Grace by Grace!

Hello Everyone!

I'm so very grateful for this chance  I have to be back in Kitchener! It's so much fun being able to be in my old area and feeling like I can help so many people! My new companion is sister Deng! and she is really, really cool. We've been working fairly well together so far and I'm so grateful for the sister's I have the chance to work with! They are all such hard workers and they teach me so much about being a good missionary. Sister Deng is in particular committed to the mission vision and she's the best at asking everyone for referrals. Anyone and everyone she'll talk to them and if they try and brush them off she'll ask who they know who could use our message. She's such an inspiration and I'm grateful to be working with her. We're going to work miracles this transfer and it's all through the grace of God that we're going to make it!

So yes! Saturday night we had dinner at sister Jo's house again with a special guest of a missionary who had served in this mission a year and a half ago by the name of Dunyun.... I don't remember his first name but he gave us some great referrals for the Mississauga area and while we were only able to contact one of them before we left we got into the home and taught a really good lesson! It was really very cool. I hope those AP's keep following up with them!

Sunday we said goodbye to everyone and Monday was Elder Flint's birthday! Sister Chen and I had gone over to a members house to do language study and she opened the door and asked for service. Well we weren't in the clothes necessary to pull out a dead tree but we called the elders up and it was fabulous! We then all had language study together with both Spanish and Chinese and sang Elder Flint happy birthday in 4 different languages (There was an investigator from Korea there.) It was a good going away party.

Tuesday we traveled out to the Brampton stake center and we started on exchanges. I didn't get the chance to see sister Liao as sister Deng was driven out separately but it was still good to see everyone! Sister Deng and I met up and we started out as soon as the Kitchener elders got there. Starting up in Kitchener was great! We didn't have that many appointments set up for the week but we set up three appointments with in one hour out on the streets! I was supper pumped even if one of them cancelled, one of them spoke Cantonese (We passed him off after that first lesson and he already has a baptismal date!), and the last was interested in the first lesson but choose not to set a return appointment. It's been so much fun being able to see all those people that I really helped me out in my first two or three months!

This week was filled with miracles but then we got to Sunday. We had an investigator come to sacrament meeting but then he had to leave afterwards. That would have been fine but not a single Chinese member came to church despite all the commitments we had gotten in the last week. I was devastated. Meeting with the ward mission leader and the ward council there just didn't seem to be that much hope in the ward. I felt like I was trying to raise the mood of an entire branch just by myself. I actually had a breakdown after we had gotten home from church. I was so very sad. The area that I love had fallen into disarray and I couldn't stop the tears. I called up President Clayton and we had a really good talk about how we are sent to bring everyone unto Christ and how if there's no one at church now we just need to work that much harder! He also gave me good advice on how to go about finding out what God needs for this area. I really was heart broken but after President's loving advice sister Deng and I sat down and we called everyone on the ward list. We set up three appointments with less actives (now returning members) who I have never met before. We have a goal to find seven new investigators this week and we are going to find them! Kitchener is a blessed land and I'm not alone in my hope! God knows His children and He's going to work miracles in this area!

Also as a side note that same night I called some potentials from my time here three months ago and my first by myself contact (Who then left for Africa for three months) remembered me and we're meeting with her next week!

I really am so grateful to be working and serving here on the mission God loves us and He won't let us fail!

I love you all so very much and I hope you all remember how important it is to go to church every week. The sacrament really is such a special ordinance and I don't know where I would be with out it.

Sincerely,

Sister Skinner