ONE MORE MONTH! (news from Plano, Texas)

Sister Acton is my new companion!

Wow! I can't believe it. In exactly a month I'll be with my family again!!

This week I've had such mixed emotions about it though. This was probably the hardest week of my mission. Let me tell you!!

Sister Greenall got transferred to Dallas 6th ward. Sister Acton is my new companion! I love her already. We are working hard and really enjoying it. I am so thankful for companions because we suffer together. 

This week was the coldest week everrrr! It snowed last night and has been freezing in the 20s and 30s all week. I've  never had to ride a bike in the cold like this (except in college). It is the hardest thing ever! We put on a ton of layers, it is pretty funny. 3 tights/leggings, 3 shirts, a coat, gloves, a hat. I'm hoping to buy more boots today! I wear my one pair every day. 

Last night while tracting we both just looked at each other, laughed, and said we were crazy for Jesus Christ. Which is so true!! 

LaRon's baptism was so amazing!! His mom couldn't come.. but at a lesson afterwards he said when he came home his mom said he was literally glowing with the Spirit. He said his baptism made him feel so humble. I don't think I've met a more humble person! He is so happy and so accepting of what life throws at him. He is truly my Brother Brown! 

I got to sing at church again and I also sang at a mini music devotional at a members home. They invited their neighbors and it was awesome. My companion was really nervous to sing but it went well :)

I'm so happy I get to be with her and help her. She said she feels so good to be working hard and being obedient. She thanked me for helping her feel accomplished. I love my mission! 

Keep us in your prayers! Stay warm and loved!

Love,

Sister Dalling

Nov. 10, 2014

Hey Everyone!!

Wow, I can't believe I made it to my last transfer. And we still don't know if either one of us is getting transferred. President Taylor is changing things around and so we don't find out someone is leaving until Monday night, leave Tuesday morning, and at the meeting there you find out where you're going. Crazy, right?? They do it this way in other missions I've heard, but I'm so grateful this is my last transfer change. It stresses me out! I want Sister Greenall to stay to bad. I just love her. I've really enjoyed all my companions. I've learned so much from them and we've all become best friends.

We are having LaRon's baptism this Tuesday! We are so excited. He is so awesome. He reads the Book of Mormon every day and his prayers are just incredible. I've always wanted to have a baptism through tracting but I was never confident it would happen! 

Brother Restrepo is also doing very well. Wow I love their family. We had some amazing lessons with him this week. We taught the Plan of Salvation one night and invited President Hall from the Stake Presidency. Br Restrepo just loves him. When President Hall was bishop, he baptized Andrea when she turned 8. So ever since Sergio has always had a connection with him. He knows he'll be baptized eventually, so we are really focusing on getting him 'active' now so when he does decide to be baptized he'll already be living the lifestyle. It is incredible to see the change in their family as he's starting to really listen and open his heart to what we teach. 

We also had Sisters Conference this week. Super great! It was all about not beating ourselves up and loving ourselves more. They also talked a lot about seeing ourselves as God sees us, viewing our true beauty and potential. We as girls are so mean to ourselves! It makes me so sad. I was super touched by something they did as well. On a white board, we wrote down a trial or hardship that each sister or someone they knew was going through. Then one of the sisters was asked to say a prayer for every specific trial. We were all in tears of course. It really hit me when I thought of how awful all of the trials were and how hard it was for the one sister to pray for each one. It made me realize a little bit more of the reality and power of the Atonement. I love my Savior! 

We had a lot of fun on Saturday! We made a ton of cupcakes and pumpkin bread with the Edwards Family. They have 6 kids so it felt just like home. We put all the goodies in cute packages with Book of Mormons and passed them out to all their neighbors. It was so much better than tracting! People just took the Book of Mormon and didn't glare at us or slam the door or anything! It was like magic and the kids really enjoyed it too. 

On Sunday, I sang "I love Jesus Christ" (click here for youtube video) again with an elder in Plano 3rd ward. It was great! Joakim and Christelle actually came and gave us a ride. It was so much fun spending time with them. And we stayed and listened to the Chinese branch for a bit. The spirit was so strong there. 

Those are about it for the highlights! The weather wasn't too bad last week but it's supposed to get super cold this week. We'll get members to let you know if there's a transfer change! But I hope there isn't. I'll probably send a ton of pics in a bit. 

Love y'all!! 

Sissy Dalling

Highlights from week 1 in Sachse, Texas (Week 31)

The Lewis Family- They've been with me since the beginning! I've grown so close to all these boys, they're like my brothers. This is an incredible family.

The Finlayson Family- Oh my heck I do not know what I'll do without Sister Finlayson. I love her! They were the first family I ever had dinner with on my mission. She was always there for us when we needed someone. What an incredible family. 

Sister Wilson :) I love her! She was heaven sent. She is so talented and loving. She's the medical masseuse who saved my neck, back, and jaw a few transfers ago. Love her! 

The Davis Family- it was so hard to leave them! They are truly part of my Texas family. I'll be back for Jeremy's baptism in March though!

The cutest couple in the world!! TJ and Kayce  

Sister Alleman- my first home in Texas! I will love and miss that amazing family

Kayce!! So glad I was able to be with her throughout her journey in finding Christ. She is truly amazing

The Byrne Family- one of my favorite active families. Debbie Byrne is the one on her mission whom I love and Sister Byrne is the lovely Italian who hosted us for Christmas. Love them!!

