Merry Christmas to All

M and I had a very lovely Christmas (and almost no pictures to show for it!). We spent the holiday with the Greens this year and had a lot of fun. The whole family got together Christmas Eve and had a delicious dinner, followed by a little Christmas program. We sang carols and read scriptures about the Savior's birth, reminding us all about the reason for the season. Afterwards, we played games and visited, then headed to bed.

Christmas Day started out with presents and breakfast! We were so spoiled by our families--thank you! After presents, we watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I had actually never seen this musical (shocking!), but it's one of M's favorites from his childhood (even more shocking!) and I loved it. We then got ready, visited M's grandparents, and headed to a family dinner and party. M's family has a big gingerbread house competition every year, and it's gets pretty intense! I made a good showing for my first time though--I was on the winning team!

TL: On Christmas Ever; TR: Matt's team made a gingerbread manger scene; BL: My team's winning gingerbread house; BR: The third team's Tongan house

Amid all the fun and presents, though, is the real meaning of Christmas. The miracle of Christmas is always so amazing to me. Without Christ's birth and life, we would be lost. My favorite part of the Christmas story is the shepherds. Maybe I have a soft spot for them because of my experience in Bethlehem, but it's my favorite part nonetheless. I love that the first people invited to visit the Christ child were humble, lonely shepherds from the fields. The first noel, the announcement of the birth of the Savior, was sung by angels to these hard-working and meek people. They had really difficult lives and did their best with what they had, and they were greatly blessed for it. I think that like the shepherds, we all are called to see the Christ, if only we will listen. No matter how hard life may be or the challenges we face, we are always welcomed, and even called, to the stable to see Christ for ourselves and believe on Him.

Christmas at the Green Home

I absolutely love Christmas--the lights, music, stories, food, you name it and I'm probably a fan of it (except for egg nog). This year was especially fun because it was M and I's first married Christmas! It was so fun to decorate our little basement and bring in the holiday spirit.

I was most excited to set up the olive wood nativity scene that I got from Jerusalem. It had a place of honor right in the foyer.

This is when I bought the nativity set in Jerusalem, from Omar's shop 9/2011.

 I was also very excited to set up our first Christmas tree! In all honesty, I was a little nervous because I didn't have a clear vision of how I wanted it to look, but I think it came together rather nicely. We have some ornaments about the 12 Days of Christmas, along with some of the ornaments I grew up with. In the Pelton family, each of us would get a new ornament every year, usually from a place that we visited. I've always loved that  tradition, and I hope that M and I will continue it. Anyways, it's resulted in some pretty cool ornaments, so I was happy to add some to the Green collection.

(I had a really hard time getting a good picture!) 

A few decorations-- namely our wreath, Christmas Tree, Nativity, and Advent Calendar

The wreath was actually from our wedding, but I just added some festive ribbon to give it a holiday flair (reduce, reuse, recycle, right?). The advent calendar was a bit of an experiment. I saw a cool idea on Pinterest (of course...) about a paper-bag advent calendar, and it was super cute, so I naturally had to try it for myself. I used some leftover favor bags also from our wedding and numbered them 1-25. Then, I put a scripture in each bag to read on that day. The scriptures went through the story of Christ's birth and life from both the Bible and Book of Mormon. I then clipped the bags onto my string board with mini clothespins. It was cute, but I think it can be improved upon next year. Maybe I'll even put treats in the bags! I'm already excited... 

A New Title, A New Story

Well, I've finally gotten my act together and decided to start blogging again! However, it's not just my adventures that need chronicling... it's our adventures. Isn't it funny how once you get married, "me" turns to"we" in almost every circumstance? I think it's important to keep your individuality, but in the case of the blog, I thought it was appropriate to make the change.

So here we are! No longer is it "The Classy (but Sassy) Adventures of Cassie." Welcome to "The Greener Side." I think it's clever. Obviously, our last name is Green, but the title also refers to the idea of greener pastures, that the grass is always greener on the other side. My favorite response to that, though, is that the grass is greener where you water it. If you put in the effort, good things will come. Essentially, we must learn to bloom where we are planted. Instead of hoping for something else, we make our circumstance to be what we want it to be.

