Week 38

Hey there family!!

So last Tuesday I left Danville and made the long journey all the way back to St. Louis. I was excited when we got to the stake center because the first people I saw were the Moore's!!!! For those of you who don't remember, Sister Hill and I taught Dennis who is Sister Moore's husband and he got baptized not too long after I left Potosi. Well I haven't seen them since I left but they brought Sister Hill to transfer meeting so we were all reunited again! It was a happy occasion. I love when I get to see people from the mission because they truly do become like family to me.

Anyways, I made it to O'Fallon, Missouri, which is like 30 minutes from St. Louis. It's weird being so close to the mission home and near the city. I've been on the outskirts of the mission for most of my time serving. The ward here is pretty big too. I'm not used to it, but it reminds me of wards back home. Sister Fisher is my new companion, she's from Canada. This is her last transfer so that's kind of depressing. She is really great though and we are excited to work hard this transfer!

I kind of feel like a brand new missionary again being in a new area. I feel like this last week I'm finally learning how to be a missionary. Everyone always says you never "figure it out" until you go home and I am starting to learn that first hand. I've been a missionary for 9 months now, but I feel like now I am finally starting to really "figure it out." I guess it's a good thing I am realizing this now when I still have half of my mission left instead of when a only have a few weeks left!

So missionaries have a lot of different meetings and one of those meetings is MLC, missionary leadership council. Well since I am now an STL (sister training leader), I get the opportunity to go to MLC. It was so great!! All of the leaders in the mission meet with President and Sister Morgan and we get trainings on how to be better missionaries and help the missionaries we are over. The theme of this MLC was repentance. Sister Fisher and I have been studying repentance all week and I feel like I'm learning so much about how we repent. Repentance is so much more than just saying sorry and  asking for forgiveness. It is changing our nature and behaviors to be in line with the Savior. We also can't just stop the things we are doing, we have to replace our bad habits with good things. At MLC we talked about how we need to repent as missionaries and then we need to not only teach our investigators about repentance, but teach them HOW to repent. Repentance is key in conversion because that is how we truly change. That's why repentance comes BEFORE baptism. There has been a huge focus on teaching repentance and baptizing converts and that's because as we teach people to truly repent they will become converted before they are baptized. The spirit was super strong the whole time during the meeting. I love getting the opportunity to work with such great missionaries and leaders!

Another highlight of the week... WE GOT A NEW CAR!!! haha we were so excited. After MLC Elder Curtis, the vehicle coordinator, gave us a brand new 2016 Nissan Rogue. It had 40 miles on it when we started driving in it. WUTTTT. so crazy!! good thing i will never drive a brand new car like that ever again. Thank goodness for my mission right?;)

XOXO

Sister Turpin

Our new car, we area little excited!!

Gabe, aka my BFF, the elder's recent convert, and his wonderful kids, moo moo, tee tee, and butter cookie, yep those are their real names! lol those are their nick names.

The Moores, Happy Family!