I am an eagle! Not a chicken!

Newest letter from Sister Cross - so exciting to hear from her!!!
Here are her words:

Hey hey hey!
Time is flying by faster and faster. We only have 2 weeks of the transfer left already! I am so grateful I'm probably not going to be one of the sisters training a new one after only 1 transfer. That probably wouldn't go super well.

We had a pretty cool training meeting this week. We got to hear from the AP's and President and Sister Scott. It was way helpful to see other girls who haven't been out long struggling as well. Some of them haven't even found a single investigator. I felt better about myself. But then I reevaluated where I'm at and what I'm doing. I know that I could be better. I HATE contacting, especially tracting or bus contacting. I feel so awkward. So I'm trying to have a more positive attitude about it. If Sister Messer suggests we go do something that sounds out of my comfort zone, I try to have an open mind.

Reality is starting to sink in that I will be doing this for the next 17 months. Every week, no change. It's like the first week or so of school and getting to know your teachers and classes is over and the homework starts piling on. And it won't go away. Except, you know me, I've always loved school. And I'm feeling that way about missionary work as well. No, I don't like it when investigators use their agency to choose not to listen to the gospel or when people try to tell me I'm not a christian, but I DO love it when we find a family who wants to hear more or when someone asks a FANTASTIC question that I have the answer to.

I'm starting to see the spirit work through me as well. We were in an appointment with N. and her family. She has 3 kids, a 10-year-old boy and 3-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. The twins are crazy disruptive during our lessons, but she handles it well. S., the 10-year-old is SOLID! They were taught before and their teaching record says they were solid then too. She works a lot and can't really come to church, so the elders that had them before dropped them. We picked them right back up. N. has been baptized before, but S. hadn't. When we challenged them to be baptized, S. said yes without blinking. N. is a little hesitant. She didn't really understand authority. I was able to think of an analogy to help them understand. And I was more bold than I would ever be in a situation like that. I'm not very good at being bold AND loving, but I was able to do so perfectly. I explained that her baptism probably brought her closer to God, which is great. But, when it comes to judgement day, God may say something like, "I am so glad you devoted your life to me and tried to do the right thing by being baptized. But it doesn't quite count. You needed to be baptized by someone with authority." Something like that. As soon as I said it, I was worried she would be offended. And I wouldn't normally say something like that. But she took it well and said she would pray about it. S. also said he would pray. He's great! He said the closing prayer and asked that Satan would stay away from Sister Messer and I. That was sweet.

We're also looking for opportunities of service, but it's not coming easily. This morning, though, we had an interesting situation. We woke up at 6:30, prayed, and started talking. A few second later, we heard someone yelling out the window, "Are you okay?" And we could hear someone grunting. We looked outside, but couldn't see anyone. We could hear the person who was grunting say, "I think I broke my arm." As we leaned forward, we could barely see an older woman, in her 60's, laying on the ground. The other person said they would be right down, so we waited. The person never came. The lady on the ground tried to get up, but was struggling. As she started trying to crawl her way back to the stairs, Sister Messer and I knew we should go help her. In our PJ's, we threw on a coat, some slip on flats, and ran down the stairs. The lady, Nancy, had managed to get herself to the stairs and was standing up as we got there. She wouldn't move her left arm. She told us we should call an ambulance because she can't drive. She had fallen down the stairs and at least dislocated her shoulder, maybe broken her arm as well. We were able to stay with her and call her work for her to let them know she wouldn't be there. She is so lucky someone was looking out the window. Although, I wonder if someone was there at all. They never came and we never saw anyone looking out the window either. She's okay, but she was in a lot of pain. It felt good to be able to help her. And we made it back in time for showers and breakfast. :)

You're probably wondering about the eagle thing... Well, at church on Sunday, we talked about grace a little bit. Brother L. (probably one of the COOLEST members ever, seriously.... If you've seen Kung Fu Panda, he sounds JUST like Po's dad, the bird. He's from China. He spoke in Sacrament meeting. He told us a little story. He said there was a bird expert that went to the home of a farmer with a bunch of chickens. Among the chickens he saw something out of place: a golden eagle among the chickens, acting just like a chicken. He asked about how that came to be because "that's impossible!" The farmer said he was in the woods after a storm and found an egg in a nest on the ground. It was still warm, so he put it with his chickens. The Golden Eagle was raised among chickens and learned to live just like them. The expert didn't understand. He picked it up and said, "You are an eagle! You have the eyes of an eagle; you have the heart of an eagle. You have the strength and the wings of an eagle, now FLY!" But the eagle just hopped right back down with the chickens. Long story short, the expert took the eagle up to the mountains where there would be other golden eagles and no chickens. Seeing his potential, the eagle flew with the other eagles. He then told us all, "You are eagles living among chickens! Fly!" Um, Sister Messer and I may or may not have laughed about it for the rest of church... and wrote it down and put it on our wall... Brother L. is fantastic! He's super nice and they've fed us the most so far.

