City Girl!

Hello Everyone!!

This week was full of fun adventures! On Monday, We were blessed with

an Ice storm--not a snow storm, an ICE strom-- literally everything

was covered in sheets of ice. Normally, I drive in the snow and winter

conditions because sis Plomgren is from Cali, but she decided she

needed to learn. So we prayed really hard... And Sis Plomgren  got in

the drivers seat, drove maybe 20 feet, and promptly got stuck.

Couldn't go forward, couldn't go backwards, We were dead stuck. So I

just bust out laughing, because sister Plomgren had just said to me 30

sec earlier, "driving in the snow can't be that bad! How hard can it

be?" Haha So we do everything that we can do by ourselves to get

unstuck. We sprinkled salt on the snow/ice (it actually hailed enough

to make a good 4 inches), we used our ice scraper to try and dig

ourselves out, I pushed the car, but nothing did anything. We were so

stuck. We said a prayer and while later two kind woman showed up to

help us.  We then thanked them profusely and ran home to get warm

because it had been snowing and we were soaked and frozen solid. It

was an exciting day.

On Tuesday, we met with a sister missionary that had returned earlier

this year from Utah Salt Lake City West mission, and she gave us a lot

of ideas on how to work with the Ward and help them to get excited and

involved in missionary work! It was wonderful and such an answer to

prayers.  After, our oil reallllllly needed to be changed, so we were

without a car for about 3 hours. We hadn't gotten lunch and we had a

gift card for Portillo's so we decided to walk the mile that it takes

to get there. However, it had been soon enough after the  snowstorm

that none of the sidewalks were salted or even plowed. The silver

lining of it all was that it had been in the teens overnight so all

the snow was frozen, which made all the snow freeze so we weren't just

walking on powder and sinking down to China. So we felt a little bit

like pioneers that day, walking through the ice and slush (I'm pretty

sure that our experience was a billion times better than the pioneers,

but still).

Also on Tuesday, we went to see Alice, a member that has some

difficulties, and we try to visit her at least once a week. She has a

daughter that is in school for nursing, and she is pretty inactive and

no one has been able to see her in a long time. We start visiting with

Alice , her daughter walks in and we have a really good conversation

with her. She said that she really wants to come back to church for

the spirit that she feels there. We were able to share a message with

her, and we set a return appointment to come back and do some

scripture study with her, and she said that she would come to church

next Sunday! Yay!!!

On New Year's Day, we were invited by a Scottish member to have a

traditional Scottish New Year's meal. There was mince and tatties

(meat and potatoes stirred by a spurtle, which is a fancy Scottish

name for a stick that you stir potatoes with), clapshot (a 50/50 mix

of potato and rutabaga), scones, peas, pickled beets, and for dessert,

shortbread and a clootie dumpling. A clootie dumpling is a bread with

nutmeg and raisins all wrapped in a Cloot, which is a fancy name for a

towel, and it's boiled for 3 hours. It was delicious and really cool

to see that tradition. It is definitely a New Years I will never

forget!!

So, transfer calls were this weekend and I am being transferred to

DOWNTOWN CHICAGO. I will be serving as an STL (sister training leader)

in the Lakeshore YSA (young single adult) ward. I am very excited, and

also very overwhelmed at the same time. I feel inadequate to serve in

this calling, however I know the lord qualifies whom he calls and I

can do all things through the help of Jesus Christ. I found comfort in

the scripture Moses 6: 31-34:

31 And when Enoch had heard these words, he bowed himself to the

earth, before the Lord, and spake before the Lord, saying: Why is it

that I have found favor in thy sight, and am but a lad, and all the

people hate me; for I am slow of speech; wherefore am I thy servant?

32 And the Lord said unto Enoch: Go forth and do as I have commanded

thee, and no man shall pierce thee. Open thy mouth, and it shall be

filled, and I will give thee utterance, for all flesh is in my hands,

and I will do as seemeth me good.

