O Canada, O Canada

So funny enough, Sister Sommerfeldt and Sister Mahoney have been singing their national anthem which means..... their national anthem has been stuck in my head all week. Oh Canadians, you gotta love them :) I'll let you know when I start saying "eh" at the end of all my phrases.

This week though has been filled with miracles. Since starting this transfer with me coming from Georgia and my sweet companion coming from the MTC our teaching pool was a little bit nonexistent...well more like a lot. But the Lord always makes things work out and that's exactly what He did. We were able to get a hold of a lot of investigators that I taught at the beginning of my mission who somehow got lost for one reason or another, well they are all back on the train and excited to keep learning. We also got to meet a lot of neat people on the square this week. So we are still working hard and finding lots of people to teach.

Something that our zone is doing this transfer is sending out #Mimo texts to everyone :). Mimo stands for 'Miracle Moment", so whenever something exciting or funny happens we send out a text to our zone so we can all celebrate together. Here are some that we have sent this week:

June 4th :

#Mimo

Took a family around from New Zealand. Felt the spirit and referred. #onetruechurch

June 7th:

#Mimo

Called a former. Has baptismal date for June 26th. #localmissionariesdidn'tgiveup #thanks

June 8th:

Talked with a couple. They left and then came back asking for a Book of Mormon. Referred and then we found out they were siblings. #awkwardbutBOMistrue

It's been a lot of fun, and it keeps us motivated about the work. And it's neat, we have learned that when we expect miracles to happen and we do our part... they happen. It's the best.

Here's some photos:

Me and my lovely companion in front of the Beehive House...no it's not raining...we are just weird.




​​Oh we also participated in 'High School Musical' today.
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We're cool.

It only lets me send 2 in one email...so more are to come :)

Love you all!!!

XOXOX

-Sister Fluckiger

P.S. Hippos have almost no hair on their bodies, and their skin can be one to two inches thick

The Lion of the Lord

Hey Y'all!

So yes, I am still saying y'all and it's really funny. People will always ask me where I am from and when I say California they always look at me funny and ask why I talk like I'm from the south. Oh Georgia.

And then it gets better because my companion says 'Eh'. Oh Canada :)

It's been another glorious week on beautiful Temple Square. I still love being back and we are just busy working and talking with everyone! It's even cooler because I have an international companion, I'm sure I've said this before but so many more people actually want to talk with you. It's absolutely the best. And I've learned that Canadians all know each other basically, or know of each other. I have a pretty famous companion.

Oh and funny thing that happened this week, we were on desk in the South Visitor's Center and this cute family walked past. I said hello and tried to start a conversation but sometimes people just don't want to talk and that's okay. Anyways they just walk out the door after saying hello, but then the dad stops turns around and looks at me through the automatic doors and then walks back in. He asked me my name and then begins to pull out his driver's license and hands it to me...I'll admit I was thinking this was a bit odd.... Well turns out that he was a Fluckiger. And because I am such a handy person I actually had my family tree on me. He didn't recognize any of the names so we are probably like 16th cousins or something crazy like that. Temple Square makes the world a very small place.

We have been spending a lot of our time in the Beehive House. It's the coolest.

“'Mormonism' has made me all I am; and the grace, the power, and the wisdom of God will make me all that I ever will be, either in time or in eternity.” -Brigham Young
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Brigham Young is such a cool guy! I mean he was having Family Home Evening every night 60 years before Family Home Evening was even instituted. Talk about cool!

We have been able to have some neat experiences as we have served there. It's always different and we always try to make it fun while also having it very spiritual. It's great. We also were able to serve there on his birthday! June 1st 1801 Brigham Young was born. On one of our tours we told them that it was his birthday that day and they just looked at each other and was like "how cool is it that we came today" and then they looked at us and ask "are you doing anything for his birthday? can we take part in it?" So if you want to wish Brigham Young a happy Birthday-now is the time.
We also have two jokes that we like to share, and it's really funny, sometimes the people will laugh really loud or they will just look at us and we will hear crickets in the background. Oh the life of a Temple Square Missionary :)

The rest of the week should be interesting. The Square is being closed down for Elder Perrys funeral this weekend. It's been interesting to be here in SLC while that is going on. How wonderful it is that we have the knowledge of what happens after this life. Sister Sommerfeldt and I were talking about it the other day, wondering what Elder Perry is doing right now. Well we don't need to wonder, we figured it out pretty fast. He's doing just what he did while he was here, preaching the gospel! :)

I love you all!
I know that we belong to the coolest and truest church on the Earth.