I can't really think of much else. I will tell you something I learned in our training: Members are not there to help the missionaries with their work. Missionaries are there to help the members with their work! And missionaries know what their doing when they invite someone to be baptized after only one lesson. Trust them. And do your best to fellowship the new members. They need it!

PRAYERS would be super appreciated! I have to give a talk next week about Easter. So we'll see how that goes. For some reason, I'm really nervous. It could be because all of these people come from different places. Or it could be just because I have NO IDEA what I'm going to say. Normally I feel at least something. I might use a talk from Elder Holland that I was reminded of yesterday. We'll see.

I love you all! I seriously have the BEST support group ever! Thanks so much for the love and encouragement. I am most definitely inadequate if I'm doing it all alone. But the Lord is on my side and he's given me a great cheer squad. Thanks!

Exact Obedience!
Sister Cross

Anti Crazies and Getting on the Boat

Got this from Sister Cross a couple of days ago!  I hope you enjoy her words as much as I do!  Feel free to post your comments if you would like.  I'm sure Jessica would love to read them once she gets home from her mission!

Sister Cross' words:

Well hello everyone!!!!

Seriously, I feel like I emailed you 2 days ago! Time has just FLOWN by this week. And it's funny, a lot has happened.

A little bit of fun stuff, I got to go to downtown Toronto after emailing last P-Day. It was awesome! The city is HUGE and basically everything was under construction. I thought it would feel like Seattle, but it most definitely did not. The CN Tower is about the only thing that resembles Seattle. Everything is bigger in Toronto. I guess they have 28 Kilometers of underground shopping and stuff. We didn't even go there yet! Sister Messer only has a transfer and a half left and she's been dying her whole mission to come to Toronto. So we'll be doing some fun things in the next 9 weeks. I'll try to send some pictures of the things we saw, but no promises today.

After our adventures in downtown, we went shopping. While at the store we got a call from A. She had been "researching." NOOOOOO! She got some SUPER anti information and we wanted to clear it up. We told her we'd call her. After playing phone tag for a few days, we got a hold of her again. She had read more and wouldn't listen to anything we had to say. She just argued with us. She would say something, we would explain it in a very clear way, and she would disagree and get upset. Oh boy... She said she didn't really want to meet with us any more to learn, but she wanted us to study Greek Orthodox so we could know what Christianity was really about. She also wanted to give us our Book of Mormon back. Sister Messer said we could do that and we set up a time to pick it up on Saturday. Friday night, during planning, we realized the library she wanted to meet at wasn't in our area. We called her to see if we could meet somewhere else. She flipped out that we should be able to go to whatever library we want. She asked if we follow God. We said yes, and she then told us that SHE gave us permission to go and we didn't need to get it anywhere else. After a bit, she agreed to meet somewhere else on a different day to give us the book. Then she asked more Anti questions and argued a bit more. Sister Messer simply said, "A, we have to go." And we got off the phone. Then we realized we never set up a time or place and we were okay with that! Maybe she'll actually read the book instead of researching. But we're no longer working with her. It was a little crazy that all of this happened in such a short period of time. Funny thing is, we both felt relieved. And we were able to focus more on our other investigators.

We also ran into another anti guy that had to inform us we weren't Christian and that we are small and insignificant. We think. His english was poor. But because he "wasted our time" we were able to run into a less active in the elevator on our way to see a former investigator who seems promising. Blessings!

We had 3 dinner appointments this week, which were fun. I haven't been able to completely finish a meal without feeling a little sick, but it's been WAY better than I thought. We have one tonight, so hopefully that will go well.

So we got a referral from either her or missionaries that had taught her before. We met up with her at the Eglinton Square Food Court. She was so sweet. She's from the Philippines! Which is WAY great because basically have our ward is from the Philippines, including our bishop, and they basically take everyone from there under their wings. She said she was just looking for a place she felt like she could belong. We taught her the Restoration and she didn't really have any questions. I don't know if that's good or bad. But she came to church! And she said she felt so good. A sister in our ward, Sister S., met her after sacrament and took her to Gospel Principles. G. (our investigator) answered questions and did a GREAT job. She seemed to be understanding it all. And it was on the Spirit World! After class, she went with Sister S. and sat with her in relief society. We asked her how she was feeling and, as she touched her heart, she said she felt really good. She introduced herself in Relief Society and said she was so glad we met with her and found her a ride to church and she's excited to learn more. After church, she went to CHOIR PRACTICE with Sister S. and WANTED to be there! What?! She is so great! Hopefully we will meet with her this week and solidify a baptism date for her. She agreed that, if she knew it was true, she would get baptized April 7. But both of us think she'd be ready by the 31. So we'll see what happens there.