33 Say unto this people: Choose ye this day, to serve the Lord God who made you.

34 Behold my Spirit is upon you, wherefore all thy words will I

justify; and the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall

turn from their course; and thou shalt abide in me, and I in you;

therefore walk with me.

I have a firm testimony of the hand of the Lord in his work. I am

merely an instrument in his hands. This gospel is going forth and the

work is hastening, what an exciting time to be a missionary. As

members we have the choice to help the Lord hasten his work, but also

knowing that it will continue to go forth, with or without us. It says

in Daniel 2:44 "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven

set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom

shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and

consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." I know that

this is the time to prepare to meet God, and that we will be held

accountable for actions during this life. How grateful I am for the

Savior Jesus Christ whose atonement satisfies my personal inadequacies

and weaknesses. I see his hand in my life each and every day as he

strengthens, uplifts, and qualifies me to become part of HIS work.

Choose to be a part of this glorious work of hastening and bringing

others into the gospel and the Lord will pour his blessings unto you!!

I am so OVERJOYED to have the opportunity to serve the Lord in

downtown Chicago for this upcoming transfer. I am looking forward to

all of the new experiences and all that he has to teach me.

The church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the one and only

true church of God on this Earth today. Thomas S. Monson is a living

prophet of God and has the priesthood power and authority to lead and

guide us today. Obey the commandments, follow the prophet and the

teachings of his apostles, pray and study the scriptures, and always

keep your testimony burning bright! The lord blesses those who Love

and serve him. Of these things I testify in the name of Jesus Christ.

I hope that you all had a great week! I am so grateful for your

prayers and support!

Favorite scripture of the week!!

Joshua 1:5

5 There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of

thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail

thee, nor forsake thee.

Love always,

Sister Parke

Pictures Unforgettable Christmas

Maddy & Brother Austin

Oh Happy Day! Maddy's Baptism!

I love this girl!

She had such great support at the baptism!

Sister Meili came back for a visit!

Best friends for life..and forever!

Helping with Christmas morning breakfast at Bishop's home!

Love the Brady family!

Yup..it's true.

Sweet Sister Plomgren!! love her!

Christmas Eve!

We got our pj's! xoxo

Unforgettable Christmas

Hello everyone!!!

I hope you Christmas was Merry and Bright! I can't believe this year

is nearly over! It is 2016! Where did all the time go? My first

Christmas away from home will most definitely never be forgotten! What

a special week it has been! Wednesday was Easily the BEST DAY of my

mission. Maddy was baptized and it was such an unforgettable

experience. We spent all afternoon decorating and making special for

her. The turnout was amazing...There were over 100+ people there to

support her-- the ward, the stake presidency, president Woodbury, and

so many of her friends! The whole chapel was full, it felt like

sacrament meeting! Sadly, her parents wouldn't come... But there were

so many people there to support. I have never seen Maddy so happy, the

spirit was so strong. I know that the Lord was so pleased and proud of

Maddys decision to be baptized, and the spirit was so strong. For all

that she sacrificed to choose the right and be brave, pressing forward

with faith. The program was wonderful, Connor gave a talk on baptism,

Connors mom and sister sang beautifully while I accompanied them to a

special comprised version of "I know that my redeemer lives." Then I

gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. Afterwards, Maddy got up in front of

EVERYONE and bore her testimony. I bawled like a baby the whole time.

That was one of the most tender sweet experiences I have ever had in

my whole life and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the whole world.

I am so grateful for Maddy, I am so thankful the Lord blessed me with

the opportunity to teach her and have her  forever become a part of my

life. The lord knows Maddys divine potential and I know he has a work

for her to do. She is such an incredible girl and I am so proud of

her. What an amazing gift to give the Savior for Christmas. And what a

wonderful gift to receive from God. Maddy was confirmed on Sunday by

brother O'Brien. Words cannot express how much I love Maddy and the

people in this ward! It's moments like these that make being a

missionary the most rewarding experience. I am grateful to be a

missionary, I testify that the greatest joy you can feel in this life

is helping others come closer to the Savior. This was definitely a

Christmas I will never forget.

