The Most Bizzare Week....Yet! 7/09/2012

Okay... where do I start?

So, this week was incredible. It was the most bizarre week I think I have ever experienced thus far on the mission. We saw SO many miracles this week! It was amazing. It is amazing to me how much the Lord blesses us. Sometimes I don't feel like we are doing enough to deserve the many blessings we do receive, but I am thankful for how merciful the Lord is.

We had a fun preparation day last week! We went hiking with the Guymon family at a place called Raven Rock. It was so nice to be outside. Tender mercy of the day was that it had cooled off some so we didn't die in the heat. :) I still sweat more than I've ever sweat in my life whilst we were walking on the trail. It was so worth it though. The world and all of it's creations are amazing. If you don't think Heavenly Father is there, just go take a stroll outside and you'll come to know that He is there and loves you.  When we got to the top, we could see over the trees! The only other time that has happened was when I was in the plane. haha...

We did FHE with the Martin family and played Clue...with a spiritual twist! We talked about how we don't always know all the mysteries of God, but that they are given to us line upon line and precept upon precept. It was a lot of fun.

Tuesday (Happy birthday Ashlyn! You're the best sister ever. :] ) we met with the Hudsons. We read 1 Nephi 4 and talked about following the spirit and making decisions based on what we do know is true. They said they aren't going to do anything until they know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. (sigh). I don't know what else we can do for them. I suppose we will just have to be patient.

 We have had so much support from the ward. We recieved so many referrrals this week. We were able to go and do some service for one of the referrals and talked to her about the Book of Mormon. She was very moved by our willingness to come and help her move into her house. She said she wants to come to church and learn more, but wants to wait until she gets feeling better (she broke her shoulder).

One of the other referrals from our WML is a man named John. He knows several ward members here in Dunn and has a lot of contact from them. Brother Christensen (our WML) has been sharing the gospel with him quite regularly now and gave him a Book of Mormon and he watched the Restoration video with him. He invited John to come to church. He is planning on coming on the 22nd of this month.

We also received a referral from our assistant WML. He told us that he wanted to invite his neighbor to come to church. So, he did just that. He also asked her if she would like to meet with the missionaries. She agreed. Our assistant WML is so excited! He text us yesterday and told us the news. We weren't able to get to our phone for a while and he text us again asking if we got his text. He is so excited to do missionary work. It's fantastic!

We had a training meeting on Wednesday (Happy 4th!) this past week and met Pres. and Sis. Bernhisel. They are great. It's definitely not the same as the Cotterells, but they are both wonderful people and full of love. I imagine (from the sounds and looks of it) Pres. Bernhisel is incredibly stressed out right now. I have been bothering our housing coordinator for a LONG time now about getting a new mattress because mine had seen better days. So, the assistants dropped off a nice new mattress at our house after training. I slept so good that night. We had an interesting lesson with a LA man named Eric. He joined the church when he was 15 or 16, but the JW's brought up a lot of questions when they talked to him once. So he decided he just wouldn't believe in God unless there was physical evidence. We told him we didn't have any physical evidence, but that even more important than physical evidence is knowing for yourself. He didn't really like that answer. He said it would be important to him to know that God is there. So, we are planning meeting with him later on down the road. His inlaws are in town and they are hard core Eastern Orthodox. So, he said it would be best to wait until they left.

We had 4th of July lunch with the Moodys. It was fun. We got to talk to a less active member that Sis. Moody invited. The Moodys are funny people. At one point the conversation turned to emergency preparedness and Sister Moody says, "well, we have to prepare for the zombie apocolypse." My first though was, "what are you talking about?" and "are we having the same conversation?" It was pretty funny. She calls her 72 hour kit a "go-bag". It was pretty hilarious.

To make things even more hilarious, the Moodys came on exchanges with us on Friday and we went and saw a less active named David. Somehow, this same conversation of emergency preparedness came up and he says, "we have to prepare for the zombie apocolypse!" Sister Moody thought that was great. I was dying of laughter. I think I missed something from being in the missionary world for so long. Are there zombies now?

Saturday was the dreaded Black Saturday. We got a suprise phone call from the assistants. Turns out that we are once again going to have an odd number of sisters in the mission and we are getting a third sister that will be with us for a transfer. No news on who it is, but it will be a suprise for next week! The ward found out and donated another bed. That mattress is also really comfy. So, we have had a lot of new mattresses come in this week! Sister Tillman isn't so sure how things are going to work out with this third sister. She is pretty anxious about it. I'm excited! I hope my excitement will rub off on her eventually.

One of the biggest miracles of the week was this past Sunday (the whole day was a miracle).  I was wondering what in the world we were going to do to find people this week because we had not been successful in finding new investigators this past week. I prayed and asked Heavenly Father for help and He most certainly answers prayers. The ward contacted a LA/PM family this past week and invited them to attend church. They showed up on Sunday! It was amazing! No one thought they would come. The mom wants us to start teaching her boys who are teenagers and she has a friend named Sherrie that also came with her. It is a unique situation that will require a lot of love and patience.

Afterwards, we had a lesson with a member who had told us a few weeks ago that she had been working with a few friends and they had accepted the invitation to listen to the missionaries. Sister Mona Johnson is the member and she lives at an assisted living place here in Dunn. She introduced us to her friends, Freddy and Charles.  We shared the message of the restoration with them and part way through, another man named Bryan decided to join in. They all just so happen to be looking for a church and upon inviting Freddy and Charles to be baptized, Bryan asked if he could be baptized too. It was the most bizarre experience I think I've ever had on the mission. People don't usually ask to be baptized! So, that was a miracle. Freddy accepted the message of the restoration from the very beginning. He had some misunderstandings which we cleared up, but he really is trying to find the "right path". They are excited to read the Book of Mormon and before we could even invite them, they all asked if they could come to church next week.

The Lord lives and He loves us each individually. I know that He is aware of our concerns and needs. He will bless us as we strive to do our very best in keeping His commandments and do what he would do.

Good scriptures to read is Moroni 9:6 and 1Nephi 13:37

have a great week!

Love,

Sister Johnson