Sunday was great! I think I told you about the guy in our ward who just got back from a mission in WA. Well he spoke about the Atonement. It was great! Our investigator loved it too. At the end of his talk, he said something that really stuck with me. And I hope all you boys (my brothers) will really take this to heart. But it can be applied to any commandment. He talked about how we often look at the story of Noah and imagine all the logs on the ground as he's preparing to build the ark. We'd all probably said say, "I'd get on the boat!" Then he said that we have a prophet today who is "building a boat." He has asked that EVERY young man serve a full time mission. The floods are coming and he's asking us, "Will you get on the boat?" Ryan and Brent especially, get on the boat! Adam, Daniel, and Nathan, start building it! Your time is coming too. I've taken that a step further in myself. As I've said, our mission focuses on exact obedience. But I need to make sure that I'm "getting on the boat." As General Conference approaches, I'm trying to keep that in mind. I'm excited to see what "Ark" President Monson talks about and try to jump on. As King Lamoni's father said, "I would give all my sins to know Thee." I need to have that attitude, especially about my "favorite" sins. Just something to think about this week.

Thank you all for your support! I've said it over and over, but I am so grateful I have the BEST family and friends! I couldn't imagine doing this without all of your love and support.

Remember who you are. Exact obedience. Get on the boat!

Sister Cross

"The Obedience Thing" and feeling WAY better!

Okay, so I forgot to post this wonderful letter from Sister Cross, but here it is - better late than never :-).

Sister Cross' words:

Hey everyone!

Okay, so this week has been crazy and time is warped on a mission. I feel like it's been FOREVER since I email ya'll last week, but this week also FLEW by. How that works, I'm not so sure.

This week, Sister Messer and I realized we really needed to find people to teach. She told me about a promise she read that said if we talk to at least 10 people a day, our teaching pool would double. Well, we NEEDED that. She implemented something from her last area called The Obedience Thing. Our District Leader is calling every night to hold us accountable for being exactly obedient about these things:
1. We wake up by 6:30, home by 9:00, and in bed by 10:30
2. We talked to at least 10 people that day
3. We only have lunch and dinner for an hour. No more!
and then we got to add our own. So.... We decided to do something a little crazy.
4. Challenge at least one person to baptism every day!

At first, it was a little weird, but boy have we seen the blessings of it for sure. Before we started this, Sister Messer and I got on the bus and really were trying to find someone who would be prepared. She said a silent prayer to know who was prepared to hear the gospel. Right then, A. sat down next to us and started talking about how she's writing a book about her and God. What?! Sister Messer asked her if she had talked to missionaries before and she said, "No, but I might have to." We got her info and decided to give her a call a couple of days later. When we called, she talked more about her book and we asked if we could meet with her on Friday. She agreed. Well Friday morning came and she called to cancel. She said she wasn't feeling well. We invited her to church and she said she would try to come. Our hopes were falling. We had other strong potentials we were working on, and she's a little interesting, so we let it go. Well, Saturday night she called. I answered and she said, "Hi! I was just calling because I really want to come to church tomorrow. Is that okay?" She then proceeded to tell me that she thought Mormons were a little weird, but read about Joseph Smith and his story makes sense. She said she couldn't find a a skirt that fit, but would try to lose weight so she could one day wear one to church. She was already planning on coming for more than just that week! I couldn't stop smiling. Usually she just talks about her book, but the whole time she talked about how we're just Christians and she was "drawn to us" and she talked about how good she feels when she's around us.

She came on Sunday, late because she forgot about the time change, but she came. She still talked a lot about her book, but it was so good. She talked about how God tells her to do things and she gets upset about it, but does them anyway and prays to be grateful for his guidance. She had a hard time understanding prophets and also struggled to accept the Book of Mormon. But she accepted the challenge to be baptized on the 31st! Her only questions were, "Will I be wearing clothes because I don't fit in a Bikini?" and "So do I need to bring a change of clothes?" It was so great! At the end of the lesson, we asked her to pray. She said something like this, "Heavenly Father, I'm having a hard time accepting the Book of Mormon as scripture. Will you help me to believe in it? And thank you for these girls." She has asked us multiple times if she can keep in contact with us when we leave because she really needs friends.