This week I have been pondering and studying about the power of the

atonement. Sister Plomgren and I are studying Romans with one of our

recent converts and the apostle Paul teaches a lot about the doctrine

of Christ the the grace of the Saviors atonement. I don't think that

we can fully comprehend the power of the atonement. I have come to

gain a greater understanding of Jesus Christ's atonement since the

time I have been out of my mission. I rely on the healing and the

strengthening power of the atonement each day as I strive daily to

become a better follower of Jesus Christ. I have a testimony that the

Lord takes weak things and makes them strong. There is no way that we

could make it through this life without a savior. Jesus Christ gives

us the strength to endure whatever challenges that we have to face. We

are sent to this earth to be tested and tried, and challenges are part

of this life, and also part of gods plan. However, because God loved

us so much he sent he son Jesus Christ to be a savior, and I find

peace in knowing there is not any trial or hardship that the savior

cannot heal. EVERYONE can be strengthened through Christ's atonement.

There is a good quote in January's ensign about the Atonement by Elder

Gerrit W. Gong: "Fully accepting our Savior’s Atonement can increase

our faith and give us courage to let go of constraining expectations

that we are somehow required to be or to make things perfect. … We can

gratefully accept, as God’s sons and daughters, that we are His

greatest handiwork, even though we are still a work in progress.”

God has made it so simple, all we have to do is humble ourselves and

rely on him...it is our responsibility to let him in. Sometimes what I

struggle with is.. that I am sort of a self willed person....  Take

things on myself thinking I can handle it and don't need any help. Of

course I am humbled each and every day and I am so grateful for the

gods patience with me and that he helps me realize I can't do this

myself! Missions are hard-- but LIFE is hard, and thankfully because

of the savior Jesus Christ we don't have to do it by ourselves. I know

that we are each given our own personal challenges and trials to help

us grow closer to the Lord. I testify that any time we overcome with

the strength of the lord our faith and testimony grows.

What a wonderful time of year to reflect upon what we can improve on

to increase our faith in the Savior. Every year my family individually

chooses a gift to give to the Savior throughout the new year. I

challenge each of you to do the same and ponder and pray about a gift

you can give the Savior this year to help draw closer to him.

My gift to the Savior 2016

- My gift to the Savior this year will be to serve him with all my

might, mind, and strength in helping to bring others unto him through

faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost.  Striving to

follow him with full purpose of heart. Understanding the importance of

serving others and helping them to strengthen their testimonies and

endure to the end.

I love each of you and I hope you had a wonderful Christmas season!

Happy new year!!     Thank you for all of the love and support!!

Love,

Sister Parke

Pictures Reason to Believe

We helped a woman in our ward who is bedridden set up her Christmas tree this week!

Zone temple trip!

Santa Claus came to the mission home and gave us all new gas cards. Yay!

Loving all the Christmas Cards!

I made Sister P some French toast for breakfast. Makes me feel less homesick. I miss making food for you guys!

This is ISABELLA. Diane's daughter! Her call has been assigned! We are just waiting for it to come in the mail!

Heading home after a great day in the city. Trump bldg behind us.

Pday breakfast out with Maddy, Connor and the Elders!

Reason to Believe

Hello everyone!!

Christmas is in four days? Oh my goodness where has the time gone? I

love this time of year and the opportunity we have to ponder and

reflect on the life of the Savior. What a great week it has been!!

Here are a few of the new things going on in Buffalo Grove.

So Maddy isn't going to byuidaho this next semester. There are a

couple reasons that factor into this decision. First, she wrote a

letter to her parents telling them about her plan to be baptized and

going off to school.... Asserting her position with the church. After

her parents read the letter, her dad had a really good talk with

her-the first positive one about the church ever- he said that he

acknowledges that she is going to be baptized and that he is

respecting her choice even though he doesn't necessarily agree with

it. He did say however, that he wants her to wait until next semester

to go to BYUIDAHO so that they can go with her to tour the school and

take some time off so that they will be able to help move her to

school, which with this short notice would not be possible. The second

reason, is purely financial. Maddy is paying for school herself and

needs to save more money before she heads off to school so that she

can avoid debt. But I am so glad the miracles regarding school,

because without them she would not be getting baptized on Wednesday!