That's how I envision marriage, too. It's easy to look at other couples and think, "Oh they're so perfect," or "They're so happy. They have everything!" But here's the thing--every couple, every marriage, and every family has struggles. Comparing yourself or your relationship to another is pointless and is essentially a lie. I like the idea that the only person (or relationship) that you should compare yourself to, is who you were yesterday. Self-reflection fosters growth and improvement, which leads to watering your pastures and growing greener grass. That is something I'm a fan of.

So here's our story.

Fort Knox

Last week, my parents surprised me with a trip to Fort Knox, Kentucky! Matt is joining the Army ROTC and had to complete the Leaders Training Course there. It's a 29-day long camp to qualify for entry into the senior-level ROTC program at university campuses across the nation, where the students have a crash course in Army. It was the longest 29 days because we only got to communicate through a few text messages per day, if the service was good. While I had difficulty with the separation though, it was nothing compared to the physical challenges that Matt faced! From ropes courses to rappelling to shooting to swimming to a 10K ruck march, he was exhausted at the end. But, he loved every second and definitely rose up to the challenge.

Matt is the second one back; a race on the obstacle course.

Standing with his platoon; second back, far left.

High ropes course.

At then end of 27 days, there was Family Day and Graduation. On Family Day, my mom and I were able to go on the base at Fort Knox, have a brief orientation and tour, and pick up our cadet (my favorite part). I had never been on a military base before-- it's like another world! The base is like it's own little city, completely self-sufficient and self-contained. I was so impressed by the amenities offered there to the servicemen and women and their families. The Army has really stepped up its game when it comes to helping and supporting the families of our soldiers. Not to mention, Fort Knox in itself is such a beautiful setting. Finally, we got to pick up Cadet Green from his barracks and get of base! I was so happy to see him. The last time we had been together was the weekend he proposed (June 1), so our reunion was long overdue. Not to mention the fact that the next time we're together will be the middle of August, less than a month before our wedding! Needless to say, we were two very happy people to be together again.

Me, Matt, and a cadet from Weber State

The day was very fun and relaxing. We had lunch, took a swim in the hotel pool, lounged, got the cadet a haircut, and went to dinner and ice cream. Nothing too fancy, but Matt and I were just happy to be together! I'm so thankful for my parents who could put up with spending time with us!

Graduation the next day was a really interesting and exciting event. It was a full-on military graduation ceremony that really put into perspective how big of an accomplishment it is to go through the course successfully. Army bands played, awards were given, salutes were made, cannons were fired, and hearts swelled with pride. Especially mine. I'm so proud of Matt and his decision to join the ROTC and find a way to serve our country. He is such a hard worker, and that will take him so far in whatever he chooses to pursue. Not to mention he looks adorable in his uniform.

Bravo Company, 2nd Platoon

Congrats, Cadet Green!

**For more information on this course, check out leaderstrainingcourse.com. They have some awesome photographers that go out with the Cadets and take live-action film and pictures.

A Mission.

This post has been a long time in coming. As most know, I came home from the MTC on Tuesday, April 30th. I am now engaged to be married to Matt, my boyfriend from before I received my mission call. I could not be more excited to marry him and for the future that we have before us. I love him with all my heart, but I also love the experience I had as a missionary.

Coming home was a difficult decision for me to make. It wasn't some happy-go-lucky "Oh I'm in love, I just want to go home now! Thanks!" because that's just not the way it works at the MTC. It was a very difficult, weighing, drawn-out, prayerful decision process that took a great toll. Now that I am home, though, I know I made the right decision for me. It might not make sense to a lot of people, and I know there are some who don't agree with my choice. To them I say that I respect your opinions, experiences, and advice, so I ask for your respect in return.

One thing I've realized since being home, talking to dear friends, and seeing the experiences of fellow sister missionaries, is that every mission is different -- because every mission is personal. My mission was 5 weeks long. It was within the small boundaries of the MTC. I only had one companion. I didn't master the language or even teach all of the lessons to an actual investigator. But, I did learn more about the scriptures than I ever have before. I gained a greater love for my Savior that I will always carry with me. I know from personal experiences that God answers our prayers and listens to us. He sends His angels to buoy us up and wraps His loving arms around us in our times of need. I will always be a disciple of Christ and proclaimer of truth. And I will always treasure and think about the time I spent as a set-apart missionary of the Lord. I truly consider it a blessing that I was able to spend 5 weeks in the MTC.

