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Letter Six

Another great week has come and gone! I cannot believe the miracles that the Lord has allowed me to see here in the field. Really quick, I just wanted to clear up the confusion I gave everybody about mail. Send EVERYTHING including packages and letters to the following address:

Sister Ashlyn Biggs

PO Box 1337

Oliver, BC V0H 1T0

Canada

Hope that makes it clearer! Apparently the mail is working fine here, so that will bring it to where I live. Since it is right on the border, the mail gets here in less than a week usually. Thank you SOOOO much to Kristin and the Greenfield Park young girls for sending me the greatest package ever last week! What a great excitement it was to open up that package and see all the wonderful things you guys gave me. So much green!!! It brought tears to my eyes. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

We had companion exchanges this past week. The coordinating sister felt inspired to first exchange with me, so I was her companion for a couple of days. I am so glad she listened to the Spirit, because that was apparently exactly where I needed to be! I have been having a strong desire to find an answer to a question I have been praying diligently about. Well, finally when I was in Penticton with Sister Vallejo, I got it. We were out tracting and this overwhleming feeling of comfort came upon me. I will never forget that moment. Sorry I cannot go into great detail, but just know that the Lord answers prayers!!

Everybody here makes fun of my accent. They say I have a different accent than anybody else from the states. It is kind of funny. But, as some of you know, I have always wanted to have an accent! So hooray!

I want to share a miracle real quick - we were out tracting and ran into a less-activer member (Amanda), who I think I told you about last week. We stopped by their house again before going in one night. We felt prompted to go check up on them. Well, the Lord certainly knows what He is doing. They invited us right in, and we got to know them a little bit better. Long story short, we were able to teach Amanda and Ramsey (the man living with her) and they invited us back for another appointment! He was so open to the things we were teaching! So tonight we have an appointment with them and we are going to teach them all about the Book of Mormon. I cannot wait!

This past week we found 6 new investigators...yikes!! My mind was blown! I hope to always live worthy of the miracles that Heavenly Father shows me everyday. I cannot express my gratitude to Him enough. We hope to continue to find investigators at this rate, and watch as the Lord allows us to harvest His vineyard.

I have been really trying to study the Old Testament in my personal studies after I am finished with the Book of Mormon. What incredible scriptures!! I have learned of the great miracles of Elisha, David, Daniel, and many other incredible people in the Bible. I hope to continue to gain knowledge as the Lord teaches me through the Spirit.

So, as I said last time, we made some Valentine's cookies for many people. We had such a great experience with one of them! We felt prompted to bring the cookies to Karen, a potential investigator. So we showed up at her house around 8, and she opened the door in tears. She was having a terrible night. For the first time ever, she invited us in. We spoke to her for a minute, gave her the cookies, and she fell into our arms embracing us with the sweetest hug I have gotten in a while. She just needed some company, and needed to know somebody cared. I felt such a great love for her, and got just a glimpse of the love that our Heavenly Father has for her. What a blessing it is to follow the Spirit.

One of the greatest miracles of the week - the past two Sundays we have had about 15 people at Sacrament meeting. Sister Nuttall and I wanted to make sure to change this before we left this area.Well, long story short, this past Sunday there were 46 people at church!! The president was blown away!! We walked in almost in tears, seeing the Lord's hand in this branch. We hope to keep these numbers up and share the Gospel with all we can. This branch WILL be a ward one day!! We had so many less actives come and lots of people who have been gone for a while. What a blessing and spirit filled Sacrament meeting.

Last one - Rose Ang. We were going through the list of less active members, and came across Rose. We thought we would drop by and get to know her. Well, she has been here for a year, and nobody has contacted her. She lives with her sister who is very against the church, so she does not have any information about where or when the church is. She has no car, and no way to get around. So she has just been waiting for somebody to come get ahold of her and bring her to church. Well when we showed up, she was in tears by the end of our visit, so grateful for Heavenly Father sending us to her. She came to church on Sunday, and says she will not miss anymore. What a strong testimony she has! A woman in the ward has agreed to give her a ride each week. I am so excited to see her progress hey!

Well, for this weeks challenge I have thought about it a lot, and want to invite each of you to give away 3 pass along cards between now and next Tuesday. Prayerfully consider those who might be interested, but be careful not to judge. For we never know who the Lord is preparing for us to speak to. We must bring this Gospel to ALL of His children.  It is the way of happiness. So get 3 passalong cards, or Mormon.org cards, and give them away to people you know. I would love to hear about any experiences you have!

I love you all so much. Thank you so much for the great support I have felt everyday from back home. I have the most incredible family and friends. I just wanted to share my testimony that the Lord answers prayers ALWAYS. As we pray to Him faithfully and diligently, He answers our prayers in a manner that we may not expect. But they ARE answered. Stay strong out there. I love you!