XOXOX

-Sister Fluckiger

P.S. A hippo can eat from 80 to 150 pounds of grass in one night.

I'm Back!

Surprise!!

I am back on Temple Square! This week has been such a roller coaster, but seeing the Salt Lake Temple again felt so sweet :)

To give you all a run down of all that has happened, since last week. We went to transfer conference last Wednesday and we picked up our new companion :) Sister Olsen. She's the sweetest, we were actually her sister leaders the transfer before so we already knew her really well! Sister Lund and I were called as follow-up trainers (well I would only be doing it for a week haha) because Sister Olsen is still being trained. So that was fun. We had lots of appointments and because there were three of us we did splits a lot when we had a member out with us. So Sister Lund would go with the member to the set appointment and Sister Olsen and I would go and knock some doors. Super effective!

I actually don't have a picture of all three of us...woops, I'll get Sister Lund to email me one since I know that we took at least one. Anyways Tuesday was my last day in Georgia and it poured on us. It was a lot of fun, we met a lot of cool people that day. But Wednesday morning the APs picked me up and took Sister Mahoney and I to the Atlanta airport. President Harding called us while we were driving and thanked us for all that we did. It was really sweet of him, he really is the best and I am going to miss him a lot! But he is getting released from being a mission president this July and he's from Utah. So I told him that he has to come and visit us on Temple Square :).

But the arrival to Temple Square was quite an adventure. There actually ended up being 5 temple Square sisters on our flight back which made it fun. When we arrived in SLC and started heading for the baggage claim we were made aware that we were back in Utah very fast haha. When we came down the escalator there were probably about 50+ people waiting with posters, balloons, and cameras for their 'missionary'. Sadly, we were the first missionaries to come down and at first they started hollering and then they realized that we were not who they wanted and then there was just this awkward silence as everyone looked around for our families as we came down the escalator....someone even came up to us as we were getting our luggage and welcomed us back home and then asked us if our families were coming to pick us up....oh Utah :). So no one did pick us up, which we knew ahead of time. We loaded all of our luggage onto Trax and made our way to Temple Square.

Seeing everyone again felt really good! Sister Mahoney and I just adopted each other as our companions as we waited for our real companions for the transfer. It took a while....but the wait was worth it :)

Meet my new companion! Sister Sommerfeldt!! She's from Canada and is fresh from the MTC. It's going to be a wonderful transfer as we both learn all about Temple Square (I'll admit I can't remember any of the history....)

We will be serving in the Beehive House together so I'll get to learn all about Brigham Young and just how cool he really is.

Well I love you all, and I will continue to fill you in on all of our crazy adventures.

XOXO

-Sister Fluckiger

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

​(here's a picture of  Georgia squirrel resting from the heat)

Oh my sweet Georgia.

The weather is hot and muggy and there are days when you just never dry off after you shower....I'll admit not fond of that one.

This past week though has just been comical. We are not sure how weeks like this happen but things always seem to come in a wave, you will either have a lot of cool, exciting experiences or it sometimes feels like things just fall apart, like our car. :) It was one of those weeks, but we also realized that we have never planned more effectively or taught in more unity than we did this week. So that made it all worth it.

