So, here's the scoop: Sister Welch is the third member of the
-panionship! I think I must not be learning the lessons I need to from
my former comps. They just keep coming back! We are having a lot of fun
though.. It's been quite the adjustment for all of us I think. Sometimes
I wish I was a boy. No drama. That would be great. I think we are
finally adjusting though.
Monday we went to the Trueloves who live in the boonies of
Fuquay-Varina. We had dinner with them and the best pecan (it's
pronounced pee-can) pie i've ever had. Don't worry. I did get the
recipe. :) We went and saw a less active named DeeDee. It was kind of
crazy because I told the Trueloves a couple of weeks ago that I had a
dream about her and that I was supposed to go and see her. I had never
met her, but I felt like we really really really needed to go see
her. It was an intense lesson. Sis. Tillman did a great job. She bore a
powerful testimony of God's love and the spirit was SO strong in that
lesson. DeeDee's husband who isn't a member told us as we were leaving,
"you know, I was just thinking the other day that we should go to
church. We haven't been in a while." It was amazing. They didn't show up
this week, but hopefully they will come next week. :) Agency (sigh).
Sometimes I wish there could be no opposition, but that would defeat the
purpose of life.
Tuesday was crazy. We had a lesson with recent convert, Jan about
the priesthood. It was really neat because she had just learned about
the priesthood in church on sunday in the Fayetteville ward so it was a
good review and we were able to clear up a few confusions. She is doing
great! She loves reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church. After
our lesson we drove with Sis. Knight to Raleigh to pick up the mystery
sister. It was pouring rain and we ended up being a little late (oops!)
Sister Welch was drenched. She was so excited though! We got some dry
clothes, changed quickly and headed over to the Andersons to have a
lesson with the Hudsons. We read 3 Nephi 11 with them and talked about
becoming as a child and how simple the gospel is. They are still being
stubborn (AHHHHHH!).
Wednesday we had a zone training and Sister Tillman and I were
asked to teach part of it on the doctrine of Christ. It went really
well. I was glad when it was over. Did I mention that both of the zone
leaders (elders Simmons and Schank) are from K-town (Kaysville, UT)? It's a small world.
The district leaders in our zone each taught and it was so good! Elder
Otteson is in my zone again. He is a district leader in Sanford or
Raeford or one of those ford places. He gave a really good discussion on
asking inspired questions. I learned SO much from that. It was amazing.
He talked about how there are four types of questions; 1) soul
searching questions 2) commitment questions 3) application questions and
4) verifcation questions. I learned this week that these principles of
inspired questions asking can be applied in more ways than just with our
investigators. I think they will definitely come in handy as a future
parent. We had dinner with the Dominguez family. They are so great! Sis.
Dominguez made jalepeno poppers again. I love those things! Mmmm!
Afterwards, we went to teach investigators, Freddy, Charles and Bryan.
They were all asleep. Bless their hearts. Mona told us that the nurse
gave them their meds early that night. (sigh)
Thursday we met with the Little family. They are a part member
family. It's a crazy situation. But, I know that true doctrine
understood changes attitudes and bahavior. The boys L.H. and Bryan (ages
9 and 16) want to be baptized. They LOVE coming to church. I would too
if I lived in their house. We are hoping to start having them taught in
member homes so they can feel the spirit more.
Afterwards, we met with Lewis...finally! He has not been feeling
well and therefore avoiding us. I guess. We had a great lesson on the
Word of wisdom with him and he committed to give up his coffee! huzzah!
He has come such a long ways. He is a prime example of how powerful the
Book of Mormon is in conversion.
Friday we did service. We went to my favorite family's house, the
Swaffords. Sis. Swafford is not able to do a lot of things because she
is wheel-chair bound so we went and sanded and painted a whole bunch of
her furniture. It was fun. I love to work like that. They are working of
finding people to share the gospel with and we are excited for them! We
had a ward missionary meeting in the evening. Only 2 of our 20
something ward missionaries showed up. Nevertheless,we had a great
lesson with them about the Atonement and how that is related to
missionary work. There is a great quote by President Hunter that says,
"Anytime we experience the blessings of the atonement in our lives, we
cannot hlep but have a concern for teh welfare of others...a great
indicator of one's personal conversion is the desire to share the gospel
with others."
Saturday was a really, really long session of weekly planning. It
was so long that I had to go and walk outside. Sis. Welch is A.D.D. If
that even is a real disorder. We were laughing our guts up all day. We
FINALLY finished attempted to contact a referral out in Benson.
Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn which put us on the interstate going
towards Raleigh. Even more unfortunate was that there isn't much
inbetween here and there so, the next exit off of the interstate was
about 10 miles later. This created a giant loop and when we finally got
to the road the referral lived on, we discovered that the road was
closed for repair. I don't think we were supposed to contact
that referral that day. There weren't any houses close by so we just
turned around and went to our coordination meeting. That was great
because we were able to set up some great plans for a fireside. I am so
excited! It's going to be amazing. There will be more details as the
time draws closer. :)
Sunday was amazing. We had 7 investigators come to sacrament!
Amazing! Freddy came thanks to the ever so diligent efforts of Bro.
Dalton who went and picked him at the last minute due to a ride that
bailed. The Little family all came to church. It was really neat to see
how they lit up when they saw us. There is a lot of darkness in their
lives. Lewis also came and the Hudsons came too! It was definitely
amazing. The talks in church were really good. After church we went on
exchanges with the Jesters. We ended up driving FOREVER because we got a
phone call from a former who was dropped because he fell in love with
one of the sisters. Anyways, he called to tell us that his mom (who was
also a former) was on her last leg and wanted us to come and see her. He
told us the address, but trailer parks are horrible for going a logical
numerical order. We ended up getting lost and by the time we finally
were able to contact Gary again, his mom had passed away. It was really
sad, but a blessing for her. She had been very very ill. We closed the
day with a lesson with Charles and Freddy. Freddy LOVED church. A lady
at the assisted living place did not approve of his decision and she
made it very clear. He didn't originally show up to our lesson ,but
about 20 minutes into it he finally came in. He told us what happened.
We ended up having a great lesson on recognizing the spirit and how to
tell whether something is good or not using Moroni 7:13-16. He feels
good about his decision and recongized right off the bat that because he
had felt the spirit so strong, that satan was working extra hard on
him. He is great.
Being a missionary is the best. Hard? Yes. Worth it? Completely.
I know as we deepen our understanding of the Atonement our desire to share the gospel with others will increase.
Good scripture:
1 peter 4: 12-13
Loves to y'all!
Love, Sister J
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