Love,

Sister Biggs

Letter Five

Well this week has been fantastic. I hope I never have a week in the field that isn't fantastic...but I still feel the need to emphasize it! We found out that there will be 90 Sisters in the mission by the end of this year. May not sound like a lot, but there are 15 of us now. So you can imagine our excitement! This next transfer is bringing in 14 new sisters! How exciting! However, that means one thing...I will most likely be training by the end of my first transfer. President talked to me and told me to really take notes and prepare myself this first transfer so that if he needs me after 6 weeks, I will be prepared. I am doing my best! But the feeling of training somebody else is  nerve wracking! Definitely going to stay close to the Spirit though.

I have had a few moments this past week of "can I do this?". However, my inspired companion has helped me overcome them by always directing me to the Spirit. I am striving to be like Nephi in 1 Nephi 7:17-18. He never asks the Lord to change his circumstances. All he does is ask the Lord to give him strength to help him overcome his trials and tribulations (and if you know Nephi, you know he has a lot of those!). I thought that was so inspiring. So I have changed my prayers from asking the Lord to remove my trials, to asking Him to help me find the strength to overcome them. I have noticed a huge difference, and I challenge each of you to do the same.

This past Wednesday was incredible! We ate dinner at a members' home, it is a mom and two daughters who were all baptized this past year. Such incredible people! Anyway, long story short, they ended up giving us 15 referrals throughout dinner. We were certainly busy the next day! What incredible examples they are of member-missionary work! The day before we had received a lot from our branch president as well, so in total, we received 24 referrals in 48 hours! Sister Nuttall said that was the most she had ever seen on her mission. How awesome that the Lord inspires these people to tell us who to visit! We talked about not being the judge of whether or not somebody is ready to hear the Gospel. We cannot take away somebody's agency by not allowing them to meet with the missionaries. We ask people to give us names of ANYBODY, not just people they think will listen. It is up to the Lord who is ready, not us. So I challenge each of you this week to think of just one person who you can send the missionaries over to. Pray about it, and then contact the missionaries in your ward and give them their information. I promise you, it is an answer to their prayers and you will be greatly blessed for it!

It has been pretty freezing over here the past week. Thanks mom for buying that huge jacket, because I would have died here without it. It keeps me nice and warm! And also thanks to Carrie for the boots, they have been perfect as well :) I am always bundled up! I feel like the boy on a Christmas Story "I can't put my arms down!". But when we go tracting and are outside for a few hours, I don't care how I look...I just want to be warm!

Another miracle from this week - we were walking to a movie store on main street (well, on the ONLY street in town), because somebody had given us a referral of somebody who works there. So right before we get to the store, a women who is cleaning the windows of the store next to it says hello to us and we begin talking to her. Her name is Amber and she is probably in her late 20s. Anyway, after getting to know her a little bit better we found out that she used to deal drugs and be in bad groups of people, but that God helped her turn her life around and now she has 3 jobs and is working to become a great person again. She still smokes pot (she was smoking while she was talking to us), but other than that it sounds like she has really turned her life around. Long story short, she loved talking to us and invited us over to her house this week so that we could talk to her more. I cannot wait to see her again and teach her about the wonderful truths that can help her to continue to change her life! I know that the Lord inspired us to go to the movie store at that time, so that we could run into Amber. I am so grateful for the confidence He gives us to open our mouths to everybody we see. What would have happened if we walked right by Amber without saying hello?? Who knows :)

So we were tracting down this random street one day and we knock on like our 5th door. I had my first interaction with a contentious door approach! As soon as we said who we are, he closed his door and came about 2 inches away from our faces, yelling at the top of his lungs. He was telling us that we worship Satan and that if we do not start changing our ways to follow the "true" Jesus Christ, that we will certainly go to Hell. I had to back up out of fear of him hitting me or something. I am not going to lie, it was extremely scary and unfortunately it drove the Spirit right out. But I was so grateful for the humility that the Lord has helped me to develop here on my mission. Normally, I would have been just as contentious back. But I was able to keep myself under control and keep a prayer in my heart that I may be able to say the right things. After he was finished (about 5 minutes later) we thanked him for his time and walked away. Although it is so unfortunate to see what people believe about our church, it was so comforting to know that I have a firm testimony of the truthfulness of this Gospel. That man could have easily shaken somebody who was on the edge and maybe not so sure. But I am grateful that the Lord gives me opportunities to strengthen my testimony everyday out here, so that when the time comes, I can hold fast to it and know that it is true. I share this experience with you to challenge you to continually strengthen your testimony. There will be moments in our lives where we will need to hold onto it and nothing else, and we must be prepared for those moments with a firm testimony of the truth. That is why many people fall away, because their testimony did not have deep roots. So sad to see, but as we continually increase and strengthen it, we will be blessed!