School can wait, but what is most important is baptism... And now

Maddys parents are softening their hearts. She was willing to

compromise her baptism to go to school but the opposite occurred...

Her parents are accepting baptism but asking her to put off going away

to school. We are VERY EXCITED for her baptism this Wednesday and know

it will be a very special experience.

We made the phone call on Wednesday to schedule a hand-off lesson with

Luis for this upcoming Tuesday. He really needs Spanish-speaking

missionaries. But, the law of compensation is real! About a half hour

after we called the spanish elders, someone texted. They said, "I got

your number from Danny. I want to learn more about being Mormon. Do

you have time to help me?" So that threw us for a loop! We had met

Danny in McDonald's Saturday night. It had been a long day and it was

8:30 PM and finishing up contacting at Walmart. We wanted to go home,

but Sister Plomgren felt a strong prompting to go to McDonald's. We

get there and there is only one couple there, and I did NOT want to

talk to them. They had foul mouths and were kind of rude in general.

So we sit there for a couple minutes, and sister Plomgren said to me,

"Let's just go home",  I felt like We needed to show them the video,

then we could go home. We ask if we show can them the Christmas video,

and after he says, "Yeah, I dated a girl who was a Mormon. Her dad's a

bishop in Salt Lake City. I talked with him a little about the church

and I thought it was pretty interesting. I just like learning about

religion." We invite him to church Sunday, and get his contact

information (his name is Danny). I don't really think much of it, to

be honest because he was pretty involved with his own religion.

Tuesday, we get that text from his friend Mike, and set up an

appointment to meet with him! What a miracle!

Random little miracle moment: we were in the mall food court (where

the people are) doing some contacting and we were taking a break and

had a Book of Mormon out on the table. This woman walks by saying

"Nice book!" and Sister Plomgren and I just look at each other and

turn back to her. We ask if she had ever heard of the Book of Mormon

and she says, "Oh, I thought that was a Bible! I've never heard of the

Book of Mormon" so we explain what it was and she says "Oh, I'll have

to check it out!" and we were like, "Well you can have this one". She

takes it, thanks us, and walks off. Sister Plomgren and I were kind of

dazed for a few minutes because that seriously doesn't happen often so

when it does it's kind of awesome.

The whole mission has started a new initiative where we do two hours

of personal finding a day. Sister Plomgren and I have taken that and

added two active member visits and two less-active member visits, so

that we give our days a little structure and that we have "all our

nets in the water" (we are using all our resources to find people to

teach). So we had done our two hours of finding, and we had just

finished our second active member. We went to visit our first

less-active member (and mind you it was about 25 degrees out and

Sister Plomgren and I were freezing), and she opens the door and says,

"Are you from the church?" We answer with "Yes, yes we are" and she

says, "Then I don't want to talk to you" and with that she slams the

door. Most people are civil with us and say something along the lines

of "Thanks for visiting, but this isn't the time that I want to come

back to church right now" and then we give them our card with a number

to call or something like that so that they can call us if we ever

need anything. But this woman's rejection really did a number on us

for some reason. So we were hitting our spiritual low for the night.

We go to get gas and try to figure out what we should do. When sister

Plomgren pulled out the book to record how much gas we buy and how

much it was (we keep a lot of records here), these CD cases fall out.