The Binghams- one of my favorite 'dinner families' in the ward. Sister Bingham is from Mexico and her husband met her very briefly on his mission there. She makes the BEST authentic Mexican food

I thought I could dedicate a whole email to John. He was by far the hardest person to leave. It was absolutely heart breaking, not going to lie. I couldn't even say anything, Sister Erickson had to speak my thoughts for me as I was saying goodbye. I had to get the pictures before they even knew I was leaving. He knew something was up because he said my eyes looked sad and asked what was wrong. I told them both and we cried together. 

Leaving John is one of the hardest things I've done. I'm not sure what it was, but our spirits developed such a strong friendship. I feel like I've known him for thousands of years. I feel so extremely grateful to know John and Shirlene Cook. To have been part of his learning in the gospel. I promised to write him every single week, and he reassured me he'd see me every day because I was in his heart forever. He also confessed to Shirlene and I that his lung x rays didn't come out very well, and I guess I knew something was wrong. I'm not sure how much longer he has on this earth, but he will always be in my heart throughout distance and time. 

We always sing 'oldies' songs together and we sang "I'll Be Seeing You" one last time- that's our favorite! It was such a hard day for me, and I must admit I am proud of myself for getting through it. He told me to "Just keep smiling. Just smile." And I will always do that. 

I love The Colony!!!! Never did I think I could be the person I am today, and the people and experiences I've had in this area have completely made that possible. I love my mission!

Transfers were so hard!

I'm pretty sure I just conquered the hardest part of my whole mission. So it can only go up! Sister Stephenson is so awesome! She's super cute and fun, so we get along really well :)

Sachse is a super challenging area! I thought The Colony was hard, but Sachse hasn't had a single baptism in 2 years. President has only sent the best of the best missionaries here like Elder Merrill and Sister Duncan. Sister Duncan was here for the same amount of time I was in The Colony and she just left to be a Sister Training Leader. So it's a lot of pressure being in this area. Being senior comp isn't really a big deal at all. It's a little more difficult when it hasn't been my area. Most of what Sis Stephenson did last transfer was tracting. They found a few people who might have potential but we all know there are more effective ways than tracting. The hard part is trying to reorganize and change the way things have always been in this area. It's hard for missionaries to accept an incomer's perspective. I don't know the ward very well, but something definitely needs to change so we start seeing some success. This is The Hastening of the work, I know we can find those who are prepared, we just have to figure out the right way to go about it.

Some of my highlights of the week:

We are working with a man who recently came back into activity, and he has an incredible story! He is taking care of his ex-wife currently because she has Lou Gehrig's disease. They were married 20 years, divorced for 14, but always promised they'd be there for the other if something were to ever happen. She called him a year ago and asked if he could come take care of her because she had been diagnosed with this awful disease. This disease is so horrible, no one in their right mind would even wish it on their worst enemy. Basically, all voluntary motion slowly diminishes to the point when you are trapped in a body that can't even swallow by itself. She is in the final stages it looks like. She can't do anything on her own, has a feeding tube, a suction tube, and the worst part is you have full brain function the whole time. He has so much love and compassion for her. Every 20 minutes or so he has to suction out her saliva since she can't swallow and he watches her 24/7. He has nurses come in every so often so he can go shopping and shower, but he is incredible. She isn't a member and he and his son want her baptized so badly. Obviously there are a lot of complications, so we are working through it. We are going to teach her the lessons and see how it goes. She can sometimes muster enough energy to communicate through blinking, but it's a challenge. It's incredible to see this act of love though.

We serve  at Salvation Army on Wednesdays and Fridays. So many great people work there. And guess what?? Elder Rowland is my zone leader now and I get to see him every time we do service! It's the best! Gotta love tender mercies.

So we are super low on miles for the rest of this month. We walked a ton last week. We tracted a super nice neighborhood full of multi million dollar homes. No joke. All of Sachse is pretty wealthy, but this neighborhood had never been tracted, and we had hours and hours of time with no miles so we tracted it! We didn't find much success if you can imagine haha. We only talked to about 12 people and half of them were the maids/workers.  It was really fun though seeing all these amazing houses. Felt like I spent a day in Beverly Hills, met a few CEO's of companies, huge real estate owners, super successful business owners- no big deal. Would have taken pictures but we'd probably get arrested or something! ;)

So I'm living in an apartment that has housed missionaries for who knows how long. It is pretty gross haha. It's quite a change!

Some other people we are working with:

One investigator is 50 and so great!! They tracted into him a while ago and he is pretty promising for baptism he just has a hard time committing to much. I'm pretty sure it's because he doesn't have a firm testimony that this is the ONLY true church. He thinks any good church is true. We'll see :)

There is this one couple-- I will definitely have to tell yall more about them later. He's from Norway, she's from Africa. She's like his 'spiritual mother'. She's a LA member and he's an investigator. She is basically a false prophetess and they are both Unitarian. So new experiences await :)

Also the mission is creating a 'would you be willing' invitation video to help with missionary work. They asked missionaries who've had experience with this invitation to be in the video. They really liked my part, so they came to our ward and recorded us with some of the members after church just interacting. So keep your eyes open for an awesome video someday!

Lots of great things ahead here in the Texas Dallas Mission.

Love and Miss yall!

My address is

6360 Murphy Rd.

#123

Sachse, TX 75048

Letter from Kristina's Mission President Devin Durrant

President Devin Durrant, Sister Kristina Dalling, and Sister Durrant

Kristina's start group (29 strong)