Week 17

Hey everyone! :) sorry that I didn't send an email yesterday! The library was closed since it was a holiday...

 This week has been great!

We had a really cool experience this week. So. Last preparation day we were sitting at home after we had finished all of our shopping and stuff, and we got a call from one of our investigators named Sharon. She was having a really difficult time at the moment and wanted a blessing. We made some calls and went straight over to her house. When we got there another woman named Susan answered the door. We started talking to them both about priesthood blessings and Susan started crying. She said, "can I have a blessing also? I'm a Mormon. I've been less active for several years, but I want to come back. Please help me come back!,!" She then started to bear her testimony to Sharon. We all
sat there completely shocked. The spirit was there so strongly! Before this time Sharon hadn't really been super interested in the church. She had been taught all the lessons, but she wasn't making too much progress. She wasn't reading her Book of Mormon, but after this experience Sharon promised that she would read her Book of Mormon every morning for five minutes. Miracle!!

A couple days ago we got a call from Susan. She was leaving the next day and she was wondering if there was any way that she could get a scripture quad from us. Well we didn't have quads laying around, but I randomly remembered that I had seen one that was left at the church building for several weeks. The Book of Mormon was still there!! When we opened the pages to make sure it wasn't owned by anyone we saw several little notes written on the pages. The first one was written
to a girl named Cindy. The book was given to her by her father in 2001. Somehow Cindy's book had come into the possession of an elder several years later. He decided to name the book "Cindy" and he wrote a little note in the pages and passed it off to another elder after he left. This happened several times and the front cover was full of several notes. We knew that this book was perfect to give to Susan!

 

The past couple of weeks I've also gained a huge testimony of preparation. If we prepare for something the lord is more likely to bless us with it. This principle can be applied to missionary work and every day life. For example, if I want to receive an "A" in a class then I need to study my butt off in order to receive that A. Then once I've done all that I can to prepare, then the Lord will bless me for "treasuring up the word" (D&C 84:85). Preparation also works for lots of other things. President Riggs shared a story with us the other day. His mom passed away a couple of weeks ago. She was completely healthy, but she knew that she was finished with her earthly life and she wanted to die at this time. So she prepared. She wrote out everything. She had everything planned for her funeral, she got speakers for her funeral and she had backups in case those speakers fell through. she even wrote out notes of how the family should take care of her husband after she left.

 

A couple weeks later she finished her preparations. Something happened and she ended up needing to go to the hospital. The doctors said, "no, no. She's fine. She will be better in a couple of days.". But...she had prepared. She knew that this was her time to go. A couple days later the family gathered to her room in the hospital. She was still in perfectly good health, but as they started singing together as a family her heart beat slowly started getting weaker...and weaker, until it finally cut out. The doctors had all said she would get better, but she knew that if she prepared, the Lord would take her home.

 

Now...this is a slightly sad example of preparation, but I know that the same principle can be applied to anything in life and we will be blessed for our preparation.

 

Anywho...I think that's about it! lol have a wonderful week!:)

 

 

The Quad named "Cindy"

 

 

Week 16

This week has been great! There isn't a ton to report on, but we've had a couple of really cool experiences.

 

The first is that we were going to a nonmembers house in order to teach her about family history. We assumed that there would not be any information in the website about her family, but As we were putting in info for her parents, her dad came up! When she added him to her family tree, it showed several generations had been put in already!! It was a miracle! We were all so excited for her and she became a lot more excited about family history.

 

Another cool experience that happened is that we decided that we needed to stop by a former investigators home. We got to his house and we started talking and he told us that a couple weeks ago he had prayed to have someone put in his life that could help him. The very next day we showed up at his house. We then had a very spirit filled lesson and he said that he is very determined to figure out if the church is true for himself. And he committed to being baptized the week after he knows for himself! it was such a cool lesson!! Another really cool thing was that he had a couple of random questions about the priesthood and the 12 tribes, and for some reason, this whole entire week almost every study I had led into the priesthood, so I was able to answer all his questions on that. And I found out that most of sister richardsons studies this week had been about the 12 tribes! Its really cool to see how the Lord prepares us for the people we need to see.