I 100% believe that she is a blessing because of our dedication to being exactly obedient to what we have been asked to do and because we were willing to open our mouths after a long day anyway. We have found a few people to teach simply because we were willing to talk to them. Most of the people out here have strong religious backgrounds such as Muslim or Hindu. And others have only heard negative things about our church. But I have seen, with A., that we really can fall in love with the people we are teaching. As we were talking to her, she got emotional because she's been praying and wants God to come down here to answer her questions. I felt a strong prompting to tell her that we were an answer to her prayers. That made her cry more, but the spirit was strong. She said that she has felt so drawn to us since she got on the bus and she wants to make good friends who believe in God. Boy can we help her with that!

Oh, funny story about her. At church, she asked us about a few of the normal rumors that spread about Mormons. Like we worship Joseph Smith. But then she asked a hilarious one! She was asking us about why we don't have crosses in our building and things like that. Then she said, "I heard that Mormons have a giant cross underground so they can go step on it after church. Is that true?" Where in the world did that come from?! We were soooo excited to clear that up for her. And explain that we worship Jesus Christ and live our lives centered on His sacrifice for us. Again, the spirit was so strong as we met with her. I pray for her everyday so that we can help her enter the waters of baptism on the 31st. But I have no doubt she will. Even if she doesn't want to, if God tells her it's right (which I KNOW He will), she will do as He wants. But she wants to get baptized. So we don't even have to worry about that.

A lot of you have asked if I'm feeling better. I am SO happy to report that yet, I am feeling SO MUCH BETTER. My companion is starting to get a little cold, but she's fine. I'm finishing my meds tomorrow and I should be solid even after I stop taking them. Thank you for the prayers! I definitely needed them.

So... as we're preparing for the Easter season, I was hoping I could ask you all a favor. If you could email me or write me about your testimony of the Savior and how knowing that He is risen has blessed your life, I would LOVE that.

Okay, really quickly, they changed the policy, so I CAN email friends as well as family. My responses might be short, but I would love to hear from everyone. Chelcie, get McKenzie to email me! I've thought about her a lot.

Thank you all for the support. I am growing to love it out here! All I needed was to be obedient, open my mouth, and let the Lord work through me. That's my purpose as a missionary. Nothing I do will ever bring success. But what the Lord does through me will bring all the success in the world!

Sister Cross

Remember: Exact obedience everyone!

Just In - PICTURES!!!

Sister Cross with her First Comp in the field!

AZ Bound?  Hmmm...

MTC Class - lovin' learnin'!

Saw lots of old friends at the MTC!

"I LOVE MAIL!!!!"

Where is Toronto?

MTC - Toronto Bound Sisters!

Waiting for Bus - Almost there!

BRRRR - In Toronto with 1st Comp

Terra's Apron, Matai's Wash Cloth

First Companion & Trainer - Sister Messer

Pres & Sis Scott with Sis Cross

FIRST Email from CANADA!!! BRRRRR...

Mom! Thanks so much for emailing me. It's been weird not getting ANYTHING for an entire week. I wish they delivered DearElder everyday here too. Quick question. Did they send you my address? If not, it's:

2 Swift Dr. #412
North York, ON M4A 2A2
CANADA

DearElder will let you put in that address exactly instead of just the mission home if you'd like. It should prompt you every time you start a letter. I would LOVE to get letters here. We don't get mail from the mission home too much. I should get some on Wednesday during our Zone Training, but we'll see.

I have more time on computers here, so you don't really have to make it TOO short.  Quick update for you. I've been pretty sick, actually. I had a cold in the MTC and on my flight out, the pressure really messed with my sinuses. I got a sinus infection, although I didn't really know what it was until Wednesday. I went to a doctor here who prescribed me a nasal spray and some antibiotics. It was working really well until yesterday. Everything started coming back. Prayers would definitely be appreciated.

It is COLD here. The first full day here, it was super wet too. And my feet were soaked the whole day. It dried up, but it's a bitter cold. Yesterday was the hardest because I started feeling sick again at church and forgot my gloves and ear muffs at home. We were trying to visit less actives and it was really painful. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

Okay, my companion's name is Sister Messer. She's from Vegas area and is actually going home after training me. So in about 11 weeks. I've heard nothing but fantastic things about her. I do feel guilty that I've been so sick and not super motivated to do anything. But she's been patient. We're opening a new area. It's called Don Mills East. It's in the "outskirts" of Toronto. Sister Messer has been dying to come to Toronto her whole mission, but hasn't had the chance. We're actually opening the area. There have been elders here in this ward, two sets, actually. They're still here, we're just sharing the ward with them. Weird, right? 3 sets of missionaries in 1 ward!

