#notinkansasanymore

Hey Family and friends! I hope you all had a great Christmas!

Christmas here was weird. It didn't really feel like Christmas for so many reasons. One being no snow. Another being no family.

But on Christmas Eve I was able to read the original Christmas story in Luke 2. And I also read about what was happening on Christmas in the Americas from the Book of Mormon. It's amazing to have this history! I love it! It just goes to show how much God loves us His children. The people looking forward to Christ's birth were being persecuted and were going to be killed by other people and amongst all of this grief and stress they were saved by one of the signs of His birth- light! Jesus Christ is truly the Light of the World!

Also, we were able to join a family in their nativity as angels and their traditions Christmas Eve night!

Real Mistletoe

"Killing" Sister Ford - her dying pic.

Also..... I got to skype my family on Christmas!!!!! Yayyyy! 🎄 🎁 🎅🏼

Hope you all had wonderful Christmas's!

Remember there was only one Christmas Day. The rest are anniversaries!

Love, Sister Crowther

25 Days of Lighting the World

Light the World

#NotinKansasanymore
#LighttheWorld
#THANKSgivingFilled

I love this video so much! It is one of my favorite Christmas messages. It clearly shows Jesus Christ as the LIGHT of the world and how we can follow His example and be the LIGHT of the world. (John 8:12, Matt. 5:14-16)I love it so much and I love that Christmas is all about LIGHT! Putting those LIGHTs up everywhere, but you can share LIGHT this Christmas in more than just a physical way, but by kindness and service.
LIGHTtheWORLD — Follow the example of Jesus Christ. Share His light —serve as He served. (2:37)

Christmas gift...

Cutie!

This week was different with so many out of town or busy with family. Everyone is so happy with their families and friends in the holidays. It makes me happy, but some of our visits this week have really actually made me pretty sad. We have a couple of people who are not members of our church that I have grown to love so much. They each have such rough trials at the holiday time.

• The first is Sylvia. She is so sweet. She had to have some kind of foot surgery and you can just tell that life is really hard for her right now. We are able to do service for her this week so I am excited to get to know her better and teach her about the LIGHT of Christ. :)
• The next is Bill. Bill is the sweetest man I know. He is always sooo so happy! He came to church with us one time and then has been hard to meet with lately because of different medical trips to the hospital and this week we learned that he was just diagnosed with leukemia. Bill still has so much cheer and hope. He reads the Book of Mormon pretty regularly. He knows that Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet. He is just so happy and a bright hope to other people. He still plans to dress in an elf costume and Santa costume just to make people smile. He is the coolest. Anyway, keep him in your prayers. He started chemotherapy today.
• Next is Janice! Janice is one of my favorite findings. She has some personal problems in her life right now and as soon as she separates herself from them she will be more able to meet with us. She plans to change her life circumstances and needs help doing so.
  
   My heart goes out to all three of these people. They are so sweet and in such need at this holiday time. One of them was just thanking us up and down for not giving up on her and coming to help her and the other two both begged. Just pleaded. For us to not give up on them. I hope I never forget the feelings I had with these people I teach and work with. I love them so much. I won't forget them just pleading for us to not give up on them. Telling us "[we are their] faith". I love my mission so much and I learn more and more each and every day. I would challenge you all to remember the people around you who may not be having the jolliest holidays and be a LIGHT to them in 25 ways over 25 days. Seriously. I want the world to do this! Make it big. Do it and then share the video and challenge your friends to do it!

Oh we are heart attacking Bill's door tonight with good sayings and love. It's a good example to start y'all off! :D
Love y'all so so much and enjoy the holidays!  

Sister Crowther

Merry Christmas CA Roseville Mission - Can you find me?

 CAN YOU FIND ME?

Can you find me?

New Area - Redding for Christmas!

CHECK OUT MY NEW ADDRESS ON THE TITLE PAGE!!!

So.... transfers!!! From Small town Gridley to the city of Redding! Redding is SOOO BIG! I have to learn it in 6 weeks!!!!! Because my companion Sister Ford goes home in 6 weeks so that's fun! I'm trying as hard as I can to learn this city and learn the people. It's a lot easier than I expected, but I do feel so lost all the time. I'm excited though. It's fun. Sister Ford is from Minnesota and we've already bonded so much. I love her. I've learned so much from her already in these first five days with her.

First night: My first couple days here have been quite the blur, but pretty awesome. :D The first night I was here, Tuesday, I got here at like 5:30 and we threw my bags in the apartment and we ran off to dinner. We went to Book of Mormon class right after that. Which was AWESOME! I really liked that we asked the guys that were there (there were 3 men) to take some time to think of a question before we started. Or something they wanted their studies to answer. It was really really spirit filled and it helped me realize how I needed to change my own studies.