I also consider it an immense blessing to be engaged to the love of my life, preparing to be married for time and all eternity. I have never been so happy. A dear friend of mine, who also returned from her mission early, gave me the courage to write this post when she wrote:

"There is no sadness associated with my mission being shorter than most. And utterly no sense of failure.  None. It was a good mission... My mission is not something that needs to be tiptoed around. I would love to bore you with my excessive mission stories. My mission and the decisions that I have made regarding it are something I will never regret. I have learned a lot. And will continue to learn from it throughout the rest of my life. I consider missionary work to be an amazing way to spread the gospel. And I commend every single missionary for their commitment."

I echo her sentiments exactly. My personal mission was different, but not bad. I am reminded everyday of the beautiful experiences I had and people I met, and I will continue to learn from and be inspired by them. Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia will always have a piece of my heart. Volim te, Hrvatsku. Nikada neću zaboraviti. 

April 15, 2013 You Know You're at the MTC When ...

You know you're at the MTC when...                                       

• The Elders and Sisters go crazy during the Legacy movie because it has "romance".
• You wait 30 minutes in line for a bowl of cereal on Sunday morning.
• You hear 5 different languages of "You're Welcome," because you say thank you to the elders holding the door open.
• Your favorite day is P-day.
• You learn to get ready in less than 30 minutes (or learn to be ok with what you look like in less than 30 minutes).
• The Temple Walk on Sunday becomes the rendezvous point for outsiders to come see their favorite missionaries. (tsk tsk)
• You try to call out to someone you knew pre-mish, but you can't remember their last name.
• Everyone wants to go to bed before 10:30.
• You stay up past the 10:30 bedtime write in your journal.
• The best day ever (besides P-day) is Tuesday, because all the departing missionaries have left and the new ones haven't arrived, so the cafeteria is super empty and the lines don't take forever. 

April 15, 2013 Ya, I Work Out!

April 15, 2013

Ya, I Work Out!

Zdravo!

Wow... (Insert sentimental and cliché saying or expression trying to describe the indescribable passage of time in the MTC). This week has been extremely eventful, hard, emotional, spiritual, confusing ... any adjective you want to add, go ahead. It's hard to cover all that has happened in 7 days.

You might be wondering about the subject line of my email, so I'll address that first. We get gym time for 1 hour almost every day. As most people know, I am not athletic. I don't exercise, work out, play sports, or run. It's just not my thing, but because I don't want to gain weight on my mission and the MTC so lovingly serves dessert at every meal, I have really tried to make my gym time more productive. Gold star for Sestra P. Overall, I do a pretty good job.  I run a little, then do push ups, sit ups, arms, whatever. Some days, though, we have gym at a really inconvenient time and I don't want to get sweaty, so some sisters and I do "yoga" meaning we relax and stretch on the balcony overlooking the gym, watching everyone else be athletic. On Friday, I felt like I should actually do something. I pushed myself, and then did my strength exercises on the balcony. There were two other sisters I didn't know doing "yoga". I tried to ignore my yearning to join them, and started doing my thing.  Right at the end of gym, I was stretching and getting ready to leave and those two sisters came over and said, "We have been watching you the whole time and we really admire that you've been working so hard! We were both thinking that if you were our gym teacher, we would totally work out! So we just wanted to let you know that we think you're really great." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA  Wow, I didn't even know what to say to that. I honestly didn't think they were talking to me. Cassie Pelton -- inspiring work-out-er? Who would have thunk? Needless to say that gave me a little pep in my step the rest of the day. They don't need to know that I did "yoga" the day before...

That was probably my funniest story of the week. Sorry it wasn't spiritual or anything. In language class, we've been really working the Cyrillic alphabet (like in Russian), because that's what they use for Serbian. It's kind of fun because it's like a secret code! So we've been trying to decode things for the last week, sometimes more successfully than other times. Singing in Serbian proved a little difficult, and mostly ended up with just the teacher singing the words and the rest of us singing the vowels we recognized. All in time I guess. We also had our first Speak Your Language day on Thursday. That was kind of a failure, but we tried at least! The idea is that you only speak Croatian the whole day, and then you're forced to learn and look up normal conversational words and practice speaking with each other. It mostly just resulted in a very quiet breakfast and lunch. But it was good to try. We'll probably do it again this week, hopefully, with more success.