When we are planning we use this paper we call a "Master Planning Sheet" which is basically just a week at a glance paper. So we can see all of our appointments for the entire week. Ours was very full and we were slightly worried that we would't have any time to go finding each day. Well Heavenly Father takes care of things like that...we ended up doing basically nothing but finding every day because all of our appointments fell through. Every Single One. Oh missionary life. :)

It was still a very good week. We are teaching a mom and her son, C&J, we were actually able to see them this week and that made the entire week worth it! They are preparing to be baptized and every time we see them it's just evident that their faith and testimony is increasing. It has been a wonderful experience to teach them while I have been here. This week we talked about faith, C (the Mom) was still a little hesitant about her baptism date because she felt like she didn't have a perfect knowledge yet. We read some verses from Alma 32 with her and basically told her if we had to wait til we had a perfect knowledge...no one would ever be baptized. And that would be very sad. She loved Alma 32 and bore a beautiful testimony to us about the Book of Mormon. It's funny to me that there are a lot of people who have a strong testimony about the truthfulness of the restored gospel but sometimes they don't even realize it. Which is why we have inspired scripture that says "faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true." Alma 32:21

We also got a call today from the APs about transfer news....Sister Lund and I will be going to transfer meeting but we are not being transferred (well I have another week) we will be going to pick up our new companion! Yay for a trio :). We will be dual training a new sister for the week that I have left and then my mighty companion Sister Lund will just continue being awesome and be the best trainer someone could ask for.

Well, this is me signing off...the next time you hear from me I'll be back in SLC at Temple Square. I love you all!!

Oh....here's a tiny stop sign....we were going for "Stop..and read the Book of Mormon today" :)

XOXOX

-Sister Fluckiger

​

What even happened this week?

Happy Mother's Day!

So every single Monday morning Sister Lund and I go through our normal routine of excercise, studies, and then heading to the library to email everyone. And every single Monday morning after we get done emailing President, Sister Lund and I always look at each other and ask "What even happened this week?"

Anyways, lots happened this week but getting it all to fit in this email is probably not even possible. For one, I am surprised that we haven't melted away yet. I distinctly remember President Pouslen telling me that I was going to be in Georgia for the best weather of the year. He failed to mention that while I would be blessed with amazing weather I would also have to endure about 3 weeks of absolute heat. Yesterday while we were out knocking doors, this family answered and the dad looked at us and just asked us if we were hot. We laughed to each other and said "just a little". Gratefully he invited us in and we were able to have a prayer with his wife and kids.

But this week we had some high ups and some pretty low downs. But hey, that's life right? :) Sister Lund and I recite the Standard of Truth to each other to remind us that there is nothing that can stop God's plan from moving forward. It's always nice to remember that we are on the winning team.

I am still loving Georgia, despite the heat. I still love being a missionary. I am realizing that I will be heading back to Temple Square in just a bit and that's a bitter/sweet feeling. I know that there are so many people there that I love but now there are so many people in Georgia that I love - so basically no happy ending it seems. I do remember a sister on Temple Square sharing with me that she describes the TMSQ/Outbound/TMSQ experience like the Plan of Salvation: PreEarth/Earth/Spirit World. It probably felt like we were leaving our friends and family when we came to Earth. And it's always hard when some leaves this life, but really when you think about the grand plan you always end up with your family again. That's why I am glad that our Father in Heaven is in charge. He just takes care of everything :)

Okay...and here are some pictures for the week :D

​We found this giant, very colorful caterpillar  on our car..

Oh, speaking of our car. So we named him Abinidi because he is a faithful follower of Jesus Christ and is probably the most diligent missionary I know of in the Book of Mormon and because he is not treated as he should be, we can just leave it at that. Anyways, to keep you up to date with the exciting stories of our car, we took it into the shop and they fixed it free of charge. Yay. But this week as we were driving from appointment to appointment that black plastic thing totally just fell off completely. And of course because we were on our way to the appointment and didn't have time to spare, I just watched it as it went tumbling down the road in my rear-view mirror.
So that was sad, we were sure at that point that Elder Parker was going to take our car away from us. We decided that we weren't going to call him though because we wanted to at least see if we could find the part just in case that helped. So the next day after we had lunch we went on a search. Luckily we found our little missing piece sitting in the suicide lane just waiting for us. We quickly called Elder Parker to tell him what had happened and to our dismay he told us that they were selling our car at the end of the transfer! We were so sad, all of our exciting adventures happen because of our car haha. 

​And we realize like the only time we take photos is when something happens to our car... oh 
missionary life :)

Love you all!!!

