Thundering & Lightning!

Dear Family:

Wow you really have had a crazy week! I am so glad Grandma is doing well! I’ve been praying for her! I’m glad you’ve been able to help Mom. Give Grandma and Grandpa a big hug for me!

Dad, I’m sorry to hear about the arbitration. I know that you had put a lot of time, effort, and heart into it. I have to share something cool about our meeting with Elder Christofferson. He had opened up the meeting for a Question and Answer session and after a few questions one Elder piped up and asked Elder Christoffersen how we can utilize the power of the Atonement more in our lives (pretty profound question) and his reply was POWERFUL! He talked about how the Atonement is crucial for our ability to repent, and its necessary for perfecting our weaknesses, but what most of us fail to remember is that He will eventually bring justice to all where injustice has been done.

He testified of the ability to forgive and let go, trusting that Christ will keep His promise. For us though, we are responsible to turn over those feelings completely to Him. He’ll take care of the rest. I am so grateful for the power of forgiveness and the ability to move on. The power of the Atonement is REAL we just have to let it work within us. I wish you could have been there and listened to him Dad. It was amazing!

Well we said our good-byes to President Robbins this week. I sure am grateful for faithful priesthood leaders. (I am just terribly grateful for the priesthood!) Instead of doing interviews this transfer he chose to hold a meeting with our individual zones and gave us one last training. We’ve seriously been spoiled as a mission because President Robbins is an incredible teacher and I love the way he uses the scriptures! I’ll never read the Bible the same again! He taught us about the Book of Revelation and it was INCREIDBLE!

When Joseph Smith said the Book of Revelation was easy to understand and illustrated plain and precious truths… he was right! I never really believed it because Revelation was so difficult to understand. The moral of the story for me was that we just need to follow the prophet. He knows what he’s doing and he’ll guide us to safety… spiritually and physically.

Speaking of the Book of Revelation, doesn’t it talk a lot about thundering and lightnings? Ha ha… I know the weather isn’t usually the most exciting thing to hear about in these emails but I just have to tell you… We’ve had the coolest storms! They are amazing! I love to sit on our balcony at night and watch them! Do you remember the story of Zion’s Camp when the mob was coming for the Saints to kill them? Joseph reminded the brethren to have faith and God would provide a way to get around their persecutors and then that HUGE storm came and stopped the mob. I love how Joseph said, “God is in this storm.” It sounds so corny, but I think that sometimes in these HUGE storms we’re having. It even says so in the Book of Revelation.

I love being a missionary! I love the strength we are given from the Lord! Sometimes life is just hard! But it is guarantee a whole heck of a lot easier with the gospel(Don’t tell my English-major companion about that last sentence. okay?

I love you lots and lots and lots!

Sister Painter

I Shook An Apostle’s Hand!

Elder Christoffersen



Dear Family:

I have never had so much to say in so little time. So bear with me if this email is all over the place. This week has been one of the craziest, if not THE craziest, week of my mission. Honestly, it was probably the most difficult I’ve had to go through as well. It’s like the pattern of the First Vision: when Joseph Smith was about to have a huge spiritual experience Satan did everything in his power to stop him.

The same is true today in our lives. When we are about to have huge spiritual experiences that devil is going to do everything he can to try and stop up. So let me tell you if there was anything that could go wrong this week, it did. That is no exaggeration. I won’t get into all the nitty gritties because trust me… it was horrible. But I know now that the light of the Lord will ALWAYS dispel the darkness when the time is right.

I guess I will share this one story: It all started on Tuesday when our car got hit, and to make matters even worse when I got out to check on the cars and the drivers I soon the realized that the driver who hit us was as high on drugs as high heaven. It was terrible. (I’m telling you all of this expecting you not to get freaked out okay!)

We were fine, the cars were fine, but he definitely wasn’t fine. So we got him to pull over at the gas station and had to call the cops. While we were waiting for them to get there I was talking to him and he told me his name, etc. I was devastated when he told me he was 19 years old. Oh it made me so sad. Here we have missionaries preaching the gospel at 19, and this kid could have killed someone driving high. We had to watch him get arrested and that definitely left a black cloud on us for the day.

Here’s the cool part: the next day was Zone Conference. It was such a tender mercy! Not only was it Zone Conference, but it was our last conference with President and Sister Robbins and the last one of the Cincinnati Mission. It was a powerful, powerful experience! I’m going to have to send you all the notes sometime because it was amazing! (I just don’t have much time to tell about it.) Then President made the announcement that on Sunday Elder Christoffersen would be in town and wanted to hold a special meeting with the missionaries before he left! Ah! It was that moment that my companion and I realized why all hell was breaking loose in our area. But that was definitely a motivator to get through the week no matter how badly both of us wanted to give up… and we made it!

So yesterday! Ah! It was AMAZING! We got to sit and learn at the feet of one of the Lord’s living apostles. (And I got to shake his hand! It definitely was one of the most tender experiences of my life so far. After this crazy week all I wanted was to be able to feel the confirmation of the Spirit that this was indeed one of the Lord’s servants called to lead his restored church on the earth today. And guess what! It happened. I received a sweet reaffirming witness that this is the Lord’s church, that He has living prophets and apostles and that this is His work!

No matter how hard the devil works he can never imitates the peace that comes from the Spirit of the Lord. There is nothing better than that feeling. He left with an apostolic blessing on President and Sister Robbins. We were all in tears. And then he left a blessing on us. And to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so confident that the Lord loves us and is aware of our every need.