We also had to change classrooms this week to another building. They are fixing the air conditioning, so now we're in a building with all Spanish speakers. It was very sad to move away from our zone and the other obscure languages of the world, but we tried to decorate our room enough to make the change more comfortable. Hopefully, we'll be back to our old class in a few weeks.

One AWESOME thing that happened this week was Sister Ann Madsen came to speak with us. She is the wife of the late General Authority Truman G. Madsen. They became very close with Kresimir Cosic, the famous BYU basketball player from Croatia who helped to really establish the church in Croatia and the Adriatic North Mission. She came and chatted with us for almost 2 hours about the people of Croatia, the gospel, Kresimir, and missionary work. She has gone to Croatia several times, and recently went this past summer for the 40th anniversary of the first baptism in Croatia and the formation of the church there. Her experiences were so touching, and you could feel her love for the people. It was really great to be able to put faces and names to the people that live there. It made it seem a lot more real, that we'll actually be meeting and teaching real, unique people. Yes, of course we will, but sometimes you forget about that while you're at the MTC just learning the language and role-playing. She is truly an incredible woman and shared some very touching stories about the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, both in Croatia and here with the people we know. I testify that God knows us and loves us, and because of His incomprehensible love, He provides us with the gospel. We can repent and find strength and hope in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I have especially gained a testimony of this as I've struggled here at the MTC. Christ truly does know how to best support and succor us and to bind our broken hearts, if only we will let Him.

As a side note, if you listened to President Eyring's talk in Priesthood Session of this last General Conference, he talked about my mission! The orphaned boy that was the first baptism in the country was a boy in Bosnia, where they just received proselyting missionaries this past year! These stories are true and they are real people! And that's my mission! I'm so touched and inspired by the faith of the people in these war-torn countries, and I know they are looking for the hope and happiness that the gospel can bring.

I love you all! Thank you so much for all the letters and support. We get mail twice a day, so it really makes my heart happy to see that letter or “dear elder” on my desk waiting for me :)

volim vas!

Sestra Pelton 

Sorry, no photos this week, but check out the next blog ... You know you're at the MTC when...

April 8, 2013 MTC Life!

Dobar dan ucitelj i prijateli!

Cassie at "famous" MTC World Map

Sestras Pelton and Menjivar

So this week it finally hit me that I was at the MTC--on Wednesday.  I saw all the new missionaries arrive, and I realized that I wasn't one of them! I'm not new anymore! That was a crazy realization. But it's fun. The time is so funny here (as I'm sure I've mentioned before); the days are long, the weeks short, but when you look back at all you've learned, it feels like months instead of weeks. I guess it just shows that time is  precious, and we can't waste it

So much happens during the week that I feel like I can't even begin to remember it all! Some fun things were that Starjesina Stuart's birthday was on the 4th, so we all gave him a card and learned to say "Happy Birthday" in Croatian. That was probably his favorite birthday present ever. (It's Srecna rodendan for those who are curious.)  Other fun/funny things: in language class, we were practicing to conjugate verbs. It was going pretty well, but there are always those verbs that are irregular and you have to be extra careful. One of those is "pisati" meaning "to write."  When you conjugate it, the s turns into a sh-sound, and the -ati conjugates like and -eti. (Sorry that's kind of complicated). Anyways, two missionaries were up at the board conjugating it, but they forgot to change the a to an e. Our teacher just started giggling and giggling, and if you know our teacher, you too would've been dumbfounded like we were. He is the most serious and intimidating person ever! Finally he told us what had happened: there is a verb "pi(sh)ati" that just conjugates normally, so when we wrote what we though was "we write", we had actually conjugated it to be the other verb. And "pi(sh)ati" means "to pee"!!!!  So we had written "we pee"!!!  So embarrassing!!  He says it happens to every new missionary when they get to Croatia. They go and stand up in church to say something, and end up talking about relieving themselves. Good golly... I pray that I will be spared from this humiliation.