XOXOX

-Sister Fluckiger

Accept Miracles

Okay, I have to start with probably the coolest thing that happened this week:

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​Okay now for the story behind the photos. So this week on Wednesday we had to drive down to Fayetteville for some meetings. We had the New Missionary Training (a privilege that we got to go even though neither one of us is a new missionary...) and then Mission Council. So we were down in Fayetteville from 8am to 6pm. Talk about cutting a giant section out of missionary work, but don't worry it was all worth it. Anyhow, so on our drive back we decided to take the back roads because trying to drive through Atlanta at 6 o'clock is basically the worst idea you could have. On our drive our car decided to basically fall apart. The plastic black thing under our bumper...I think it was called some wind protection (not a cars person), well it decided to fall off. The first time we pulled over we were able to just snap it back on and we got back on the road. We had some appointments set up for that evening and so we could not have any delays! Well of course as stories go the plastic part fell off again but by this point we were driving on this really skinny road and there was no part to pull off. After driving for a bit we found a tiny spot of dirt on the side of the road and we pulled over and went to look at the damage...yep it wouldn't pop back into place. We called Elder Parker who is over all of the cars and sat on the phone with him for about 30 minutes while he tried to figure out where we were. Yep we were just lost in the country. At this point Sister Lund and I are trying not to stress about our appointments, we already had to cancel one but the next one planned was for our investigator M who is getting baptized this Saturday - we couldn't miss it! Elder Parker then asks us if we have anything in our car that we could just tie it back together with-no luck. Sister Lund then decides to go back to the front of the car and look under it. Under our car to our lovely surprise was a little orange rope buried in the ground. Heavenly Father provided us with a pretty solution to our kind of dirty situation. So we tied our car together and got back on the road!

We literally pulled into the parking lot of the church right as our investigator got there, right on time! We ended up sharing with him our mighty miracle and he was just blown away. We talked about Nephi when he says that he was led by the spirit not knowing beforehand the things that he should do and how when we have the gift of the Holy Ghost that can happen to us. I mean it was very inspired that we decided to pull off right where we did, if we hadn't our car would not have been tired together with a cute little orange bow. In the closing prayer of our lesson he thanked Heavenly Father for providing us with that miracle so that he could learn about the Gift of the Holy Ghost and then he expressed that he couldn't wait until he was able to receive that great gift!

Everything happens for a reason!

Anyways so that was our car story :) The rest of the week we just had exchanges. I was able to spend a day serving in Atlanta and then also a day serving as a spanish sister. It was quite a week!

​

The rest of the week was filled with finding and teaching. I love being in the South (I'm sure I say that every week) but here there are so many people who are religious and so when they hear truth their ears perk up! We met a man this week and we told him that we had a prophet on the earth and 12 apostles and he just expressed to us that he has tried a lot of religions trying to find the truth but he has never found a church that had a prophet and 12 apostles, he said "that makes sense, that's what it should be". We went over later on in the week and told him about the full restoration and he just took it all in. Being here is really helping me realize more and more how much the world needed a restoration. This guy was right, it just makes sense that God would call a Prophet. It just makes sense that He would have His church on the earth. It just makes sense that He would have to restore the Priesthood authority to the earth. Nothing else makes sense. God is a God of order and pattern, and learning from His patterns is the best way to find the truth! Most people here recognize that and it's awesome!

This week President Harding has also been making a big emphasize on miracles. He calls this transfer the "Baptism Transfer" and so he has been having us read a lot of scriptures about miracles and have been inviting us to have more faith and to fast from doubt and fear so that we can see more miracles happen in our area. Sister Lund and I have really been talking a lot about that this week together (on the days that we were actually companions) and how we truly have been blessed with many many miracles and we just have been expecting them as we do our part. And then yesterday we were driving down the road and passed this church sign and we just started laughing and realized that it literally summed up our whole week!

Accept and Expect Miracles. That's what Sister Lund and I are doing in the Twin Oaks area :)

I love you all!

XOXOXOX

-Sister Fluckiger

Mosquito Bites....Gotta Love Them!!

Happy April 27th!

