February 11, 2013

Well this week was SO STRANGE!!! I don't know if words will do it justice.

Last monday was the coolest experience. We went to walmart for p-day shopping kind of later in the day and we saw one of the recently coming back to church less actives in our spanish ward. Her name is M and she is 21. She is so awesome, I love her. Anyway, saw her back sitting at the tables that the employees use for their break. She just waved to us like she didn't want us to come talk to her, but we went any way. Well it turns out that this week has been the hardest week of her life. She has not smoked a cigarette since November, but she had one lit up in her hand. I walked up to her and the first thing out of my mouth was 'Hey M, can I stomp that our for you???" She started crying and threw it on the ground and I put out my first cigarette ever. Well turns out she had been praying for the strength to put that thing down, but she couldn't. And we just happened to show up right when she was about to start smoking. Coincidence? I think not :D it was neat!!!!

When we were riding our bikes one day we stopped to talk to this man named J. Turns out that he is a preacher for one of the local churches. He was SO nice in the beginning of our conversation, but it went south in a big way really fast. I have never had someone try so hard to challenge my faith. He was really confused though. He talked a lot about the Bible and how it is 'Jesus plus nothing' and how nothing we do in this life can helped us be saved--no baptism, no repentance, no nothing. Only faith. Well at the end of our conversation he told us that 'you girls should come to my church and I will teach you how to be saved,' I tried to say it as nice and respectively as I could but I said, 'Jim, thats the thing. It is YOUR church. Nothing you tell people will helped them be saved any more than doing nothing in this life besides have faith. This is the Church of Jesus Christ and through the Book of Mormon and Bible, we can learn the things we need to do to follow the example and teachings of Jesus Christ.' We talked to him for about 30 minutes, and after the conversation we were completely exhausted, but I have never been so sure of my beliefs before in my life. Hope I can see J again one day and that he will come to know for himself!

Well we also had a lesson with a lady with either multiple personality disorder or that is possessed with a really evil spirit....kind of think it is the latter. And honestly, didn't really think things like that were possible....but, after a hour and a half of being with that woman...I think differently now. Bless her heart. It was really awful, but no worries. She is a daughter of God and we are just going to teach at the church building with other people there. haha.

We also talked to a guy named Cowboy D. It was the funniest experience of my life. He is the epitomy of hillbilly:) Haha. He is in our spanish area, but not in our english area so we are meeting up with the elders there and are having a lesson with him tonight. Listening to him talk makes me feel right at home :D

Well enough of the funny stories. Sacrament meeting on sunday was amazing. It was all about the sacrament and I loved something that one of the speakers said. They were talking about how sacrament meeting was the most important thing we can do each week, and it really is. They read the sacrament prayers and the part that says, "for the welfare of the souls who partake of it' really stuck out in my mind. Yeah it is something our physical bodies eat, but it is for our soul. It is to help us come unto our Savior who is the bread of Life and the Living water. I love teaching investigators about the sacrament because it is truely the most important thing we can do during the week. True story.

February 4, 2013

This week we have had a few experiences that were amazing! most of the dealing with in active members. There is one lady named A P. She was baptized a few years ago by her husband and after their divorce, she has not been back to church. She has since been remarried and is dealing with a lot of issues being a step mom and trying to help all of her kids through their trials (they are going through a lot right now). So we stopped by last week and had an amazing lesson with her. She was just telling us about her and her kids and the hard times they were trying to work their way through and how she is going to force her kids to go to mutual because she wants them to have better friends. Well we shared nephi 8:36-38 and talked about how Lehi's family had problems too, and no family is perfect. But as a parent she needs to 'exhort them then with all the feeling of a tender parent.' Taking her kids to mutual is great, but we told her that if she really wants to help her kids, her example of going to church and doing the things SHE KNOWS is the only thing that will really help them. She is just so stuck in her own little world and offended that she can't open her eyes. Well, it was nothing that we did, but that lesson we were REALLY bold with her and told her how it is.....she is beginning to see it again, we could see the light bulb in her eyes. Well she didn't promise to come to church, but she did promise to read a chapter in the book of mormon. success!