Thrifty or tipsy? We did service at a thrift store. This thrift store is super organized and the boss is this crazy happy lady that you would think had a little too much to drink. One of the employees we work with is a cross dresser. He doesn't really talk to us that much though.So that's fun too. Haha nobody there is a member. We spent the time wiping down alcohol containers. Some half full. Hmmm... not really fun, but we spent that time getting to know each other, my companion and I. That was fun. Haha

Not a greenie? Brother McOmber is my new Ward mission leader and he's really great! He was just called 3 months ago so he's pretty new. He is driven to do the work, excited, and he loves us. He wants me to talk in Ward council about experiences I have had in my past area getting to eat with less actives and investigators. I was blown away by how I was treated because I have a past area. It's incredibly different when you aren't in your greenie area. At first I was really shy to talk about my past area because it's not like I have all this experience, but I've found I really do! I don't know it all, but I do bring some other experiences to the table and it's great! Another day I was able to use something I learned during my hardest week in the mission. I told my companion what I had learn and how it applied to our situation. My companion thought it was cool and didn't stop talking about it and telling other members and missionaries the whole day. She said it was the best lesson we have had with Judith. It was pretty cool. I've learned a lot from Sister Ford already, but now I feel like I get to use my past experiences and we really do equally help each other. It's pretty awesome.

Is this water sanitary? :D just kidding! It's all sanitary. We all had lunch with this really funny lady named Bonnie who loves feeding all the missionaries. Her food was so good. The house like has no floor. It's crazy. She basically lives in a shack.  I'm not kidding. Her house is like living outdoors. I don't think there was glass on her windows. I think it was sheets. I'm not sure. I can't remember. It makes me very grateful for what I have and I learn so much from her happiness. She feeds us every week!

Inspiring Convert: Another big lesson we had that day was Gabe. We taught Gabe about the priesthood. Gabe is the sweetest, most humble man I know. He is straight awesome. He had to overcome a lot of word of wisdom problems before baptism. He was in a bad place and now he just gets so emotional when he talks about how much his life is changed. He was baptized last Saturday btw. His friends at work are being really mean and really rude to him for joining the church and are always trying to get him to drink something. This is really really hard on him. He is just so sensitive and hates that people are so mean to him. Gabe is a shining example to me. I know that We can change through Christ's atonement and I am so blessed to get to hear Gabe's testimony as I teach him.

For p-day today we played SAND volleyball! In December! Crazy!

Love you guys soooo much!

Love,
Sister Crowther

Fun Pics - Transferred to Redding, CA Dec. 12th, 2016

Day of  Service

Happy Thanksgiving!

This week we started out by planning a baptism! And ended it with this baptism. A baptism for a sweet 12 year old girl who was sooo excited to get baptized and receive the Holy Ghost that she cried when she thought the date might have to be pushed back. This little girl, Elizabeth is so sweet and has an inspiring testimony of the Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. She was sooo ready to receive the Holy Ghost in her life! She wanted it and was willing to meet with us every
day leading up to her baptism.

We then had exchanges on Tuesday. That was a really weird off exchange. I'm determined to never let exchanges go that way again. It was a good learning experience. We had such a fun lesson with sweet Ruby about the plan of salvation. We had the lesson with a family of 4 lot her little kids and they were so involved and so fun to teach. I love teaching this family because it's fun to come up with creative, fun ways to teach kids.

Thursday, we had an awesome lesson with Paul about the plan of salvation. Paul has recently struggled with the death of a person who was very close to him. This person was killed by anger shooting. Paul has been having a really rough time with it for a couple weeks. When we taught this lesson we taught it to the needs of Paul. We laughed and had fun with him and then sat down to have a lesson. We read from the scriptures and explained the resurrection and beautiful plan of
Heavenly Father. With the spirit there, Paul opened up and started asking questions about death and the spirit world. It was such a beautiful lesson. I learned and gained so much testimony from getting
to teach Paul. I finally realized why people take death sooo hard. The questions he asked broke my heart. I know that we are blessed with the restored gospel of Jesus Christ who leads our church today. I am grateful for the knowledge and sense of purpose at gives me.

 I am so thankful for the Atonement in my life. I have been teaching the story of the ten lepers. If you haven't read it, it's only 8 verses in Luke.   Luke 17:12-19. The story goes like this: ten lepers plead with Jesus to be healed. Lepracy is a terrible skin disease. Jesus heals every single one of the ten. One comes back and glorifies and praises God. He thanks Jesus. Jesus questions where the other nine are that were healed. He tells the one that his faith has made him whole. I know that Jesus Christ has overcome physical death for us all. That we will all be resurrected with perfect bodies. Spiritual death (separation of us and God) is also overcome, but through our gratitude which is shown by the use of the Atonement. We use the Atonement when we repent and are baptized by the proper priesthood authority given from Jesus Christ. Then are we made whole - as we apply the Atonement in our

Sister Cozzens got to come back for Elizabeth's baptism

lives day by day, more and more each day. I know that my savior lives and that he died for us and that we can return to live with our Heavenly Father through His Atonement. I am so grateful for Jesus Christ in my life and I encourage each of you to be extra thankful of the Atonement this thanksgiving week as you recognize the blessings that have changed your life. I know that as we are grateful for the Atonement and apply it in our life, we will be made whole. We will feel that peace that is promised in the scriptures and by prophets over and over. But we must do it. We must apply the Atonement in our  lives.


Love Y'all!
Sister Crowther