So something that I am not sure if I have mentioned before in an email (if I have, please forgive me the missionary brain sometimes just feels like a pool of mush). But living outside of Atlanta is really fun, probably different than living near any other city in the world. It's fun because well, it's the South. It's a little like being in Utah where there's a church on every corner...the only difference is that none of the churches are ours. And they have these awesome signs with funny and sometimes really profound sayings. For example:

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We did a lot of driving this week because we were able to go on some more exchanges with the sisters in our stake and then we also had Zone Training and we were able to go to the Temple! The Atlanta Temple is cute and peaceful. I had forgotten how much I loved seeing a Temple every single day and so being able to go to it was very special and very needed! That all happened on Tuesday so it started our week out perfectly.

The rest of the week was filled with finding, teaching, and mosquito bites.

I believe I told you about our miracle investigator, M last week. He's the one that we found when I got us lost trying to find a member. Anyways, he is still the best! I wanted to give you a little update on how he was doing.
We taught him twice this week and he came to church with us and every time we talked with him I was more and more amazed. He's just a funny guy. We went over the Restoration with him and he just sat there and kept shaking his head in agreement. It's been cool because everything has had a familiar ring to him. Our second lesson with him we told him about what I call 'CPR'; Church, Prayer, and Reading your Scriptures. After he just looked at me and was like: "I know someone has already told me that before...but I don't know who would have.." I'm sure one of the three Nephites is one of his buddies and was just silently preparing him for the gospel.
He came to church and that's when I realized that as missionaries we do have a tendency to stress about a few things...or maybe that's just me. But now Sister Lund and I laugh about it. But Sunday morning M texted us telling us that he wouldn't be able to make it to church because he didn't get any sleep last night and was really tired. Yep, we like panicked. We texted him basically pleading with him that he needed to come so he could meet the bishop and so he could get into the habit of attending every Sunday for when he gets baptized. Over a few texts he told us that he was going to take a 15 minute power nap and then would come to church. After that we put our phone in our bag because we needed to get our other investigators situated for when they arrived at church. We ended up checking our phone like 2 minutes before church started and we saw like 4 text messages from M. We panicked a little again :) and read through them one by one. The first one said something like he woke up and looked out the window and saw his car gone..his dad must have taken it. The second text said that he would get a ride from his mom. The third text said that his mom left without him. The fourth text said he didn't have a ride. And finally the fifth one said that he found a ride and would be there in 5 minutes. Talk about a roller coaster! So Sunday was an exciting day! Missionary work is definitely not boring, it always keeps me on my toes. 

Sister Lund and I did do some walking...nearing the end of the month and we have to take a drive down to the mission office this week for Mission Council which is a good 40 miles each way. Luckily the weather wasn't that muggy this week, we had maybe one day that was classic "southern humidity". The Lord continues to bless us with nice sunshine spring weather. There are days when I feel like the pioneer children, "Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked..." I actually really like walking days...even though I realize that in some ways it's not effective just because our area is huge. But then it's really effective because you really do get to "talk with every single person" so that's fun and exciting. But due to the amount of walking around and the time of dusk, Sister Lund and I have been attacked by bug bites. We were examining our ankles after studies this morning...and yep I win having the most bug bites out of the two of us. Luckily we are well stocked with itching cream and Benedryl so we are ready and able to take on another week! 

 Last PDay we drove down to Atlanta again for a Sisters Pday. We all met at the Atlanta building..which is like in Atlanta :) Unlike me who is 'serving' in Atlanta but really we are just in an intercity on the outskirts. You just have to love the people of Atlanta. Which I will get to do again! We are going on some more exchanges this week and I will be serving in the Atlanta ward on Tuesday and then on Thursday we will be on exchanges with the Spanish Sisters...haven't decided yet who will be a Hermana for a day but that should be exciting!

(Key term definition: Exchange- we switch companions for a day for training purposes. That's basically all it is)

But back to Sisters Pday we all got together (there are about 15 of us total in the stake) and we made Mother's Day Crafts :) Sister Missionaries just never grow up. So hopefully that will be getting in the mail soon....I have to find a way to mail it. But ya, that's a bit of my week and I've loved it! I hope you all have fun plans for this week! Summer break is coming in a few weeks which makes us excited because it should make it a tiny bit easier to teach families all together instead of split up like we are doing...that is if no one goes on Summer Vacation haha.

Well I love you all so much!!!

XOXOXOXOX

-Sister Fluckiger