Cheltenham, England - July 6, 2015

Hey so I have some big news! I'm training!! The new missionary will come in to the mission field Wednesday. I'm so nervous! But I am really excited too! :)  It will be the first time I am senior companion. I was totally shocked when I got the call.

Meeting the mission president was super awesome! He is so cool and I am super excited to work with him! :)

So this week I noticed how we weren't going anywhere and not making much progress so I decided to set a lot of goals for myself. They are tough goals but I am more determined than ever to achieve them. Already we have seen progress. This new transfer really is like a completely fresh start because it will be a brand new missionary, a brand we mission president and a brand new transfer. I can't wait! I seriously feel happier than ever and even though these goals I set for myself will be tough to achieve I know hey are the ones the Lord wanted me to set and it has helped so much. Not because I am really doing it, but because he Lord is helping me so much and supporting me more an ever. I am trusting Him more than ever as well, and it feels so good! Seriously, I am enjoying the work even though it is tough and I am soooo happy!

Can't wait to see what happens next! :) love you!

Love,

Sister Rasmussen :)

Cheltenham, England - June 29, 2015

Hey Everyone!

So this week was a really good week! It just flew by sooo fast! This week I am going to hit my seventh month mark. That happened so fast! I officially have less than a year left. Next time this year I will be home...soooo weird! But anyway this week we had quite a few lessons which was awesome! Hopefully we can keep some people progressing this coming week and keep working for those baptisms! We had the weirdest lesson of my life the other day! So we were teaching this guy named Benjamin. He had met with missionaries before and so he knew quite a bit about the church. We went there planning on teaching him about the Plan of Salvation, but somewhere along the way when we asked him about something he believed it turned in to a Law of Chastity lesson. But not the normal Law of Chastity lessons...like the most awkward lesson you could ever imagine. He just went in to way too much detail about his personal life hahahaha. Sister Wilde and I came out of there both mortified!! 

So for p-day this week we went hiking! It was district p-day so we all rode our bikes up there and it was so funny because we had to all chain our bikes to one light post so there were 6 bikes all connected by a bunch of different locks :) Then we hiked Leckhampton Hill. It was sooo fun! On the way up they had rope swings and things like that that you could play on. Then they had some way cool places that you could climb up, but we couldn't do that because it says no rock climbing in the missionary handbook. But then when you got up to the top it was the best view ever! If I ever get the chance to come back here I am totally doing it again! 

Another accomplishment that you should all be proud of this week is I learned how to solve a Rubic's Cube!! Haha ok, it isn't that much of an accomplishment, but the first time I actually finished it I was in total shock! Also I think I am getting slightly better at football (soccer)! I sure hope so because we play every Thursday and it is with a bunch of English people so naturally they are all pretty good. 

So our investigator Pernille, from Denmark, moved this past week back to Denmark. It was so sad to see her go!! I just hope she is able to get in contact with the missionaries there and continue learning. She was so elect! If she would have stayed here she definitely would have been baptized. She told us before she left that she knew the Book of Mormon was true and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God. Heavenly Father had definitely answered her prayers. But luckily the church is prepared with missionaries all over the world so as she goes to back to Denmark she will still be able to learn more. I can't wait to hear how she does over there! Plus it was so cool to teach someone that was Danish since Rasmussen is a danish name! She immediately recognized it as Danish when we first met. I'm thinking I just want to take a trip over there and stay with her and do some awesome family history work haha :) 

We get a new mission president this week! It is so sad to see President Rasmussen and Sister Rasmussen leave! But I am also really excited to meet the new mission president, President Leppard. We get to meet him Friday at a Zone Conference. :)

Well I better get running, but I love you all! Have a great week!

Love, 

Sister Rasmussen

Cheltenham, England - June 22, 2015

Hey Everyone!

This week has been pretty good. We had a lot of finding time and met some pretty cool people that we are excited to teach.

So we are teaching this French guy named Quentin and he is super funny and pretty much just a weirdo. So we met him in Starbucks the other day and when we came out there were some street performers playing some music. So Quentin really loves to dance so he automatically just ran over there and started dancing. The only thing is that he really sucks at dancing! Oh it was so funny because everyone on the street was watching him, good times!

Well that is the most interesting thing of my week. Hope everyone has a good one filled with lots of stories to email me ;)

Love, Sister Rasmussen

Cheltenham, England - June 15, 2015

Hey everyone!
Hope it has been an absolutely fantastic week for everyone! I know it has been amazing over here in Cheltenham! Mainly because I got to shake hands with an Apostle of the Lord!!!!  It was probably the coolest thing of my life! The spirit was so strong! It was soooo sweet!! He talked about teaching The Fall and The Atonement together. He also talked about being in the moment and counselled us about "not missing our missions." It was really really really good.

Other than that we have had a pretty fun week. Lots of finding and teaching. We are still working with Danyel and he will hopefully be baptised soon. Keep praying for him! He is having a hard time with the word of wisdom, but a huge miracle happened the other day. We saw him
on the street the other day and I went over and started talking to him. I asked him he was doing with not smoking and not drinking coffee. He said he had been really good and hadn't drank coffee at
all, and had cut down on smoking but wasn't off them completely like we had hoped. I asked if he had cigarettes on him right then and he said yes, but he wouldn't give them to me. I had no idea what to say. But the Lord provides and I talked to him a little more and he gave it all over right then! He is officially off them!

