2 months down...

Dear Family,

This week has been incredible! We have been blessed in so many ways and sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure that I am not living in a dream.  This Gospel and the people in it are outstanding and bring me so much happiness, I can't even contain my huge smile sometimes :D

First off, Miranda was baptized on Aug 24 and it was a wonderful service.  There were two talks, one on baptism by Carly, a sister in the branch; and the other by Sister Gardiner on the Holy Ghost.  Both of them did an incredible job and really brought the Spirit while teaching and testifying.  After their talks I sang "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go".  While singing I looked up and saw Miranda wiping the tears from her eyes which, surprise surprise, made me start to cry.  Then Miranda was baptized by our ward mission leader Corey.  She looked so changed she bore the most incredible testimony.  It was clear, accurate, and powerful in every way.  She was confirmed yesterday in Sacrament Meeting and received a wonderful blessing from the branch president.  I am incredibly humbled and grateful to have been a part of her conversion.  Even though I played a very small role, I know that my part was necessary.  I love Miranda and look forward to all the wonderful things that she will do in her life.  She is a huge blessing to me and has taught me so much about loving others and serving Heavenly Father with everything that we have.

Second, we have 2 new investigators who are on track and on date to be baptized (TJ doesn't quite have an official date set, but he/we are praying about a date!) Walter and TJ are both awesome, solid guys and are both thirsting to hear more about the Gospel.  We are excited to keep teaching both of them and helping them come closer to the Savior and Heavenly Father.  We also have 3 new people we are going to begin teaching this week.  David is doing good.  We didn't get to teach him this week, but he is still reading the BoM and says that he knows it's true.

Fairbanks is starting to get really cold! The weather is changing so quickly. :( Fall is officially here and winter is fast approaching.. let's just say, I am not ready for -50 degrees.  But, I am excited to see the Aurora!

I FINALLY SAW A MOOSE!!!!  After almost 7 weeks in AK, I finally got to check that goal off my list.  We saw a mama and a baby crossing the road on the day of Miranda's baptism.  I told her that it was a sign from Heavenly Father that He loves me, and that he was proud of Miranda.  She agreed! Haha.

The first official transger of my mission is over! It flew by and I am excited to spend at least another 6 weeks here in FBX 4th.  Today makes exactly 2 months since I started my mission! I can't believe I only have 15 months left.  It's going to come so much faster than any of us thought :(

I am loving my mission thus far and can't wait to see all the other miracles that will come up.  I am learning so much and am loving almost every single minute of my mission. 

I love you all and miss you bunches.  Keep writing me letters... :)

Love,
Sister Hatfield

p.s. here are some pictures!!

A week breakdown from Sister Hatfield!

Dear Family/Friends,

Holy cow!! This has been the fastest week of my life! We were SO busy! We taught 26 lessons this week, which is 6 more lessons than the goal for our mission. It was insane, but was such a good learning opportunity. I'll do a day-by-day recap of this last week just so you can all get a little taste of what my mission life is like. :)

Monday: PDAY!!!!! Laundry, emails, grocery shopping...We went on a hike as a Zone in the afternoon. It was a pretty easy trail, but was definitely a work-out. We ended up running back because we had an appointment to get to which was probably not the best idea...I couldn't walk normal for about two days. I also got huge blisters on both ankles, but it was so worth it! Our zone is so fun. We love to laugh and joke around so it makes for some really good times. :) I only had about 20 minutes to write letters. Unfortunately, I had 11 letters that I needed to respond to, but there was just no time. Sorry everyone! I'll try and respond to every letter I get, but there really is no time. Please don't be offended if I don't write you back. I still love you and would love to hear from you. :) After the hike we had 3 lessons than retired for the evening.

Tuesday: Work out, study, District Meeting, lunch, study, teach 4 lessons, try and find less-actives. Nothing too exciting.

Wednesday: EXCHANGES. Since there is another set of Sisters up here in FBX, we went on exchanges. I was with Sister Chan from Hong Kong. It was a crazy day, but was really fun. We got to teach one of her Chinese investigators which was a really neat experience. We taught 6 lessons that day!

Thursday: Work out, study, Training meeting (every Thurs we watch a live feed of the training meeting going on down in Anchorage. The whole mission watches and participates. We love technology!!), study, family history (each week we do one hour of family history or mormon.org), taught 2 lesson, and did some service. The service was really last minute and was very emotionally challenging. It was good for us though. It definitely made me grateful for everything I have and for the wonderful people I have in my life.

Friday: Study, weekly planning (3 hours of planning/setting goals for the next week), taught 4 lessons, took an investigator to a baptism going on in the stake. We always try to bring investigators to baptisms so that they can feel the Spirit and get excited about getting baptized for themselves.

Saturday: Study, Zone tract (2 hours of tracting for a companionship in the zone), interview with the AP's (assistant to the president...two elders assigned to help out our mission president), 5 lessons.

Sunday: Study, Church, 4 lessons. Sundays never go as planned, but they are always really good and very uplifting. 

Miranda is getting baptized this Friday night! We are all very excited for her and she is so ready to be an official member of the Church. I will take lots of pictures and will send them on next week's email!

The weather is starting to change here already. It's getting colder and starting to feel like Fall. I love it, but I'm not quite ready for winter yet. I have officially been in FBX for over a month now. Where has the time gone?? Next Monday will be my 2 month mark on my mission. I am loving every second and am having so many wonderful experiences. Please keep writing to me and thinking about/praying for me. I love all of you and hope you all have a wonderful week.

