Hello wonderful Children of God!!! :) I hope that you have all had the best week in all the lands! :)
So, this week was pretty wonderful!! I don't remember if I wrote you about Don and Linda or not, but if not, here we go...
Don and Linda were potential investigators in our area book, and we met with them a couple of weeks ago for the first time in like 3 or so years.. maybe more, who knows? So anyway.. we met with them and Linda grew up in an LDS home, but was never baptized, and Don has a Brother who is a Bishop who referred them to the missionaries way back when. So, we're not exactly sure why they stopped meeting with missionaries, but we have since started meeting with them again, and they are amazing! Linda totally agrees with everything we teach them, but Don likes to play a game that I'm not really fond of called, "stump the missionaries." He asks us all sorts of strange questions which we write down, find answers to, and answer them the next time we meet with them, but his biggest question was if this is the true church, why isn't it stated plainly in the Bible - like some huge manifestation rather than a few things here and there.. anyways, what that comes down to is essentially having faith and receiving a witness from the Holy Ghost, but something that was awesome that some other missionaries told us about is a talk called "What is the Blueprint of Christ's Church?" By Tad R. Callister. It is seriously amazing.. I invite you all to read it (
https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/ces-devotionals/2014/01/what-is-the-blueprint-of-christs-church?lang=eng) . We gave him a copy of that to read, and it hopefully will answer a lot of his questions.. it was seriously life changing.
In other news, I went on two exchanges this last week which was super fun - one of them I went to a different area and one of them I stayed here, which was super awesome!! So, the first one was with Sister Blauer who came out the same day as me, and she is amazing! Her area is a half bike, half car area and so they get the car for a few days a week, and lucky me, the day we had exchanges was not one of them. Let me just say, riding a bike in a skirt is pretty much the best experience I've had to date................. ANYWAY.. but, their area is pretty hilly, so my asthmatic lungs really appreciated that.. but, it was a miraculous day. At the beginning of the exchange, we were told to pray for the "faith to find" and the "faith to see miracles." So we did.. each and every prayer, and it really was a miraculous day! The best thing that happened, by far though, was when we were leaving in the morning and the basket on the bike I was riding kept falling off, so we had to stop and fix that, but it was for a purpose because right when we finally got going, the investigator we were leaving to see (who lived far away) walked right around the corner and we were able to teach her on a park bench. That was only the beginning though. It was a miracle for me because I definitely would have gotten an asthma attack if we would have had to bike all the way there. Her lesson was the best. Such an amazing blessing! :)
Then, the next day proved to be funny as we were driving in THE FIRST SNOWFALL OF THE YEAR to deliver a Bible to a less active member, and we were on the freeway and we hear this loud bang like a plane legitimately had landed on our trunk or something... turns out our back tire popped.. So, knowing I should pull over because that's what you do, but seeing the freeway exit right in front of me, I decided to continue to the exit.. don't worry, it ended up being fine.. Neither Sister Finau or I knew anything about changing a tire (I felt like such a girl, haha), so we called up the Elders and they came and changed it for us so we could drive to the tire store and get it replaced.. so that put a dent in our plans for the day, but at least it made a fun memory! We still don't know what caused the tire to pop, but that's alright.. all is well. :)
Then I went on another exchange on Saturday with Sister Worthen (she just came out this transfer and she is literally the BEST.. also, she knows sign language, so it was way fun to be able to sign to each other). We contacted a referral named Henry who became our new investigator and he is seriously so prepared! He already prays like a pro, he calls Heavenly Father's plan for us the Plan of Salvation (WHAT!?) and he is totally open and willing to read the Book of Mormon. So that was another amazing miracle that happened.. and he gave us 2 more referrals, so that was way cool! That day Sister Worthen and I in only like the 3 hours we were together while our companions went to the temple with their recent convert, we received 3 referrals, contacted 5, got one new investigator, and visited 2 less active people in our ward. It. Was. AMAZING! Anyway, so the whole challenge to pray for the faith to find and see miracles totally works! What an amazing miracle. :)
Another miracle was that one of our 10 year old investigators, Isabelle, finally came to church yesterday for the first time in like forever..
Also, in other news, it's already the last week of my 2nd transfer as a missionary. So, by this time next week I'll know if I stay or if I go.. I'll keep you all updated!
Well, that's about all I have for you all this week. I am so blessed, truly, to be a missionary laboring in the Lord's vineyard at this time. It is such an incredible life, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I know that we are led and guided by a living Prophet and 12 apostles who truly do act in behalf of our Heavenly Father and Savior here on the earth.. I know that the first Prophet of this renewed dispensation and restored gospel was Joseph Smith and that he, as a humble and uneducated 14 year old boy, sought Heaven's direction about which church was true, and because of that, we are all able to enjoy the eternal blessings that come from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Church Jesus Christ Himself set up on the earth, restored to our day). When times of difficulty or doubt come, remember, as President Uchtdorf said, "Doubt your doubts before your doubt your faith." Have a glorious week, darling people.
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