Jenna in West Virginia: Sister Higgins is not ready for snow yet!!!!! :(

Hello, hello!!

Happy belated veteran's day to you guys!! The library was closed yesterday so we didn't get to email, but I figured you would figure that out. I completely forgot to tell you last week. Sorry! Thanks for the emails!! It was great to see lots of emails and pictures from you guys!! Yay! I love hearing how you guys are doing! The sunday school class (focused on missionary work, including spotlighting the 10 missionaries serving from the ward) sounds so wonderful! That must have been just awesome cause missionary work is awesome!! Hopefully there were some good pictures of me and not crazy ones! ha So I hear that Kellie has found the wedding dress eh?? I think her little sister should be able to see a picture of it right? :P That's so exciting though! Yay!! Mom- that's exciting for Kenzie Whitham but wasn't she on a mission? Did she already come back that fast? Weird! And Rachel McCloskey?? I didn't even realize that she was 19!! That is so exciting for her!!! Awesome! Is Claire Larson still engaged? That is so sad about Tom! I was hoping that he would be on the uphill more! Sounds like life is just crazy for him now. I need to write him a letter. I just haven't done it and I need to because I've had the prompting to. I will probably just mail a letter to you guys and have his letter in an envelope in there and then you can get it to him if that's alright. He deserves so much more. Dad- I love that you make mom go hide in the bathroom when she wants chocolate so you can get a little for her from your secret stash ! haha I laughed out loud in the library at that!

Alright, so I will try to remember all that has happened this week but I am sure that I will miss a lot of it because we have so much happen! This transfer has just been crazy and we have been so busy and running around! We were planning out sunday on saturday night and we looked at our day and realized that we hadn't planned dinner in at all because we had so much to do! ha It's kind of crazy seeing that your day is so full that you can't get food. That's ok though cause we are happy and so much is happening here, and we didn't starve! We got lunch from a member and it was good! Mom- what you said at the end of your email, "hope you have lots of teaching appointments and the days are flying by and you are dead tired! Grow weary in the service of your Lord and you will be happy." Yeah, are you praying for that? - because that is what is happening and it's just crazy! I cannot believe that it is already November 12 (14 months out here) and that they days are just going so fast! It is going too fast now! And don't worry, I am so tired! On sunday I couldn't stop yawning all day but especially in church. Everyone probably thought that their lessons were bad becasue I was yawning all the time! ha Oh well though. We are having success and fun and I love it! I wouldn't have it any other way and I am just so grateful for this experience because I have been so happy lately! I love being a missionary!

As you saw from the title you may have guessed what is happening here in Bridgeport....NOOOO!!!! We woke up this morning to a couple of inches of snow on the ground and it is still snowing now! Driving over to the library it was a whopping 31 degrees out! I am not ready for winter and snow yet! But, since I am up in the northern part of the mission I guess it is inevitable cause it is worse here than in other parts of the mission. Everyone around here is saying that it is supposed to be a really bad winter this year as well with lots of snow and cold weather...I'm so excited for that!! :'( Oh well though, maybe more people will let us into their homes because they will see that we are freezing cold and that we need to thaw out a little. There's always a good in the situation and you just have to find it! Oh yeah, as we were leaving, our Landlord kept throwing snowballs at us! haha Good thing we have an awesome relationship with him! Bad thing is that I am going to peg him when he least expects it! I love our landlord!!