Sounds like things are going pretty great back home, love you all!

Love,

Sister Rasmussen

Cheltenham, England - June 8, 2015

Hey there everyone!

This week has been so good! AAAH! Where to begin?! We are having so many miracles that it is hard to pick! The Lord is definitely blessing us!

So first of all since Elder Holland is coming this Thursday (which I am over the moon about, by the way) we have really been trying to prepare ourselves spiritually so that when we hear from him we can be showered with personal revelation. As we have been doing this I have really tried to make my personal study in the morning as effective and spiritual as possible. Yesterday morning I had an especially amazing study. I was reading in Enos and something stood out to me that hadn't in previous times of reading it. In verse 7 when Enos asks, "Lord, how is it done?" I think this question is one that I have asked many times. There are times we all need to repent (hopefully we are doing it everyday) but sometimes I believe we have a hard time forgiving ourselves. We ask over and over, "How is it done?" How can we be forgiven? How can we be clean again? How can Heavenly Father, who is so mighty and powerful, care enough to forgive us when time and time again we do things He tells us not to do? Why would He give us mercy? Luckily the Lord answers Enos in the very next verse saying, "Because of thy faith in Christ." Now when I first read this my first reaction was, "Well it can't be that simple," but after taking the time to research it out I found that it really is. It is that simple. We are so lucky to have a Saviour that gave us such a simple way to cleanse our hearts so that we can have blessings now and in eternity! By our faith, God will forgive us "seventy times seven" if that is how many times it takes for us. I am so glad that every day we have the opportunity, through prayer, to repent and give our hearts more fully over to the Lord :)

Well I ran out of time for the rest but I will tell you next week :) love you!

Love,

Sister Rasmussen

Cheltenham, England - May 25, 2015

Hey everyone!

How is everyone this week?

This week has been pretty much same old, same old. A lot of street contacting. We have talked to some pretty funny people though. I stopped this one girl and we got to talking. I asked her what was something that made her happy and she straight up just said, "Weed!". I am pretty sure the look on my face was pretty funny :) I just started laughing! She was really nice and chill, but I wonder if that is what she usually is like or if she was just high right then. I feel like it was the latter! :) 

We were doing service for a recent convert in our area. She is this old lady who is kind of crazy. Anyway she wanted us to teach her how to ride a bike because she never learned. So we go over there and she has this tiny, little kids bike! Then she gets on it and like immediately can't do anything on it. She can't put her feet on the peddles at all without falling over. So we were trying to hold her up, but that meant we had to grab her seat which is right next to her bum and she keeps falling so we are just trying to keep her from crashing and it was just like way too much contact haha :) Oh it was soooooooo funny!! :) I don't think I ever laughed so hard! She is hilarious!

So today is one of my Zone Leader's last p-day because he goes home Wednesday so we decided to have a big barbecue today! Burgers are not the same over here at all so it still won't be good, but it will be better than nothing :) 

Also, our refrigerator stopped working! Just as we got our water fixed! So we have been eating a bunch of old canned food and powdered milk! YUCK!! :) But we are supposed to get a new one on Wednesday so wish us luck! 

Love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Love,

Sister Rasmussen

P.S. The picture is of my district. We tried a million times and this is the best picture we could get :)

Cheltenham, England - May 18, 2015

Hey everyone! It was so great to skype with everyone last week! Its so crazy to see how everyone has changed and grown already! All the kids are way too big! And I am eternally jealous of hamburgers! But this week has been pretty good. One of our investigators named Danyel is doing really well. He came to church last week and is pretty much just amazing! So glad he is progressing because he is totally elect! Sister Wilde and I have decided we are just going to baptise all the Romanians in England because we are teaching Danyel and two of his friends that just came over from Romania and then we met this other guy named Viorel from Romania too! haha They are all the best though because they all have a firm faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, but aren't that religious and mostly they come over for work to give their families money so if you just talk about families they are hooked! They are the best :)

So I have some pretty good news- Jeffrey R. Holland is coming on June 11th to our mission to talk to us! :) Soooo EXCITED! Its going to be so awesome to hear from an apostle of the Lord :) Plus we will have another mission wide conference for it so that will be two in the matter of two transfers. That never happens in this mission!

So funny story this week- we were teaching Danyel and his friend Danut how to pray. We had had this lesson a few times because it is hard for them to understand due to the language barrier. They finally understood and so we asked Danyel to pray. He started of good then in the middle got stuck and said, "I can't do this." Then Sister Wilde helped him out just a little bit like how you would help a little kid when they are learning how to pray. So he finished and it was awesome! Then we asked Danut to say one. So he started out good then, like Danyel, got stuck in the middle so Danyel just starts telling Danut what to say and ends up basically just saying his prayer for him! Haha it was sooo funny! So after the prayer we are talking about how Danyel got stuck, but then could help Danut and Danyel just said, "I'm going to go teach the world how to pray!" Haha they are the best!

Well I better go, but I hope you all have a fantastic week! :)

Love,

Sister Rasmussen