I am way out of time! Maybe I’ll get some notes to you later! Just know I love you! And I know the Lord loves you! He does. There is no doubt about it!

Lots and lots of love!

Sister Painter

Strengthen Our Fortifications. . .

June 7, 2010

Dear Family:

You must have been praying for no more tornados because it worked! Haha. We had some incredible lightning storms but no tornados. Phew.

On Wednesday night we were at the church for our scripture study class (which I might add was the best class EVER) when one of the members came in and mentioned that we were in for a big storm. We looked out the window and there it was rolling forward, these big black clouds. It was crazy. All the scouts, youth, parents, and scripture study participants ended up camping out at the church for a few hours because of the storm.

So I have to tell you about that scripture study class! It was sweet! The lesson was about Fortifying our Families as taught from the Book of Mormon. First we read in Alma 59 where there were no fortifications to protect the people and the unfortunate result, and then read in Alma 50 where Captain Moroni made extensive fortifications to protect the Nephites. So naturally what did we do? Built a fort! (I included the picture.) It was a great fort: heaps of earth, pictets of timber, tall towers..

We likened that to our families and the things we have to do to fortify our families: family prayer, scripture study, testimonies, prophets, faith, repentance, service, family history, temples, etc. It’s incredible what the Lord has provided for us! Our family isn’t going to be attacked by Lamanites (thank goodness), but its being attacked by Satan and his temptations. When we remove those things Satan has direct access to our family. One of the saddest things about my mission is seeing the results of families with no fortifications.

We see it practically every day. It is really, really, really sad. We have the best family we really do! We need to do everything we can to protect it. You’ll have to read those chapters for family home evening next week, or even tonight! :)

Can you believe my year mark is this week! Ah! I hadn’t really thought about it until I got a letter from Molly and she pointed out that my “farewell” was exactly a year ago that day. Eck. That is crazy! Six more happy months!

I just have to tell you how much I love being a missionary, even when its dang hard! The best part is watching others learn and grow and become truly converted. I think watching Judy has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life! We don’t do much, she does all the hard work, we’re just here to answer her questions. She has the fire of the Spirit with her! It’s amazing! She started the Book of Mormon and read all the way through Jacob in a matter of weeks. It was super tender to watch her struggle through the Isaiah chapters. We told her all of us struggle through 2 Nephi, seriously..

I can’t tell you how many times I started the Book of Mormon with the best of intentions and then hit 2 Nephi. I remember once, growing up, when I started the Book of Mormon at Jacob and then read through 1&2 Nephi last. Haha. I think that was the first time I read it all the way through. But she was so determined to read it. If only we, as long-time members, had that same determination.

That’s the commitment for the family this week: Will you keep reading the Book of Mormon with determination to get something out of it? There is power in that Book, there really is. I know that it will strengthen our fortifications against Satan, so it’s worth the effort!

I love you lots and lots and lots!

Sister Painter

Look What I Found In Ohio!

P.S. Look at what I found in OHIO! ha ha!


And I included a picture of the best district EVER!

Columbus Mission. . .Here I Come!

Dear Family:

Guess what! Sister Cahoon and I made it through the BIG transfer! So guess what else! I’m going to be in the Columbus Mission! Wahoo! Not that Charleston would have been bad, but they don’t have a temple so I’m a little bias. Columbus Temple here I come! We are super excited. That also means that we’ll be here in Wilmington the next 9 weeks. Sister Cahoon is especially grateful because she didn’t want to go to a new area for her last transfer. So that’s the good news, the really sad news is that half of our district got transferred to “the other side” so they’ll be in a whole different mission. We were so sad because this was the best district we had ever been in. Oh well… on to new adventures.

The other good news: No tornados this week. Phew.

Wilmington is doing excellent! We’ve been blessed to teach some of the neatest people! Seriously! Oh! I have to tell you the best part of our Memorial Day holiday. So the branch put on a Memorial Day Branch Picnic at the church with lots of food, games, etc. Well they just happened to have some sidewalk chalk there. When I saw it I remembered something someone told me, I think it was Tyler Cottrell, about how in Washington D.C. they would draw out the Plan of Salvation with sidewalk chalk while they were street contacting. So I thought this would be a great opportunity. I enlisted some help and we drew out the Plan of Salvation in the church parking lot. It was fabulous! The best part about it was when David, our 17 year old investigator, came over and I taught him the whole Plan of Salvation lesson! Ha ha.

Oh man! Brittany! Way to share the gospel! That is really neat that Chloe’s mom is letting the missionaries come over. Just keep being a good example to Chloe!

And tell Taylor congrats! He’ll love that mission! There was a sister missionary that returned home from that same mission while I was in West Chester. She would come out with us all of the time and gave us a lot of good ideas. They are having a ton of success out there! From the sounds of it their mission president is really great!

It sounds like all is well at home. I sure love you lots! Here’s a parting quote: (one of my favorites!)

"God loves us. He is watching us. He wants us to succeed. We will know someday that He has not left one thing undone for the eternal welfare of each of us. If we only knew it, heavenly hosts are pulling for us-friends in heaven we cannot now remember, who yearn for our victory. This is our day to show what we can do-what life and sacrifice we can daily, hourly, instantly, make for God. If we give our all, we will get His all from the greatest of all." Ezra Taft Benson

Thanks for all you do! Keep praying for no more tornados! :)

Sister Painter