. It's not too cold yet. I think yesterday was the first day in the 30's, and we are surviving. We just need a lot more investigators so that we can spend less time contacting and more time teaching. Well, I love you a lot and I hope all is well. Keep smiling and I hope you can enjoy this Christmas season! I love you!!

 

Love, Sister Randall

T2U=T-25   Can ya figure it out?