Sestra Menjivar and I just continue to grow even closer in our companionship!! She is truly a testament to me that Heavenly Father knows our needs and places people in our lives for a reason. I have learned so much from her already, and I love that we can help each other when we struggle. She has already helped me become a better teacher, a closer listener to the spirit, and more confident in my abilities. One fun thing that happened yesterday was we got to chat for a while with some Elders from Mexico! I mentioned before that Sestra M is from an El Salvadoran family, so her first language is Spanish and she very much embraces the whole fun, loud, outgoing Latin culture. It's so funny because all the Latin missionaries here just seem to find each other and become best friends instantly. There were some elders sitting by themselves in the cafeteria, and she said that we should go sit with them. I was super nervous because I feel like my Spanish isn't very good anymore, but I decided we could try. So we went over. They were so nice! Even though I was nervous, I was able to follow their conversations well and even have my own input. My proudest moment was when one of them told me my Spanish was good :) gold star for me!

Teaching Marko was really great this last week-- we committed him to be baptized!  We weren't even planning on it, and didn't prepare the words in Croatian, but Sestra Menjiver just felt that she should, and I was so happy that she did!  We were teaching about how Christ can strengthen us in our lives by helping to take away our guilt and sins. Marko's life is really hard, and I know that he needed to hear this message of hope. We were just sharing our testimonies with him, then  Sestra M did it! The spirit was so strong as it was working on all of our hearts, and he accepted. It's funny to write about it, because in reality, Marko is one of our teachers and is already a member, but we still prayed for and about him as if he was truly an investigator. It was one of the most powerful moments! We actually have stopped teaching him because we'll be getting a new investigator this week. But I am thankful for the experience that we had to teach him.

Wow, so I haven't even talked about General Conference. It was incredible. People say that GC is the best when you're in the MTC, and it's true. Never have I felt that every message specifically spoke to me in some way like I did this weekend. I felt some very strong promptings from the spirit about things that I needed to do and change to be the person that Heavenly Father wants me to be. I testify that Thomas S Monson is indeed the prophet of God on the earth today. His counselors and the 12 apostles are prophets, seers, and revelators, declaring what the Lord needs his people to hear right now. I am so thankful for that! I cannot choose a favorite talk, because they were all wonderful, but I was especially touched by all the talks about the atonement of Jesus Christ, and His infinite love and forgiveness. What hope and joy this message brings. Sin, guilt and sadness can weigh us down so much, but if we will just come unto Christ, he will lift our burdens. .I promise that this is true, and I have experienced it for myself.

Last night we had a devotional by Vocal Point, the A Capella group from BYU!  It was so fun and very spirit-filled. They had a few of them bear testimonies and do a hymn-share, where they sing the first verse, and we all sing subsequent verses. They also sang a few arrangements of sacred songs.  It was absolutely beautiful.  One song that especially touched me was "Where Can I Turn for Peace?" I had never paid attention to some  of the lyrics before: "He answers privately, reaches my reaching." Heavenly Father does answer our prayers, and he does answer them privately. He makes sure it's something we can understand, and sometimes, ONLY we can understand it. We shouldn't have to justify or explain the choices we make based on guidance from the Lord, because we received our answer. It's between us and the Lord. I know that sometimes it can be hard to follow what the Lord has told us to do, but I know that we are always blessed for it. And I know that some people don't understand or they judge our decisions, but that doesn't matter. The most important relationship we can have is the relationship of prayer, obedience and revelation between us and the Lord.

That's all I have time for right now, but I love you all!! I'm so thankful for your examples. Keep writing to me!!! I love the letters and notes.

Stay strong!

Love,

Sestra Pelton

Only two elders in Cassie's District.  How often are elders outnumbers by sisters?!















All of these missionaries will be going to Cassie's mission. Nine are learning Croatian and four are learning Slovene.

April 1, 2013 -- First week in the MTC

HELLO HELLO!!! or should I say Dobar Dan!

Wow! I can't believe it's already P-day! These last few days have seriously flown by so fast. I can't even believe it. First of all, thank you all sooo much for the packages and letters that I have received so far. They seriously are the highlight of my day when Starjesina Fausnaught (our district leader) walks in with a stack of letters and passes them out to us. Thank you mom and dad for the Easter candy and card, and thank you Cortney and Paul for the yummy cinnamon bread and package! We had it for breakfast this morning before going to the temple. Please keep them coming!!! I love letters and DearElder.com letters too. They're all great.

