AHHH I'm so happy!

-High School Hockey is bigger than the super bowel round these parts.

-Yesterday in church Sister Richardson nudged me and I look at the row next to us and EVERYONE on the row was knitting. Even a rough fisherman was winding yarn for his wife. So funny.

-We decided that God put us together because He knew that we couldn't make it through this winter without laughing.

-Sister Richardson's Birthday was SO good. It snowed A TON but our favorite members signed up to feed us. I made everyone we had appointments with put on party hats and take a birthday picture. I bought her a really funny cat shirt for her birthday and I didn't make her shovel any snow. She hates snow.

-The woman's broadcast was incredible. I'm pumped for general conference. We have been inviting EVERYONE. We figure if we invite over 200 people then at least one will come.

-Last Monday we took Amanda out teaching with us and she asked me what we did for our p-day and I said really excited "I made a countdown chain for general conference!" She said "If missionaries weren't so cool I would think you were soooo lame." It was really funny and I realized how entertainment deprived I am.

-Jamie is a big deal. I am only over 2 sets of sisters. I though two exchanges were stressful.

-Ready for the biggest tender mercy of my life.....Rewind to Christmas Eve, our first weekend here. We stop by a LA and I lost my new mittens and it snowed a ton and we couldn't find them. Fast Forward to this week. We try stopping by a LA and I say I think we've been here before. Then I see a hint of a familiar looking pattern in a melting snow bank. I run over and what do you know. My mittens. I FOUND MY MITTENS!!! The snow had melted enough for them to be uncovered. They smelt like death but today I washed them and they are as good as new. I prayed and thanked Heavenly Father that He let me stay in Duluth so that I could find my mittens.

-Last but not least I learned a very important lesson this week. We blitzed the Sisters area and me and Sister Richardson were knocking like crazy to find them a new investigator. We knocked on this door and a woman answers and invites us to come in. I feel very strongly that I shouldn't go in. I had one of those 5 second battles in my head where I knew I wasn't supposed to take a step but I wanted to. I didn't listen and I took a step inside and I felt the Holy Ghost leave. We then get bashed for 15 minutes straight harder than I have ever gotten bashed on my mission. It was rough. I tried to bare my testimony but it made it worse so when she finally took a breath we ducked and excused ourselves. Lesson learned ALWAYS ALWAYS listen. The Holy Ghost knows what's up. Afterwards I said "Good thing I am Sister Szabo because Molly would have punched her lights out."

-If you can all pray for B it would be much appreciated. We think she got antied over Spring Break. I think the basher woman teamed up with Satan to make us have a horrible week but we just laugh and work harder.

I LOVE YOU ALL.

PARTY hats! And please tell me fuzzy in a party hat isn't the funniest thing you have ever seen.

 District Meeting

 Newtons/Krepps @ birthday dinner. WE LOVE THE NEWTONS!

 Brother Faerber, Sister Ryker/ Fuzzy

Alright. This week seems like a blur of shoveling and knocking! The Sisters in Virginia got transferred so we were in a trio for a night and day. The other sister rode down on the bus and the other sister rode up on the bus so everything was a little crazy for a couple of days figuring things out. We went to the wrong bus depot to pick up the sister and by the time we figured things out she was standing on the side of the road in the snow with all her luggage. "Welcome to Duluth :)" 

 Sister Richardson lost her fitbit in the snow while we were walking so we prayed to find it then we retraced our steps. We found it but it had gotten run over by a car. Lesson learned: Pray more specific! 

The Sister that left Virginia left her Lamb of God CD in the car so the highlight of our week has been having that to listen to. We are getting down the different parts pretty well. 

Funniest part of the week was when we helped this really really old guy. He was trying to shovel the snow to the middle of his yard so he could put out bird feed. We get the bird feed out and he is going on and on about his wife and how much she loved the birds and how he loved to watch her paint. Sister Richardson is a REALLY good artist and she had a picture of one of her painting with her so she shows L but he didn't get what she was trying to do so before we know whats going on he folds it right up and puts it in his pocket. I look over at Sister Richardson and her jaw is on the floor. I'm trying not to laugh and I try getting it back by trading him with a Plan of Salvation pamphlet but he just takes that and folds it up and put it in his other pocket. 

H and her son C came to church yesterday. I had a pretty good time playing playdough with C during sacrament meeting until he decided that the yellow kind tasted good. I love kids! 

Sister Richardson's birthday is this week so we are pretty excited. I keep asking her if she wants to have a white tailed deer party or a loon party or a knitting party. I've been secretly working on a birthday sign for her while she's in the shower everyday. 

I LOVE YOU ALL! 

AHHHHH DREW! I love you so much. My mind is BLOWN! We just watched to video 5 times saying "what? Where?" You are in for a roller coaster. I'm not very happy that I won't see you for two more years but I guess the sooner you leave the sooner you'll get back. Sister Richardson knew a senior couple that opened that mission and they weren't allowed to proslyte. They would hold a sign in the city that said "Do you have a question for God?" And there is a sister in my mission that is from Albina! HAHAH how long do you have to be in the MTC? Sucker! I'm really really excited for you. Satan is going to work on you hard boy. Remember "Let questions arise but never doubts, God will give you clarity but never doubts. Well it doesn't sound like you'll be teaching to many of the PMG lessons :) just kidding but my suggestion to you would be to study PMG chapter 4. Once you figure out the Holy Ghost and how it speaks to you your mission will be a whole lot easier. I LOVE YOU! Boom baby Szabo's are awesome. Please write me a letter. Please. What is your email address? 

