Well, hello friends and family, it is a BEA-U-TIFUL spring, sunny, day up here in far-north Idaho. This week proved to be 10-fold better than last, so that is such a blessing!! So many ups-and-downs on missions, and in life, too... The important thing is the last step in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to Endure to the End!!
Well, this week proved to be full of many marvelous miracles. I will try to adequately express them to you in the time that I have left. ANYWAY, so... Something super cool happened this week!! We have been trying to find new investigators for like five-ever (that's more intense than for-ever, get it, hahaha...). Anyway, so.. our Bishop called us the other week and said that someone in our ward who wasn't coming wanted to start making it back to church and that his fiance, Allie, wanted to take the missionary lessons (insert rejoicing here)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is nothing short of a miracle in missionary work, so we were SUPER excited. Anyway... he gave us her number and we have been trying to call her for the last 2 weeks, but she has never answered her phone, so we just kind of assumed that she was blowing us off. Not the case, my friends. We felt impressed to try and call her again one morning earlier than we had been calling in the past, and she answers the phone!! We tell her who we are, she said she does want to meet, but that she probably couldn't for a week or so, and that she would let us know. Anyway, so that was one exciting thing. BUT, to make matters even more miraculous, we were going about our day a couple of hours later and she texts us saying, "Hey, we're going to be at the laundromat in a few minutes if you want to meet up there." SO, obviously we went... and it was an awesome lesson! She had been meeting with missionaries back home in California and was going to get baptized there (!!!!) and then when we were teaching her about the Restoration she was like mouthing the words and what we were saying along with us.. it was awesome! We are so excited for her and for the progress she will be making in the next few days, weeks, and months. What an amazing thing missionary work is! :")
We were also teaching another family this week about prayer (the same family that I told you about a few weeks ago where their little girl said the prayer off of the kitchen decoration about dirty dishes). Anyway, so I received the distinct impression during when we were talking to ask the question, "Do you ever get the chance to pray as a family?" So, I asked them that, and we had a super spiritual lesson about the importance of prayer and committed them to pray together as a family. Anyway, so after the lesson, we were leaving and Sister Rogers turns to me and says, "Literally, I received the exact same prompting to ask them that question and right when I was about to say it, you opened your mouth and said the EXACT same question, word for word, that I was going to say." It was such a tender experience and another testament that the Spirit truly does guide the work and helps us to teach in a way that Heavenly Father and Christ would have us teach.
We taught one of our investigators, Clark, again this week. He had a stroke a couple of years back, and so he can't see or talk really well. We have been going over and reading him passages from the Book of Mormon and teaching him the lessons. At the end of one of our lessons this week, he turns to Sister Rogers and says, "How old are you girls? 20's? 30's? You must be 20" (referring to Sister Rogers) and then he turns to me, "30's"? hahahahaahahahahahahahahahhahaahahahahha, it's all I could do to not literally laugh when he said that. Yes, friends. I am in my 30's. Not that being in your 30's is a bad thing, because of course, it's not. It was just so funny after he had perfectly guessed Sister Rogers' age to turn to me and think I was something like 10 years older than her. I guess I'll just take that to mean that I seem more mature or something... either that or I just look really old for my age. ;) Funny stuff.
On Saturday, we were leaving for a baptism of someone in the other ward, and we walk out of our house and realize we have forgotten the keys... WELL.... good thing we had so conveniently forgotten to put out our spare key and hide it, so we literally had no way to get into the house or drive our car, and I was supposed to be the chorister for the baptism that started in 5 minutes. Well, we said a little prayer and then, in less than 2 minutes, Sister Rogers literally takes off our window screen, opens our window, jumps into our house standing on these crates we had outside (seriously like parkour), grabs our keys, and we leave and make it to the baptism on time... so that was comforting knowing that someone wouldn't have to work too hard to break into our house. hahaha, the adventures of being a missionary, I'll tell ya. The baptism was of a woman who has been investigating the church for 2 years now, and it was so spiritual. We have been over to talk to her sister, Terry, and are planning on going back to do service in her yard for her sometime soon. Anyway, so yesterday, this lady who got baptized, Dixie, came up to us after church when she had just received the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and she said, "Sisters! When they took their hands off of my head after I got the gift of the Holy Ghost, it felt like I had 2 heartbeats. I thought I was going to faint. It's wonderful." It was such a tender message to me that this is the work of Heaven, not the work of man. That missionary work changes lives, and eternities. I am so grateful to have this short time to be fully immersed in it. What a blessing!
The last noteworthy thing that happened this week was when we were driving home after a lesson with some super cute kids who know everything about the gospel and want to be baptized, and had dropped some soup off to Kymm that Amie made because she has been sick the last couple of weeks. Anyway, we're just going merrily on our way when, "BOOM!".. a deer hard core sprints into the side of our truck. So, that was an interesting experience. Those sneaky deer, I'll tell ya. We're fine, our truck has a few dents, and the deer looked pretty sad and stunned for a minute before getting up and limping away, but it was one interesting experience. I may or may not have let out a slight scream in shock after it happened... whatever you want to think happened.. :)
Well friends, that's about all I have time for. This week has been a great one and next week I get to travel down to Spokane to the temple, so I am super excited about that one! I know this church is true. I know that blessings will come to all of us as we strive to endure to the end. I have been studying a lot about patience this week, and came across a scripture in my Personal Study this morning from President Uchtdorf's talk on Patience from 2010 (
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/continue-in-patience?lang=eng) - Continue in Patience. It is found in Luke 21: 19 - "in patience possess ye your souls" - but if we look at the footnote b in this verse, it says, "in patience win mastery of your souls." How amazing of a thought is that? Patience is not passively waiting for something good to happen, it is working hard and being okay if rewards don't come right away... patiently enduring and enduring well. I love the thought that if we are patient, we are learning to master our souls. How awesome is that? Have a great week, wonderfuls! Talk to you again soon!
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