So I arrived on Wednesday, and it was such a whirlwind. I was really nervous as we were driving up to Provo and taking pictures, etc., but as soon as we were at the MTC and the host missionaries opened the door, I just felt this burst of happiness and adrenaline, and I was ready to go! I almost forgot to say goodbye to my siblings... sorry about that. But that was such a testimony to me that I am where I'm supposed to be! I know it will be hard (it already has been), but I am thankful to be learning how to rely fully and completely on the Lord's strength and power, because I am so unable to do this on my own. Once I arrived and got my nametag (yay!!! sorry no picture of the pinning), my host showed me to my room (very old college dorm-style) and then I picked up my books and went to my classroom. My companion is Sestra Menjivar, and I already love her so much! I know that Heavenly Father was watching out for me when he paired us, because we get along so well and instantly became friends. She is from Canada and speaks Spanish (her family is from El Salvador) and French. And now she's learning Croatian. It's so fun because now I can practice my Spanish! And it's nice because we had both had the same initial feelings of sadness that we hadn't been called to Spanish-speaking missions, but now we can grow together as we learn Croatian. Going to my mission are 7 sisters and 2 elders speaking Croatian, and 3 sisters and 1 elder speaking Slovene. We only have class with the Croatians, so we're all a really tight-knit group. I'm sure the elders were surprised when they were so outnumbered though! Class on the first day was all in Croatian... truly. I felt like I was in Arabic class again from last fall semester! It was a little overwhelming, but I was excited to learn it and hear the language. I'm actually feeling really good about the language right now, even though it's a lot to take in. I'm way more worried about everything else.

Funny language story- When Sestra M and I were teaching our investigator Marko (more on that in a minute), we would say "hvala" to him to say thank you, and then he kept responding with something. We didn't understand it, but it sounded like "have a llama". Obviously that's not what he said, but we just kept giggling every time he said it because it was so funny! When we got back to class, we were trying to ask our teacher what it meant, but we didn't know how to pronounce it. We kept saying, "alabama" "have a llama" "lamabama" and any other combination you can think of. When we finally explained what he said to us after we said "hvala", our teacher said it was "hvala vama" and it meant "thank YOU". It was just so funny because we had been so overwhelmed with the language and it was so confusing and we really hadn't understood anything Marko said anyways. So now whenever we say "hvala" to each other, we just respond "have a llama".

I'm loving all the study time we have to just delve into the scriptures and find help and encouragement. I definitely needed that my first week here. On Friday we taught a Marko, who is a member that we practice teaching (as if he's learning about the church). But he only speaks Croatian to us and we can only speak Croatian to him. We had to teach him on Friday, after just one day of class, in Croatian. WHAT?! Thank goodness the MTC is just a safety net and we can fail as miserably as we want and it won't matter-- we can just learn from it. It actually went pretty well, and I felt like the spirit was truly there as Sister M and I testified of the love that Heavenly Father has for us as his children in our very broken Croatian. We even sang "I am a child of God" in Croatian! It went well. I've also learned how to pray and bear my testimony is Croatian! It's so amazing to me the progress that I've already made in the language, and I know it's because Heavenly Father cares about me and my success, and I've asked him sincerely for help. That's probably been my biggest lesson this week-- the power of sincere and heartfelt prayer! It is so powerful, and it's real!!! Never doubt that! I cannot count the number of times this week that I felt alone and discouraged and scared and inadequate, but I've prayed to my Heavenly Father with all my heart, and he has comforted me. The feeling doesn't always just go away, but there is always a much stronger and resounding peace that reminds me of the strengths I have, the people that love me, and the strength that I can find in Christ. I am not doing this alone. I may sound happy in my email, but there have definitely been very hard times. Saturday was especially trying for me, and I felt like I was going to be the worst missionary ever! I felt like I wasn't being guided by the spirit when we were teaching Marko again, and that I was only progressing in the language, but not my spiritual growth or abilities. It was so frustrating. I had to plead with Heavenly Father to help me, but he did. and I know I am becoming better for it. It's not an immediate transformation, but a gradual one, as I focus more on becoming like Christ.