We also are working with an inactive sister named D. She and her husband and son were baptized 1.5 years ago. She speaks spanish and a little broken english, and her husband and son pretty much only speak english (talk about a lanugage barrier!). Well they were baptized into an english ward and attended that together for a little bit. Well go figure, 1.5 years later, we are going over there to speak to her in spanish to help her refind her testimony and come back to church (we can't help but wonder that if she had come to the spanish ward all along, she would not be in this situation right now.....lame!). Well, she doesn't really even believe in God now. It is so interesting to see how people that once knew of the truth and rejected it, are so much worse off than never knowing it. Well we have been visiting her for a little while now, and I absolutely LOVE her! She is so sweet. We have tried lots of things, even used our miles to show up at her house on sunday to take her to church (ps...it didn't work) (and pps....it is SO hard trying to find members to help with rides). Well anyway, yesterday we had a lesson with her and decided to read Mosiah 2 with her, just read and talk about it. Figured that her reading the Book of Mormon was the only way to bring that spirit and knowledge back into her life (especially in her language, bwhaha). Any way, it was GREAT!!!!! We discussed a few of king Benjamins words especially about how the families gathered around the temple to learn together, and talked a lot about service. Turns out that that was what she needed. She realized that when she does service for other people she said that she feels really good. Well she thought that it was just being nice to people that made her feel good, but we read the verse that said when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God. That clicked in her mind and the spirit testified that it was true. she had a BIG change of heart in that lesson. Her husband has been trying so hard to help her:D Well she has not said a prayer in a little over a year.....until last night. You should have seen her husbands face BEAMING!!! It was an amazing experience.

January 28, 2013

This week was so awesome!!!! lots of crazy wonderful things.....so here we go.

First of all, we had 6 investigators that came to church yesterday!!!!!! It was GREAT! El and M came (its their 3rd time and they will be baptized sooon!) Et (he is a 9 years old, so fun teaching him), R (his wife is a member and he has been taught by missionaries for 8 years), Le ( thank goodness that she came because she GOT BAPTIZED last night) and K (she is so ready to be baptized, but she and her member boyfriend need to get married first). Anyway, Sunday was amazing! We have been trying to teach El and M about the need to be baptized by the proper authority and they just haven't been getting it. Well the Sunday school lesson just happended to be about baptism and we are so excited to see what they thought about it tonight! Also sacrament meeting in our spanish ward was so funny, a speaker wore and head lamp so he could see his talk better. I almost died laughing (but dont worry, I didn't....haha). Yesterday in English church we taught the lesson in gospel principles about the holy ghost. Le and the S's and the T family was in there (aka...most of my favorite people in the world). Everyone shared spiritual experiences and it was an amazing hour :D

We had a lesson in the rain this week. It was a miracle! I am pretty sure I told you about M before, he was one date for baptism and then he disappeared off the face of the earth. Well we had a lesson that canceled on this one road and we just felt like we should go to the lesson anyway....so we go and then we see M walking down the side of the road in the rain. We parked the car and ran down to talk to him and had a 30 minute discussion about how his 'friends' antied him. So sad!!! He knows the book of mormon is true though, he has not drank for a year and he knows all credit is due to his reading the Libro de Mormon. Hopefully his heart will be softened once again :D But yeah....we all looked like wet dogs after that was over, it was so worth it!