Another miracle - the first week we were here, we decided to go through the ward list and just stop by a few members' homes so that we could get to know them a little bit better. We prayerfully chose a few from ths list and went to visit them. We came to Lidna's home, and she came outside telling us that she was removing her records from the church and did not want to be associated with it anymore. Heartbreaking! After praying for her though, we continued our day. Then, at Ward Council this past Sunday, President Fields told us that Linda would be at church today and that we should try talking to her. Confused about what had happened, he told us that she called him Wednesday and told him to hang onto her papers and not send them into the First Presidency yet. She told him that she had had a change of heart and needed to meet with him, and that she would be at Church Sunday. Sure enough, she was there. Not only was she there, but she was participating in Sunday School as we taught the lesson and asked questions. It was so great to see!! Anyway, she came up to us after and told us that if we had not visited her that day, she might not have been there. How great it is to know that ther Spirit directs us to know who we need to see and when we need to see them. I have strived diligently to follow the promptings I receive more closely! I am so excited to see Linda's progress in the church!

Yesterday was P-Day and we had a few hours to do whatever we wanted. So we decided to make Valentine's cookies for some of the people we are meeting with! It was so much fun! You will see pictures on my next SD card I send home. We ended up making 7 dozen homemade oreos and wrapping them in super cute Valentine's bags with notes attached to them. Then we went and delivered some of them! It was so much fun to watch people's faces as we remembered them and thought about them. We were even able to clean up somebody's house who had been having a rough week. We gave her the cookies and then told her to sit while we cleaned her floors and her kitchen. If you want a way to forget yourself, serve somebody else!!

Well, that should do it this week. I could go on forever, but there is a time limit :) As far as letters and where to send them, everything is up to you. But I would send letters to the Richmond mission office address that you first had. We will get that mail the first Friday of every month, and it is sure to get there safely and within 8 days. The mail here in Oliver is a little messed up, so I trust Richmond better. But up to you! Packages are always sent to Richmond though.

Well, I love you all so much. The main challenge I want to leave with each of you this week is in regards to the Priesthood. I had a few experiences this past week with the Priesthood and I want to challenge those that do not hold it, to ask those who do to give you a blessing or to give them opportunities to use it. And for those who do hold it, always live worthy of that incredible power, and look for opportunities to serve others with it. I love this Gospel, it is so true. I wish I could shout to the world that this Gospel is the only way to eternal happiness. But for now, Oliver will do :) Stay strong out there.

Love,

Sister Biggs

Letter Four

Well, I made it to Canada! My first area is Osoyoos, a tiny little town about 5 minutes from the Washington border. It feels weird being so close to the US. I miss it :) But I absolutely love it here! The culture is so different. Everybody eats everything with a knife and fork. I mean everything. We got to a restauraunt the first night and I had french fries with my cod fish. Luckily my companion was there to warn me that they eat their fries with fork and knife too. So I embraced it and began eating! Now I eat everything with a fork and knife. It is interesting, but I love it. They also say "hey" as much as everyone thought they did. This upcoming generation says "hey" instead of "eh", so that is what I am catching on to. Unfortunately, it has already stuck with me so I am nervous to see what I will be saying in 18 months! I love it here though. I love the people and the culture and I could not be more excited to serve here.

I have been feeling a lot like the sons of Mosiah lately, in Chapter 28 when they say that it kills them to think that anybody would not receive eternal salvation. It literally breaks my heart to think that anybody on this earth will not reach the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom. So I will be spending my next 17 months diligently seeking for those that the Lord has prepared for me to teach and to bring back to Him!

So, Osoyoos is tiny. President Tilleman had Sister Nuttal (my trainer) and I open up this area! So we are literally starting from scratch. He says he has never felt good about sending Elders here, so he has been waiting for the right Sisters to come along. Then after he interviewed me the first night, he told me that Sister Nuttall and I were the ones he has been waiting for to open the area. What a humbling experience!! A feeling of inadequacy came along with this call for sure. But I will live up to my calling. About 3,000 people live here. We actually live in Oliver, which is about 10 kilometers away from here. But the branch is tiny, to put it lightly. There are 25 active members in the branch, almost all of which are down in the states for the winter. So, this past Sunday there was about 12 people there. There are 4 Priesthood holders, 5 relief society sisters, and 3 little kids that all just go to a room during class time. And all of the Sisters pretty much wear pants...haven't quite figured that one out yet. They are all over about 80 years old, except for one family that has the 3 little kids. It is certainly different than my Greenfield Park Ward back home!! But I love it. Our work is most certainly cut out for us here...to put it lightly. There are hardly any members, and everybody is gay, smokes pot, or both. And no, I am not exaggerating. Every time we walk up to a door I have to hold my breath when they first open it so that I don't pass out from the smell of it. But the Lord has certainly blessed me by putting me in this area, there is so much to do! No time to waste!