I feel like I am jumping all around in the email today so I'm sorry, but I'm just trying to write things down as I remember them so bear with me! So, we had some amazing things that happened this week with some investigators and with Angela! I forgot to mention it last week but right after Angela was baptized she received a calling! Saturday she was baptized, Sunday she was confirmed as a member of the church (along with Corey!) and then after that she was sustained as a Family History Consultant for the ward!!!! Sister Richards and I were so surprised but so excited to see that she has a calling and everything already!! We just love them so much and think that they are amazing!! She loves her calling and is truly magnifying it because she is doing all she can to improve, learn, and do the best she can!! This past Sunday (so the 10th) was just a wonderful Sunday at church! We ended up having three investigators come to church...three!!!! AHH!! Needless to say we were excited that they were all there and to have Angela and Corey there as new members was just awesome! Angela is just doing so great and actually gave a talk on sunday as well!! Bishop wanted her to tell her conversion story, so she explained it and bore her testimony about it in sacrament. She talked about how she was drawn to this church and why we are so happy here, and that she wanted that. She said that she has found so much peace and happiness through this church and she is so grateful that she is member because she loves it and knows it's true! How wonderful is that?? To hear her give such a genuine and powerful testimony that this church, the gospel of Jesus Christ changes lives and brings us peace!! Sister Richards and I wanted to start crying during it! We felt like very happy and proud missionaries! :) We sang 'The Spirit of God' as the intermediate hymn and we all stood to sing it and I had an epiphany during one of the verses. I think it's the third verse and it says something like as we stay faithful and true then we will begin to inherit the visions and blessings and glories of God As I read that through I realized that the Lord has always been blessing me and is really blessing me right now! In the back of the chapel was an investigator who loves institute and the book of mormon and is learning so much, on my left was an investigator couple who loves us sisters and need to be sealed in the temple because their marriage is amazing! Behind me were Angela and Corey, our recent converts who are just amazing and are learning so much and who I learned so much from as we taught them. And, on my right is my wonderful companion who has taught me so much and who I love so much!! In that moment I realized that as I've gone through my mission I've tried to be faithful in what I do, to continue to work hard even when we have adversity, and to stay true to my testimony and what I do know is true. I know I haven't been perfect but that's the point of this life-to learn and to grow from it. So, since I've gone through all that and tried hard, I am now in Bridgeport and on this sunday was surrounded by people that I truly love and care about and who have helped me a lot, and hopefully I have helped them in some way as well. But, to know that the Lord has seen what I have done and is blessing me now in physical ways was just amazing to me! I love the spirit and having things make sense and to realize that the Lord really does have a plan for each one of us. I love being a missionary and I love knowing that the atonement is there to help me in all I do! I know I haven't been perfect out here and that I have made mistakes, complained about struggles and other things, and that I have gotten down at times. Thinking on that now I'm not proud of all that but I know that I have learned from it and that it has taught me lessons that I needed to learn, so it has helped shape me into someone better! When we truly try to become like Christ we don't look inward even when those times get tough or things don't work out how we want them to. We look outward to see how we can help those around us and to see how we can lift those who are struggling more than we are. When we do that our problems are lightened and we don't realize that we are struggling because we are helping that person become happier and to feel their Savior's love. I hope that all made sense. But, I'm just grateful that I have learned so much and that I have changed to become a little more like the Savior! :)

Alright, so the last big thing that I forgot to mention was that Elder Sitati of the seventy came and spoke to us last friday as a part of our mission tour. We went down to Sissonville, which is right outside of Charleston, and he spoke to the north half of the mission on friday. It was sooooo good!!! He broke down our purpose as missionaries and we talked about different parts individually so that we could understand it better!! Holy moly it was wonderful and I learned so much from him!!! The spirit there was so strong and I just loved hearing him speak. I love having general authorities come and speak to us because they truly are called of God. One amazing thing that happened while we were there was that during lunch I was given the opportunity to talk to him individually for a couple of minutes. President came in and introduced me to him and said some things about me that started making him and me cry and that I deserved this chance to talk to him. Oh my goodness, I just love President so, so much!!! That experience was amazing and I loved it!! I was able to ask him any questions that I had and then he gave me answers to them and then went on and talked about other gospel things that just blew my mind!!! I hadn't even thought of some of the things that he said and he just put it into a completely new perspective for me and I loved it!!! :) I scribbled everything down after I came out of that meeting with him! ha It's just amazing how much we can learn in this gospel because there is just knowledge that is never ending!! I love it!!! He thanked me at the end for my service, for helping Angela and Corey, and said that I am a great missionary, and that the Lord still has a lot in store for me as a missionary!! That made me feel so happy and just helped me know even more that the Lord is proud of me for serving Him!!

Really fast, we played Corn Hole yesterday at our zone p-day and I dominated! haha I had never played it before but I was so good at it. You are on a team and have to throw bean bags at a board and you want it to go in the hole cause you get more points but it can just land on the wood as well. If the other team gets the same amount of bean bags as you on the wood or in the hole then your score gets canceled out. The scoring gets confusing but you go to 21. It was so fun cause I was frustrating some of the elders because I could not miss and I kept getting it in the hole on like every shot!! It was great!! I like that game now! ha :)

So, that in a nutshell was our week! Super crazy busy, but so much fun!! I absolutely love serving with Sister Richards and am learning a lot from her!! We have way too much fun together and always seem to be laughing. We've had times where the spirit between us is so strong and then we go to say our bed time prayer and we just start laughing so it makes it impossible to pray. I love it! We're hoping that this coming transfer we will both stay here in Bridgeport! We'll see though! Emails are next wednesday! I love you guys so much and hope that you have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Jenna Higgins

This is our bishop at our halloween party! Maybe you shouldn't put this one up on the blog! ha