 

This week has been super interesting. I've been pretty sick for the past couple of days and it was really funny cause I was sleeping and Sister Richardson decided to make me breakfast while I was sleeping hahah shes spoiling me!!;) lol

 

This week we had a guitar and we saw a random young adult black man on the side of the road so we asked if we could sing to him and as we were doing so he says, "oh man...Im blushing....If I was white, I would be SO red right now!!" It was pretty funny. anyyywho, the end!! 

 

well....I think that's about it for the week...love you all!!:)

Week 15

Well, it was definitely fun talking to you all yesterday! it feels like a dream now...not sure I believe it happened.

 

This week there isnt a ton to update on...We had almost every single appointment fall through this week, although it was only through that that we were able to see several miracles.

 

I believe yesterday I mentioned that we were going to see a former investigator, but we found out from a man who answered the door, named Alejandro, that they had moved. Alejandro started talking to us and we found out that about 5 years ago he met with the msisionaries several times. For a reason unknown to us he stopped meeting with them. Since that time, he has been reading the book of mormon and re-reading chapters he likes. He has come to know that the book is inspired and that it can bring peace to any person who reads it. My companion and I were standing there in shock as he was talking to us about how much he loved the book of mormon and how much it had blessed his life. He said that he was so grateful for missionaries and that everyone should read the book of mormon.

 

Needless to say, we got his address and we are sending some missionaries to his home in florida in order to teach and baptize him.

 

Another cool thing that happened this week is that we had knocked on a house and a really old man walked up to the door and opened it and motioned for us to come in. His wife came stomping down the stairs and was like, "NO, DO NOT LET THEM IN! WE DO NOT KNOW THEM!!" as she quickly  ushered us out the door she said to not come back and that they did not want to buy anything, they already had a church and they were content with their lives.

 

...no further comments were needed as we hightailed it back to our car.

 

Last night, we decided that we would go sing for some elderly people since it was mothers day. We happened to be near this same womans house again and as we drove by, we decided to stop. I dont think she rememebered us, but we walked up and started talking and asked if we could sing her a song. She was so kind and friendly and she was really happy that we had stopped by. I guess it goes to show you cant judge people based on first impressions!!

 

also, this week we took a female member of our ward out to some appointments. As we were driving along the street she made the comment about how she had several friends who might want to listen to us. So instead of going to see other people that night we just sat in the car and had this member take us to several of her friends houses and talked about seeing several more when she got the chance to come out with us again. It was a cool experience!

 

well...I think thats about it for the week!! Love you all and I hope you can have a wonderful week!!!:)

Week 14

Hey! this week I don't have too much to update on.

 

We had several flood warnings, and driving was insanity since most of the road was covered in water.

 

There are a ton of changes that are happening in the mission! This past transfer we got an email that told us that leadership positions would be changing and that several new things were going to take place. (oh and by the way, sister Richardson and I are staying together for a third transfer!). there are about 260 missionaries in this mission, and over a hundred companionships. This past transfer, there were only 20 companionships that stayed the same. HUGE CHANGE. We also rearranged all of the zones.

 

On Wednesday night, our previous zone leaders called us and we had a conversation with the whole zone over phone and we all sang a song together. It was pretty fun.

 

At a local elementary school they will be holding a talent show, and apparently there are 12 different children that are going to be singing "Let it Go" from frozen. Crazy right?

 

Our investigator Patty got baptized on Saturday!! It was so cool!! For some reason we had probably 6 missionary companionships show up to it! I'm not sure why they came, hmmm maybe they heard there was food?

 

Random cool experience: the past few days, sister Richardson and I have been getting the prompting to see this teenage girl that we had tracted into several weeks ago. Due to our crazy schedule we have not made it over there yet. Last night we got a text from a teenage girl in a different ward. She had been Twitter stalking her friend and apparently this friend had posted a picture of a Mormon.org card, and at the bottom said, "just met some lovely sister missionaries from the Mormon church!". We discovered that it was the same girl that we had tracted into a while back, and now we will be putting her on priority for people we need to see!

 

Well...that's about it for this week!! Its been super great! love you all!:)