Love Always,
Sister Hatfield

New Happenings

The title of this letter was "I'll be home for Christmas" .... and I fell for it. Haha.  Here's her letter for this week! :)

Did my subject trick you?! Haha sorry about the joke, but I really will be home before next Christmas. My official release date would have been in January and was kind of stressing me out and keeping my mind away from what I should be thinking about, so in my interview with President Beesley this week, we decided to pick a date to come home. It will be the beginning of December. He said that he didn't want me to be away from my sister for 3 Christmases, so he's sending me home! I was so relieved and felt a lot more focused on the work after we decided that. :)

This week was a good one. The weeks go by so fast here that I have a hard time keeping track of what happens! But I guess that is a good thing. We taught a TON of lessons this week. 16 to be exact. The mission goal for weekly lessons is 20 and we should be higher than that next week. Miranda was out of town for the last 5 days, so we didn't get to see her as much. We did find a new investigator though! His name is David and he lives on Fort Wainwright. We were there on Saturday to visit a less-active member. David "happened" to walk by right as we walked in and Josiah (the LA) invited him to join us for the lesson. He is such a sweet guy from southern VA. He said the closing prayer in our lesson (which is huge!) and took a Book of Mormon and said he would read it. I invited him to come to church yesterday and he said he would try and make it. And he did! He and Josiah both came to church and he said he really enjoyed it and learned a lot. He also said that he had read his Book of Mormon! We are meeting with him again on Tuesday and are excited about teaching him the lessons. 

I had a really interesting experience this week that I would like to share with you all. I think I mentioned in a previous email that we met with a LA who is now a 7th-Day Adventist. We challenged him to Read the BoM and pray about it and we set up a return appointment. Well, we went this week and were completely unprepared for what was about to happen. We walked in his apartment and he and his two other 7th day friends were sitting, bibles and notebooks in hand, ready to "chat" about the BoM. Side note...just the day before, Friday, I had told Sis Gardner that sometimes I worry that I don't have the Spirit with me when I teach, but she assured me that I do and that I am just so used to having it that I wouldn't recognize it being there until it was gone. Fast forward back to the LA...as soon as we sat down and began talking to these people I immediately felt the Spirit leave me and felt sick the entire time we were there (which was over an hour). I told them that we were not there to argue or to bash each-other and that I didn't want anything to get out of hand. They agreed, but continued to put our church down, so we decided to leave. Although it was a difficult time and experience, I am grateful for it. I learned that when we don't have the Spirit with us, we are forced to face this dark and scary world alone. 

I also had some really good times and met with my mission president. He is incredible and is really proud of the work we are doing here. Sister Gardner and I are seeing a lot of miracles and blessings in the work every day, and we know that none of them would be possible without strict obedience and willingness to serve with everything we have. And we are striving to do just that. I love the work I am doing out here. It brings me so much joy and is teaching me so much. I can't wait to share with all of you the wonderful experiences we are having!

I hope you all are doing well and are finding true, eternal joy in the lives you are living. If not, find it. It is there and is wonderful.

I love you!

Love always,
Sister Hatfield

Miracles

Dear Family ( and Friends!),

This week has been wonderful. There have been so many miracles and blessings that I have been a part of and have witnessed this week! I love it!

Sister Gardner was gone for the beginning of the week at a Leadership conference in Anchorage so I was up here on exchanges with another sister for 3 days. It was...different. It's hard to work with someone new who does things completely differently than you do, but it was a really great experience. It taught me that I am stronger than I know and am very capable of doing the work. It's amazing to see how far I have come since I left. I still have a long way to go, but am looking forward to the person I am going to become. We all have such incredible potential in this life and in the eternities. There's a quote that says, "We often see ourselves in terms of yesterday and today. Our Heavenly Father sees us in terms of forever." How true that is. He knows our potential and gave us the lives he did so that we could become that person. We just need to be willing to let ourselves be strengthened through trials and hardships instead of playing the "wo is me" card. 

Miranda is progressing so well! We took her to a baptism on Thursday and she loved it. She turned to me and said, "I wish that was me!". I told her that it will be in just a few short weeks. She is such an incredibly strong young woman. She is faithful and diligent in all she does and all we ask her to do. She actually asked us if she could meet with us every day because she misses us when she doesn't see us. How sweet is that?? Yesterday was an incredible day for all of us, Miranda included. We were all fasting for her to have strength to tell her parents about her baptism. She said that she felt really strong after her blessing ( Elder Na'a gave her one for comfort and strength on Saturday, it was incredible!) and even stronger because of her fast. She actually got up in Relief Society and bore her testimony! We didn't even ask her to do it. She got up and bore an incredibly powerful testimony of the church and said how grateful she was for us missionaries. I may or may not have cried the entire time. I love her so much and am grateful for every moment I get to spend with her and teach her. 

We don't have any other investigators, but we are doing a lot of less-active work. To me, less-active and active work is JUST AS important as finding new converts. If we don't have members who are solid in their testimonies, we won't have a strong church. It's hard work, but it's good and worth-while.

I think I say this in every email, but I am really, truly loving my mission. I have been out 2 fast sundays now, and I only have 16 left! It's such a sad thought. Before I came out I kept thinking how long 18 months is, but now that I am already half-way through my first transfer, I am starting to dread the end of my time here. Serving others and teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ is some of the best and most important work we can do on this earth. There are so many people out there who are seeking the eternal truths that we have. When we don't share those truths with them, we are with-holding blessings from them and from ourselves. Be brave! Open your mouth. Tell others what you know to be true. There-in lies eternal happiness. 

I love you all and hope that you are all striving your best to live your life in accordance to the will of Heavenly Father. I know that once I made the decision to serve Him and to align my will with His, I was truly blessed. I am happier than ever with my decision to serve a mission and am grateful for the experiences I am having, both good and bad. Keep up the good work at home and write me letters! They really make a difference.

Love Always,
Sister Hatfield