My first night of tracting was Sunday night! And then we went last night as well. In the past 24 hours we have knocked on about 200 doors, at least. Each door builds my testimony so much! About 150 of those were slammed in our faces. About 40 of them said something rude and then shut the door. But those all make it worth it for those last 10!! None of them were necessarily interested in what we had to say, but we found 2 that we are certainly going to go back to. After the first couple hundred doors, we were over by our apartment and it was about time to go in, so we started heading there. But when we got there, neither of us felt right about going in 5 minutes early. We have been really focused on exact obedience lately! So we kept walking and knocked on 3 more doors. The last door of the night was Karen. She is in her late 20s and was very excited to see us. She is going through some rough times right now in her life and she is searching so hard to find out if God is there. Not only are we going back there at the end of this week, we she asked  for a Book of Mormon from us! Well, she said her friend took hers to read, and kind of hinted that she wished she still had it in her house. So we busted ours out and she was very excited! We gave her a chapter to read and we will follow up with her later this week! That just goes to show what exact obedience does. If we would have gone in 5 minutes early, the Lord would not have been able to lead us to Karen's doorstep, and we would not have found her at the time she needed to be found. Always be obedient!!!

As difficult as it is to have doors slammed in my face, my testimony is becoming so strong. Everytime somebody slams the door, or they say "I will be praying for your souls" and then slam the door (That happened last night!), it just goes to show that this is OF COURSE God's church here on the earth! Satan knows which church is true. So he is going to focus all of his efforts on steering people away from that church. Well, he is certainly working on the people over here in Osoyoos and Oliver! I love it. I cannot wait to see the miracles the Lord is going to perform and allow me to witness!

So, the money here looks like monopoly money. And everything is SO expensive. Gas is about 6 dollars a gallon, milk is 5 dollars a gallon, and don't get me started on the cheese. (So Padre, I will be desperately waiting for your famous cheese crisps when I get back!!).  Everybody here drives across the border to buy most of their groceries. Unfortunately, as missionaries we do not have that luxury :) But I know the Lord will certainly bless us for our efforts in doing His work!

Just a quick note on the addresses. The mission office address in Richmond is always available if you ever want to send letters or packages there. I get the mail from there every transfer, so every 6 weeks. Our current address is:

Sister Ashlyn Biggs

6517 Hollow Street

Oliver,  BC V0H 1T0

Canada

The mail system is a little messed up here, but the letter should certainly get to me within a couple of weeks. Just do not expect a lot of mail from me because not only is it expensive, but it takes forever to get to you! I would love to hear from anybody though, so don't hesitate ;)

I want to promise everybody reading this letter that Heavenly Father most certainly answers our prayers. I cannot express my knowledge of this enough. As I have gone through discouraging times out here in the field, the Lord has never ceased to show me miracles and allow the Spirit to comfort me and carry me on throughout the day. What an incredible blessing that is. I challenge all who read this to rely more on the Spirit, and strive to recognize the blessings that Heavenly Father gives you each day. You could have a list of a billion things each day if you wanted. Then I challenge you to thank Him for those blessings!

Funny story. The first night with Sister Nuttall and I in our apartment, we were having spaghetti for dinner. Well, I ate 2 plates of spaghetti, a PB&J, and 3 bowls of cereal. I forgot to tell her I eat a lot...so after dinner she was just sitting on the couch watching me laughing. Haha now she just likes to watch me and see how much I can eat :) I've still got it!

So about Sister Nuttall! What another incredible answer to prayers! I could not ask for a better trainer. She is so knowledgable in everything about missionary work. I am enjoying working with her so much! She goes home next month, so I am so grateful I get to start my mission off with somebody so experienced. I have learned so much from her, and I thank my Heavenly Father every day for sending me to her before she went home!

Well that's all for today. I just wish I could express adequately in words the feelings of the Spirit out here in the field. I find that the more I focus on others, the more the Lord blesses me. It's almost not fair how much He spoils us. But all the more reason to be so grateful and loving to all those around us, and especially to our Heavenly Father!! I love you all so much. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is, without a shadow of a doubt, Jesus Christ's church here on the earth. It has His authority, and His work cannot be stopped. This work will move forward without fail. I love this Gospel, and I love all of you! Talk to you next Tuesday!

Love,

Sister Biggs