Wait, didn't I just email you all yesterday? Seriously though, this is the fastest transfer of my mission! It's already half over and I feel like I just got here. That's what happens when great things are happening all the time. Sister Masino and I have so much fun together- we are such good friends and I'm so happy she comes home the transfer after me. Last Monday we decided to go to St. Louis to the Botanical Gardens. It was beautiful and lots of fun.

Then Tuesday I went on my first exchange as a Sister Training Leader! Oh my gosh, I love being an STL! It's really fun and the best is being able to help the sisters we are over. I loved seeing how Heavenly Father guided me to know exactly what to do and how to help the sister I was on the exchange with. Her name is Sister Martinez and I went to her area in St. Peters while her companion Sister Reed came to work our area with Sister Masino. These sisters white-washed into St. Peters and are doing a great job contacting part-member and less active families. We were really busy and Sister Martinez laughed at just about everything I would do. It was great. We got a lot of return appointments and I was so inspired by her conversion story and her dedication to this work.

We were walking down the street to contact a family when I heard music and stopped. "Do you hear that?" I asked Sister Martinez. It was the ice cream man. We totally got ice cream and gave the ice cream guy a little lesson and our card. He seemed pretty open to it! :)

Whitewashing an area can be stressful and it was really good to be able to help Sister Martinez see that you can work hard and have fun at the same time. She is an amazing missionary and is such a hard worker. I feel so blessed to have been able to spend a day with her.

The next day we had an appointment with an investigator named Adam. He had been reading the Book of Mormon and said that he wanted to be baptized. Awesome. I love seeing how the Book of Mormon changes people. We had a great lesson with him. Then it was time to exchange companions again. It was good to be back with Sister Masino again. :) We talked about how the exchange went and how we can strengthen them. It's just awesome being an STL! Most of the afternoon that day we had to plan our training for zone conference the next day. We also made these cute little handouts with a quote on it that went along perfectly with our training.

Thursday was out combined zone conference that turned out awesome. We made the programs and they looked so cute! Our theme for the conference was Blazing the Trail- like the pioneers. We based our training off of a talk by Elder Holland called "The Miracle of a Mission". It was really good. I was nervous to stand up and train in front of two whole zones, but the Spirit was with us and touched the missionaries hearts. We trained about the importance of a mission and how we need to give our all. The goal was to motivate the missionaries to blaze their own trails and leave a legacy. Everything turned out great. We were so happy. :)

The conference was all the way in Columbia where I served at Mizzou! Sister Masino was the sister that I replaced when I went to serve there. So it was fun to be there together and reminisce in all the great things that happened when we served there. We even went to my favorite Indian restaurant there for dinner. Goood times. :)

Sandy is gone now :( She is living at her dad's house in Arnold, Missouri now. We are so sad she is gone but happy she has a place to live. We are working on getting her dad's address so that the sisters in her area can come visit her and continue to help her come unto Christ.

We met with Sarah and Andrew again and it was long and intense. Again. These people are so smart and have so many questions we always feel like we ran a marathon afterwards! It's great. But they said they couldn't come to church this week and they might come next week. It's a steady climb but they are definitely making progress. Their hearts are still needing to be softened. They have a hard time accepting new doctrine. But it will come as they pray for guidance.

The Smith family was doing great up until yesterday. They said they would come to church and fast to know if they should be baptized. We waited by the front doors as long as we could before the service started and we had to be seated. They never came or responded to our texts. Later that day we tried calling and she silenced our call. Sigh. We'll stop by tonight and see what's going on.

Jean came to church!! :D She's such a sweet little lady! She said she just wanted to sit in the back and slip out after sacrament meeting and we said that was perfectly fine. We haven't been able to ask her how she liked testimony meeting but we hope the spirit touched her. We will be meeting with her tomorrow. :)

Donita is a less-active lady we are working with and she is amazing. She has such a good heart and she wants to change. The sisters here have been working with her for a long time and she's come so far. She's been sober for a long time now and is working on quitting smoking. We had a really powerful lesson with her and she is determined to stop smoking so she can be sealed to her husband. She loves him so much and knows he is waiting to have his work done. Her prayer at the end of the lesson was so beautiful. The best feeling in the world is to feel the spirit as someone you love thanks God for the missionaries. I wish I could express how much I love being a missionary.