Well, Le was baptized last night!!! It was so great! Just to recap....she is the one that works about an hour away in scottsdale and a member that just moved here from boston (B) went into her shop one day and saw an english book of mormon. Well he started talking to her and she said that she was meeting with the Jehovah witnesses (they are really big out here) and he told her that she needs to start learning about the Church of jesus Christ of latter day saints. He got her a Book of Mormon in chinese and she read the whole thing in 2 months and now, 2.5 months after this whole thing started, B baptized Le into the Church of jesus Christ. AMAZING!!!!! It is amazing what grand things can happen when someone is not afraid to open their mouth. Sister L and I sang Teach me to walk in the light....and thankfully my voice didn't crack or do anything crazy! haha. It was a beautiful baptism though. In her confirmation, she was told that she would be a source of truth for the people in china and she would be a light for them to find the Church. It is amazing to see Heavenly Fathers plan unfold and to be able to witness His hand in peoples lives. Goosebumps:D

Well lets see. This week we had spanish training for all the spanish missionaries. We went to YUMA!!!! We all drove 3.5 hours and meet there thursday morning. We had a training about how to be more effective spanish missionaries and it was amazing. I learned lots about how to become better and how to better work with the hispanic members, happy day. After the training we went and visited a bunch of less active families in San Luis right on the mexican boarder. I got to breath mexican air....pretty sure that helped me learn spanish. Haha. But it was Sweet!!! There have never been sister missionaries in San Luis before, not even for a few hours. The branch president really wanted us to stay.....we are hoping that President Howes will let us :) It was an amazing night! We spent the night down there and then drove back Friday evening. It was amazing to see all of the spanish missionaries and to learn from them.

Well, I love you all SOOOOOO very much. You are all so special to me:D I found a quote the other day that I absolutely loved. It is by C.S. Lewis and it says "I believe in Jesus Christ like I believe in the Sun--Not because I can see it, but by it I can see everything else." I really loved that because I know that it is when we are focusing on the important things, things of eternal significance (aka jesus) that we can see things clearly and find joy in this life and joy in the world to come. Yesterday I was talking to a little 7 year old and he said 'un dia, vamos a ver y tocar los manos de jesus.' One day we will see and touch Christ's hands and know. Everyone will, and they will know that He is Christ our Saviour. Well I am so grateful to be here in Arizona telling every one about the message of Christ our Lord. It is nothing but amazing. 

January 21, 2013

Well let's see this week has been interestingly good. I am loving teaching E again, and ESPECIALLY with her husband. It has been great! This week L prayed for the first time and it was the most amazing thing ever. We were all on our knees and he was trying to dish out every excuse in the book and said he would do it the next lesson.....that is the same excuse he gave us last time and we kindly rememinded him of that and so he prayed. Those moments when people pray for the first time out loud are some of the most rewarding experineces ever. I absolutely love it :D

We are still teaching El and M. They have come to church 2 weeks in a row and absolutely love it! We had a funny experience with them this week. They asked about why we raise our hands in church, he thought that was really weird. We explained to him about sustaining and voting and all that jazz and Hermama L also told them that because it is not appropriate to clap in church we raise our hands to vote on something. Well at the end of that lesson we sang them a little song. M really likes it when we sing (she has bad hearing :) and she started clapping. Well El looks over at her and said, something like, "no honey, we don't clap here, we raise our hand'' Well she sat there for the next minute with her hand raised and it was super cute. Haha.

Le is all set for her baptism next Sunday! We are so excited for her! She has completely finished reading the Book of Mormon and her testimony is unshakable in it. It is so interesting seeing people change like this. We start off lessons with them and some will have tons of questions. The ones who start to read the book of Mormon start to ask fewer contentious questions and they learn that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a true prophet and that all of their questions can be answered in the Book of Mormon. Well, the ones that don't put time into reading never really progress. Faith is really an action word and if we want our faith the grow, we have to do something that will help it to.

Other than that all four of us in the house have been a little sick this week. LIfe gets a little interesting when the stomach flu is being passed around and there is only 1 bathroom. Haha. We look back on our week and just laugh at ourselves a little :D Good good times.

I love you all and hope you know that. And I wanted to thank you Mom and Dad for teaching us kiddos how to pray and how we did it every night. I took that for granted knowing that I could pray directly to my Father in Heaven and He would always be listening. So many people DON'T know that. Anyway, Love you all and hope this week is REALLY GOOD. LOVE YOU!