Hello Hello! 

ME AND RICHARDSON ARE STAYING IN DULUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think any of you realize how much I love Duluth and how much I love Sister Richardson. Ah my heart is full of gratitude right now. 

So B is gone for spring break and our other solid investigator dropped us and H can't get baptized because she can't move out of her boyfriends apartment BUT...no need to fear. Life is good! 

The best part of my week was when we were tracting and we came upon a herd of white tailed deer. I being me of course ran after them and got the herd separated. They were on both sides of the road with the baby separated from the mama doe. It was pretty intense and I decided to go after the weaker of the herd. I was so close to touching the baby. Wild life can make tracting pretty entertaining.  

We were so close to getting the couple we were teaching to church but he was up chucking all night so we are going to get them next week. We are trying to reactivate an awesome family. Their oldest daughter turned 8 and it has been a wake up call for them and they love missionaries so it's a win win all around.

A and this boy in the ward have a little crush going on and it makes us really happy. A has had some pretty neat experiences with answers to prayers. She loves having the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

People pay your tithing! Blessing await you. Sister R's biggest obstacle for baptism was she would have to pay tithing. Not because she didn't want to but that she didn't know how she would be able to. She transferred her money over this week to pay her tithing and she had exactly enough to pay for the rest of her bills. 

I love all of you.

I love the Lord. 

I love the gospel.

I love Duluth. 

I'm so excited for Drew!

Love, Sista Szabo 

Amanda's dog had PUPPIES!!

For district p-day we went to Enger Tower which is a tower that you climb to the top of and it looks over ALL of Duluth and the Lake. 40 + degrees = no coat

Got myself some Duluth knitted socks from Sister Krepps. Once in a life time opportunity. 

 We LOVE shoveling!!

 My name is Amanda. I work at Perkins. And I'm a Mormon

 Brooklyn!

 Sister Ronstad. One of a kind Minnesotan. "oo sisters let me make you some hot dish"

 white tailed deer and knitted socks. Life doesn't get much better.

Well this week was busy busy which meant it flew by. We had exchanges with Sisters that are really struggling so we loaded all of our appointments into one day so that the sisters could have some much needed teaching experience. We suffered for the rest of the week because of it but it was worth it! We also had zone training! President Ehlert owns some huge company something with brain neurons. AKA he is a millionaire and he bought us all fitbits and the district leaders ipad minis. They are recording a bunch of data to send to Salt Lake for the mission department. Since their are so many missionaries that struggle with anxiety and depression they are trying to further the information about movement and brain waves. It tracks our steps and then the data gets loaded onto the ipads. It's is pretty fun. We have to go over 10 thousand steps a day! We are determined to beat the Elders this week. 

  I had one of the coolest experiences of my life after zone training. President Ehlert met with me and Sister Richardson and he gave us some really good council for our area and the sisters and when we were done we knelt and he prayed and he prayed specifically for each one of us for a good five minutes and the spirit was pounding my heart out. I don't have words to describe it but it was the most inspired thing I have ever heard. He was quoting things from my patriarchal blessing.

 Sunday was crazy! We had all of our investigators come to church and we were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. When we were going to bed Sister Richardson said "remember when Sundays used to be a day of rest?" And might I add that we are getting pretty good at teaching Sunday school on the fly. We had really really good lessons with B this week. She is incredible! If I get transferred before she gets baptized I'm going to flip. 

And we have district p-day today so I gotta go. 

Love ya! 

Fun fact: Lake Superior is frozen all the way across. It hasn't been frozen all the way across since 1995.

We both got a nasty head cold this week. Let's just say I didn't know the human body was capable of producing so much snot. 

There were so many good moments this week:

Sister R bought her own quad and a bunch of the Sunday school manuals. She was spouting off church history to us and it made us really happy.

A bore her testimony at church yesterday and she did baptisms at the temple of Saturday!

I successfully used an entire tube of chap stick without loosing it. 

We started teaching this couple and we were teaching them how to pray, so I start saying a prayer and then I feel this wet mess on my face and I open my eyes and their huge dog is licking my face. I  try to keep going but I just look around and everyone is there with their eyes closed and have no idea what the dog is doing to me and I just start laughing really hard. "Okay lets try that again, that was what you don't do" 

And B came to church! It can be a little fearful when your investigator comes to church for the first time on fast Sunday but we had dinner and a lesson  after at a members house and when we asked her what she thought about church she started crying. I start freaking out inside thinking she hated it and I keep opening my mouth but then keep feeling like I shouldn't say anything. It was silent and then she contains herself and starts talking about how she felt something so strong during testimony meeting and she starts talking about how she knows this is all true. The spirit was thick.

I feel like a drug addict. I crave to feel the feel the spirit. I'm always waiting for my next fix. 

We stayed the night last week with another set of sisters in the cities before our meeting and we went on a mini exchange. Serving in the cities is prime but the entire time I just wanted to be back with Sister Richardson in Duluth. We were both really happy when we got working back in our area. I know that we are supposed to be serving up here together. I feel like all of my mission was preparing me to be in Duluth right here right now.

Life is good.  

We set a solid date with B and then she bought us smoothies and muffins. We are still trying to decide who came out a head on that lesson. I love smoothies.