Keepin' Busy

Hello!

Hope y'all had a wonderful week!

So last monday was GREAT! we had a wonderful lesson with little miss Daisy at the Wades' home. The Wades are both return missionaries and love, love, love to do missionary work. They have been wanting to have someone taught in their home for the longest time it finally happened! Sister Wade was so happy she was crying (tears of joy of course) almost the entire lesson. We had the most perfect lesson with Daisy. We taught her about the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end). Since there were 5 of us, we assigned everyone a topic and had them used the index to look up a few scriptures that they liked about each of the topics. We gave Daisy the topic of baptism and it was so amazing. She found a scripture in Alma 5:62 that is basically an invitation to repent and be baptized. We talked about the verses and she told us that she felt like that verse was speaking right to her and she wanted to get baptized on the 27th. We were like, "Wahoo!" and then we were like, "uh...that's coming up really fast!" The lesson was so powerful and the spirit was incredible there. We talked with Daisy later this week and she told her mom that she wants to get baptized. Her mom still feels like she needs to make sure she knows more before she makes that decision. So, her baptism is postponed for now. She is a spiritual giant though. It is amazing.

We met with our new investigator, Candy last tuesday. She is a funny lady. She was being taught by the elders, but told them she wanted us to teach her instead (mostly because she felt like she could be more open with us than with the elders). We talked about patience and the Word of Wisdom. She has some real struggles there and wants so badly to be baptized, but is having a really difficult time giving up her coffee. She has the desire to do what's right so she should be a lot of fun to teach. :] 
A less active lady named Mona lives like 5 apartments away from Candy. As we were walking the opposite direction to go back to our car I felt like we really needed to go by Mona. We turned around and walked back down. Her car wasn't there so we decided to just leave her a note to tell her we loved her and missed her. As we were finishing up her note to stick on her door, she pulled up! She came down and talked with us on her porch for about 10 minutes. She was so happy to see us. She started to cry because she was so happy. It was amazing because she told us that just the day before she had been praying for help and had even opened her Book of Mormon again to try and find some direction and felt quite in despair. She told us that it didn't matter who had sent us, but she was grateful that we were there and felt like it was a sign that God was mindful of her and loved her. We told her she was right. She still wasn't willing to set up an appointment for us to meet, but she said that we could call and stop by again and maybe she would let us in to teach a little. Progress!
We also met with Reshell and Dennis and had a great lesson on the restoration and the Word of Wisdom. We were a little unsure about how they would receive the Word of Wisdom, but once they understood why it was important, they both agreed to live it and said they felt like this was the right path for them and that they were making the right decisions. Reshell found out she won't be moving for another two weeks which means we can continue to teach her for 2 more weeks! :D
We had dinner with the Beck family (and I usually only mention dinner if it was aboslutely amazing). We had a feast! It was like thanksgiving. Then we ended it all with apple crisp made with freshly picked apples (2 days old) from the Blue Ridge Mountains...where ever those are. It was the best apple crisp. Fresh apples make all the difference. I feel like I had forgotten what a good apple tastes like. Mmm!

Wednesday's district meeting was great! Our district is really great this transfer. There are several elders in our district who have tasteful senses of humor and make district meetings quite entertaining. My favorite one liner was from Elder Gilespie when we were talking about the difference between being bold and overbearing when making commitments. He said, "You shouldn't be sneaky when you extend invitations. It hurts to get hit with the bold stick a whole lot more when you're not expecting it." haha...I wrote that down in my study journal and so did Sis. Asay. We had our weekly lunch/lesson with Sis. Patrick. She made some yummy soup with rolls. We watched the John Tanner Story movie and talked about sacrifice. It was a really nice lesson. We met with Sis. Donaldson who is still not feeling well. Bless her heart. I hope she gets feeling better soon. She has struggled so much. Sister Bernhisel asked us if we would take a 19 year old girl named Hannah on exchanges with us because she wants to serve a mission. She lives in Durham, but she drove down to Raleigh to come with us. We went to dinner and had some scrumptious lasagna with the Fuller family. Bro. Fuller had made it completely from scratch. He loves the food network. lol. We then went to visit with Sis. Falco and also taught her about sacrifice. She is so solid. Her car starter quit working this week and cost her a huge sum of money. She wasn't sure how things were going to work out, but she went ahead and paid her tithing. She is exercising so much faith. It is great to see.

We spent all of friday tracting (and I mean all of friday) for lack of other things to do. No one would respond to our phone calls. So, we decided to park the car and just go and talk to people. Unfortunately, not many people wanted to talk with us. The weather was nice though and we had an enjoyable time talking with the people who actually did engage in conversation with us.

We spent all of Saturday morning helping a recent convert move. She is not the most organized packer so we helped her get things organized. She was about ready to panic. Good thing the ward was there to help her!

Sunday was stake conference. It was jam packed. There were a lot of good talks. Daisy, Reshell, and Dennis all came to church and loved the conference. We had a lesson with a girl named Brooklynn and her parents after church. Brooklynn has been coming to church for almost a year now and loves the church. She asked her parents about meeting with missionaries and they agreed that we could come over. Her parents didn't have any intentions of changing from their Lutheran background, but want Brooklynn to make her own decisions about religion. It was kind of a weird situation because when we asked about a time that we could come back, they asked us what was normal. We told them we would like to come back in a few days. They didn't like that idea. Her mom said they were thinking more like the end of December (that's forever away!). They want Brooklynn to be "educated" about the religion, but said they won't let her make any decisions about joining the church until she is at least 18. She's 17 right now. At least we got to plant some good seeds! :)

We also met with a part member family, the Wakefields. Elder Pace actually referred them to us when we asked him who he knew we could teach in the Raleigh area (he served in Raleigh almost 2 years ago).  We went by one night and they agreed to have us over. We had a great lesson with them. I was so nervous for some reason. Sister Asay and I both felt like we should teach them about the Plan of Salvation. So, we did. Nothing amazing happened, but I guess Sis. Wakefield just needed to know that. We also talked a little about families and gave them copies of The Family: A Proclamation to the World. They want us to come back...so that's a good sign! I hope things will progress with them. Bro. Wakefield is very nice. He loves the church. Just got out of the habit of going.

I read an ensign article today that talked about the importance of looking up to the Lord to know how we are doing and not looking sideways to see how other people think we are doing in our progress of life. I learned that we aren't supposed to be pleasing other people; we only need to be concerned with pleasing the Lord. If we keep our eyes focused on Him, everything will work together for our good in His time.

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Read the Book of Mormon! It's the best book ever! (seriously!)

Love,
Sister J