The CD's are from a band called Remembering Rome and sister Plomgren

asked, "Who is Remembering Rome?" and I say, "You know pretty much

everything I do about this car". So I throw them back in there without

a second thought. Then we were looking through our list of people that

we want to visit and this one name jumps out at us.  We both felt like

we needed to go visit this man. so we go to where he lives, which was

only about five minutes from where the gas station was. We get there,

knock on the door, and his mom answers. We ask, "Is Mike home?" and

she says "Yes, let me go get him for you. It's freezing out, would you

like to come in?" Wow! Usually people make us wait outside, even when

it's cold out. So that was a little tender mercy in itself. She gets

Mike and we introduce ourselves to him and we get to talking and he

invites us to take us seat in the living room. Yeah, that doesn't

happen ever. We chat a little about everything and he tells us that he

was in the band Remembering Rome. My mouth falls open at that point

because what are the odds? I have seriously looked through that glove

compartment about 10 times looking for a pen and have never seen those

CDs before. That was so cool! We invite him to church and the

scripture study class that the missionaries run and he said that he

would come! That was seriously one of the coolest things that I had

ever seen.

I have gained a testimony that as we obey and listen to the promptings

of the spirit they will happen more frequently. I have been studying

and pondering about the Holy Ghost this week as i prepare my talk for

Maddys baptism. The Holy Ghost has such a strong influence on my life

and I know that without the companionship of the Holy Ghost I would

not be where I am today. As I was studying... I noticed something that

finally clicked in my mind....everything we do as members of the

church is intended to invite and bless us with the companionship of

the Holy Ghost! Annnnd the reason that this church is a true and

living church is because of the gift of the Holy Ghost! The Holy Ghost

testifies of the truth and bears witness of the Savior Jesus Christ. I

love the quote by President Faust, "the gift of the Holy Ghost is the

greatest guarantor of inward peace in our unstable world." I have a

strong testimony of this. On Friday I had the opportunity to go to the

temple with my zone for Christmas. What an unforgettable experience.

The peace that I felt is indescribable... And can only be felt by and

through the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is how we are able to feel gods

love for us. Even though he is not physically here with us, he can

always spiritually be with us through the Holy Ghost, if we live

worthily. I testify of the power in striving to keep the spirit of the

Lord with us always. Life is so much more simple as our thoughts are

directed to the Savior.

I have also been reflecting a lot upon the teachings of the Savior in

his mortal ministry. My heart has been filled with the spirit

countless times as I have pondered upon the life of Jesus Christ and

his goodness. This is a Christmas I will never forget; the Savior is

the hope of the world, and I don't think I fully understood this

clearly until my mission. Jesus Christ was born so that he could be

the example to us of how we need to live to make it back to our father

in heaven. Without him, we would be lost. I am so grateful for the

Savior, and his atoning sacrifice. I am grateful that he was willing

to come to this earth and live a perfect life and because he loved

each of us so much, he died for all of our sins. I was studying in

Luke chapter 23 this morning, and read about the crucifixion of the

Savior. Tears filled my eyes as I remembered that the atonement is the

reason why Jesus Christ was born. He came to this earth to save us

all. And this is why we sing... JOY TO THE WORLD. I love my Savior and

Redeemer Jesus Christ. I am grateful for his infinite atonement. I

know that he was born to offer blessing of peace and hope to each and

everyone of us. I am grateful for this time of year to remember Jesus

Christ and all he has done for us. I hope you all choose to believe.

Believe in Jesus Christ. Alma 33:22 the reason to believe is found in

the Son of God. I wish you all a Merry Christmas! I miss you so much,

but I am grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve! I love

you!

I challenge you to read Jesus Christ our Master and More in the April

2000 ensign!

Love,

Sister Parke

Pictures P-day in Chicago!

Deep-dish Chicago Style Pizza

#itsthebest

PIctures 12.23.15

Gingerbread House Night at the O'Briens! So Fun!

Thanks for chocolates Dad! ;)

Yes, my favorite soup in the world!

Helping Diane set up her tree

My favorite family from Ghana! 

Thank you so much for the pillowcase Abbie! I love it!

Letter from EQUADOR. Made my whole entire week!

Dipping homemade carmels with Sister Kappelman! Yum!

Ending the day right with a frosty!