Ok now for the good stuff- EASTER!!! Easter at the MTC was amazing. First of all, it was Sunday, which meant no Croatian or class of teaching or stress. All I had to do was listen and be filled with the teachings of the Gospel and the glad news of the Savior! We started off with a testimony with my branch. The branch is our zone, which includes missionaries going to my mission, Poland, Bulgaria, and Czech/Slovak mission. It's such an awesome group and the testimonies were so powerful. Then we got in line to go to the mission conference where Presiding Bishop Gerald Causse and his wife spoke to us! We took the sacrament in that meeting, with all 3000 missionaries in the MTC. Isn't that amazing!? One of the covenants we renew when we take the sacrament is to be willing to take Christ’s name upon us, and here we are, 3000 strong, literally emblazoned with Christ's name on our chests. What an experience. One thing I liked that he talked about was how to witness of Christ, is to know Christ. And to know Christ, we must repent every day, continually turning ourselves to him. We also had an MTC devotional that night with Sheri Dew!! Wow, is she incredible. She talked about how Christ is our only hope-- for happiness, forgiveness, joy, strength, everything. We also saw an amazing talk by Elder Bednar called "the Character of Christ". First of all, he did a cookie monster impression, and it was hilarious, but the talk was incredible. he spoke about how the character of Christ is continually turned outward to other people, and that's how we must be as missionaries. That is how we become truly converted to him, is by being like him. Character is moral qualities strongly developed, strikingly displayed, and consistently lived. So we must have the character of Christ. What an inspiration.

I love you all! I miss you, but I'm happy to be here. And I'm so busy and constantly filled with Croatian and the Gospel.

Znam da je Isus Krist spasitel i otkupitel. Bog je Nebeski Otac i znam da nas bog voli. Znam da je obitelji zauvijek! Mormonova knjiga je instina. Volim te!! (I know Jesus Christ is my savior and redeemer. God is our heavenly father and I know he loves us. I know families are forever! The book of Mormon is true. I love you!)

Sestra Pelton

PS I'm trying to send pictures but it's not working... maybe in another email

3.27.13: MTC arrival day

(Cortney here) 

Today was the big day! We dropped off Sister Pelton at the Provo MTC at 1:30. We went to Cafe Rio to eat beforehand and then took pictures by the Provo temple. Then we got in the long line of cars and finally got into the MTC gates and dropped her off. She kept it together and didn't cry at all. The send off was short and sweet and she had said before that she was nervous but when we were leaving she was all smiles. 

Crazy to think how much the kiddos will change while she is gone... Nolan will be Caitlin's age, and Chelsea's baby Zoey will be over a year old!

 Mom & Dad were on speakerphone through the whole event.

 Last Goodbyes, and away she went.

Mission Addresses

Hello, friends! Here are my addresses while I am on my mission. They will always be available on my blog if you look to the right of the screen, under "Write me!" I would love to hear from you!


MTC Address (until June 2013):

Sister Cassandra Pelton
MTC Mailbox #5
ADRTCN 0528
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604

You can also send me letters in the MTC through dearelder.com. It is a really easy process, and I get it the same day that you send it.


In-Field Address (June 2013-September 2014):

Sestra Cassandra Pelton
Adriatic North Mission
Crkva Isusa Krista Svetaca Posljednijh Dana
Svačićev Trg 3/1
10000 Zagreb                
CROATIA                                      
Phone: 385 14-577-783 (for packages only)

You may also email me at cpelton@myldsmail.net but I will warn that my time allowed on the computer to email is very limited in the MTC. However, once I get to Croatia, I will have a little more time on my assigned Preparation Day to email.

ONLY 5 MORE DAYS!

Mission Call Video

Well, this is a long time coming, but I am finally posting the video of me opening my mission call! I still remember how nervous and excited and emotional I was to find out where I would be serving for 18 months.

PS Sorry for the iPhone quality, but it's the best we got.

I'm a Mormon

Hi I'm Cassie | student, music, hope, Mormon. This is my Mormon.org profile! I've been meaning to make one for a while, but I finally just did it. It is one of the suggested preparations for my mission, and I need all the preparation I can get! But actually it was a really great experience to fill out the profile and answer the questions about why I believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ and have chosen to be a member of His church. It's just one other way I can bear my testimony of the happiness I feel from keeping the commandments and trying my best to what God would want me to do. I am so thankful for the scriptures, my family, a prophet here on earth to lead and guide us in God's way, and the ability to pray to my Heavenly Father. I'm so excited to share this message of hope and love with the people in the Adriatic North. Only 79 days!