January 14, 2013

Well are you ready for some stories?????!?! Well this week is FULL of them! This is one of my favorite things that I have ever experienced and is tied right up there in my eyes with the baptism of Lori and Jay. Well, here we go. This story has a LOT of different parts so I hope I don't confuse you all to much. 

It all starts with a lady named M. She is a neighbor of one of our other investigators and we started teaching her 2 months ago. The first lesson that we had we her, her brother was there. It was a great lesson, and we thought that they would all be baptized in 3 weeks....well that obviously didn't happen. As time went by, M told us that she loved her church and loves when we come over, but is not interested in changing. So we stopped going by for a while. Well last week, M gave us a call. She was talking really fast on the phone and all we could tell was that she was calling us because she was scared and something to do with her husband. So we went over to her house last week and talked to her about some things and how the gospel could help her. pause on that story......

So also last week, I was looking through the area book and found some former investigators that I wanted to go by. One of them was named RP. So we hopped on our bikes on day and biked up a mountain for 5 miles trying to find his house, haha. It was really out in the boonies. Well when we got there, of all the people in the world.....guess who was in the drive way??? M and her 3 little kids (the cutest things EVER!). Turns out that RP is M's brother who we didn't remember his name (and we actually didn't remember that this was the person we had a lesson with)! Well we also didn't know that he was a former investigator. It was a miracle! I am so grateful that Heavenly Father helps us remember people that we forget about:)

Pause story....

So this past thursday we stopped by M's house. We hadn't set up a time or anything but M was home and RP was visiting her as well. So of course we had a lesson with them and it was great. BUTTTTTTTTTTTT! The greatest miracle of all is just about to happen and I am so excited to tell you!!!!!!!!

So at the end of the lesson, almost as we are about to pray, you will NEVER guess who walked in the DOOR?!!! Do you remember me telling you about E and L? She was one the first investigators that I taught and was about to be baptized but then she moved? Well her husband L, we never really had lessons with him, but he is one of my favorite people in the whole world. HE walked in during this lesson. I was speechless and I just sat there for 5 seconds with the most confused expression on my face, haha. L is M and RP's brother too!!!!!!! haha. Well we took a picture. L is the one on the chair, he says that I make him feel short :)

So we figure that since we know M, RP and L from 3 seperate places, and they ALL happened to be in the same house one night, Heavenly Father is trying to hint something to their whole family and to us :) haha.

E and L moved to the Elders area(still in our spanish ward). The elders went by once and she told them that she was busy and didn't have time to meet with them....well we went by and had a lesson with E AND L and it was amazing. L asked us HOW to PRAY!!!!!! He wants to learn, but he doesn't want to at the same time. E is ready to be baptized. Wow. So we are just going to teach them since the Elders didn't really do anything, haha.


So that is the end of one story.

At the beginning of this last week, our spanish area was pretty much dying. We had dropped pretty much our only spanish investigator (the saddest thing I had to do, ever!) J because he is not at all ready to open his heart. And at the end of this week, we have 13 hispanic investigators......and that doesn't even count all of their kids that we are going to try to teach as well. This week is NOTHING short of a MIRACLE!

One other thing that happened....ever time our phone rings or buzzes, we always say "someone wants to be baptized!" kind of jokingly. Well we said that on friday when our phone rang and REALLY. It was some one calling us telling us they want to be baptized!, haha., We told our zone leaders and they were so astounded by that! Well just 15 minutes later, Elder J (Zone leader) came into our room and said you will never guess what just happened! he had gotten a text, and right before he read it he said, hey look so someone wants to be baptized. Well wouldn't you know, it was :) haha.

The whole week has been full of crazy miracles like this. It is truly the Lords work! I am so grateful to have the chance to see these miracles unfolding, and I am so glad that I didn't get transfered because I would not have wanted to miss the chance to see L walk into that room!