This place is crazy. I think Dad would love it. There are so many different cultures here. The quote of the week is, "Talk to him! He'll be nice; he's not white." -Sister Messer. It's true though. I was telling her that I was nervous to talk to people because I don't know how to start the conversation. My words were, "At school, I could ask people where they're from because everyone is from somewhere different. But here, they're obviously from Toronto." She was like, "No! Ask that question. That's a great one!" Seriously, last week I met someone from Columbia, Russia, the Phillipines, India, and tons of other places. They've all been here like 3-37 years. ;) Everyone has different backgrounds. And I thought the question, "What's your religious background?" would be a weird one to ask, but they answer it like I'm asking what they're favorite ice cream is. Most are muslim or catholic or hindu or christian... there really isn't a norm of any kind.

Our ward is really interesting too. My favorite family is the Lim family. The parents and some of their kids live in our ward. Their son, Jared Lim, just got back from a mission, actually. He served in Kennewick, WA! How cool is that? We just kind of switched places. He served in Vancouver for a whole year in total on his mission, but he doesn't know the Olsen's.

Since the area is new, we're starting from scratch. We got one investigator from the Elders who is a little difficult. He knows a lot about the Bible and refuses to pray about the Book of Mormon. Sister Messer doesn't really want to teach him any more, but I see it as a fun challenge. He's interesting. We also got a new investigator who isn't from a Christian background, which makes things a little bit difficult when teaching. But he's so sweet. He's from India, I believe, and really wants to know more about God. He actually has a baptismal date already, but I've learned that that doesn't mean too much because Preach My Gospel is set up so we challenge them after the first lesson. Hopefully we can still get him in the water.

I realized that I haven't emailed at all since I got here, so I'll have to tell you about getting here and how that all worked out. So leaving at 3 am is CRAZY. We were super tired and I was sick, but so excited. When we got there, the line to check in was huge because of all the missionaries. I felt bad for all the regular people there. Our plane was supposed to leave at 6:40, but it didn't even get to the gate till 6:35. Our layover was short, so I was a little nervous about making our next flight. We also had to get sprayed with antifreeze and everything. The pilot made us all laugh about it, though. We landed in Denver and they didn't have the gate ready for us. The pilot said, "Sorry, folks. They DID know we were coming." We waited for about 20 minutes and then he came on the speaker and told us they lost the key to our gate as well. If it weren't for the fact that half of our next flight was sitting on this plane, it would've left us. We had 34 missionaries going to Toronto on our flight and 2 on another. Eventually we made it and got onto our last flight. When we landed in Canada, immigration did NOT like us. She kept asking me why Canadians couldn't just serve missions there. She said she thought something else was going on here, but we didn't know about it. That "our church" was up to something. Whatever, we made it through.

We stayed the night at a hotel because there wasn't room for all of us. There were 29 SISTERS and 7 elders with us! How great! I guess our group has been a legend in the mission. Everyone was excited for this big of a group. The next day, we met our trainers and took off. We got to drive by the temple. It's HUGE, but I guess it's very under-utilized. We need to get more people to go to the temple!
Oh yeah, our apartment. We moved into an apartment that the old Korean elders used to occupy. It was DISGUSTING. I'm pretty sure they never cleaned their apartment ever. Dirty dishes were in the sink and on the stove. We joked that they must have heard they were supposed to move 5 minutes before they did, so they grabbed their stuff and ran. We've met the Korean Elders, actually. They're funny. They apologized multiple times. I think they were really embarrassed. One of them, his name is Elder Baek (pronounced Beck). Cool, hu? Our mission has a lot of elders that speak different languages. We're the only mission in the world with Pharsie (spelling?) speaking elders. It's pretty great. Actually, we also do a lot of finding through and ESL (English as a Second Language) class. We help out with it twice a week. There are a lot of them in our mission. Kinda cool.

Hopefully I'll feel better soon. Next week, we're probably going Downtown on our P-Day, so I'll have cool pictures for you. Especially of the CN tower, which is a lot like the space needle, only taller.

Anyway, I think that's about all. I'm going to try to send you and email with pictures now. Let me know if you have any other questions or anything. I love you all! Mom, don't worry about not saying goodbye. I almost called you back, but thought it would've been easier just to not worry about it because I didn't really care to cry MORE.

Love,
Sister Cross