Those pictures of the mountains just whet my appetite SO much!! Like I told Dad, don't be surprised if you don't see much of me next summer because I spend all my time up THERE!! It was really fun to see the pictures of your hikes and of the girls and swimming and motorcycling. Man, I thought I loved those things BEFORE the mission....
Anyway, glad to know you're all doing well!
The hottest it has been here... no idea to be honest. We don't get a weather report cuz we can't watch the news. But it's probably a good thing. I think the hottest was around 115 walking around Kansas City..... and I got a nice little sister missionary tan line on my feet and neck ha.
We ended up postponing the exchange to Great Bend. The other sisters had to find a house for the new senior couple and they were stressed so we put it to this week. So I'll letchya know when I know how Great Bend is.
So last week was interesting.... We'd worked really hard the week before and made some real progress in new investigators and in the ward and getting the area organized, etc. And that made Satan mad. Really mad. So that he "stirred up the hearts of the people" and long week short, we lost TEN of our people. Both of the people with baptismal dates had family forbid them to meet with us, a couple moved and/or fell off the face of the earth, one got anti'd or something, and one got a guilt trip from his JW wife etc etc. When the last one texted us he couldn't attend anymore, I just hurt inside so bad. My initial response to something going wrong with an investigator is that it's my fault. I'm not teaching them well enough, I didn't give them the right commitment, we didn't bear testimony enough, something. But in all honesty we had made it a big focus to teach by the Spirit as well as identify the Spirit in all of our lessons and ALL of these people's lessons and contacts were powerful. So at least we had that peace. But it was just hard to dig that deep. To be able to go out and bear our souls to people again--which is always hard and takes a lot of faith, but especially when it seemed pointless. But then I determined that that simply wouldn't do. I wasn't going to let Satan win. I was NOT going to lose faith or stop doing everything in my power to give as many people as possible the chance to accept or reject this gospel. So we met with the RS president. And we did service for a less active and contacted every person on her street and were rejected by all of them. But oh well! We're showing the Lord He can trust us and that we love Him and that we're not going to let the adversary get us down because the gospel IS true, independent of the # of people who accept it.
We determined that we should fast. It talks a lot about mighty prayer and fasting in the scriptures to make us strong in spirit and to be able to teach with power and authority of God. We fasted that we would be guided to new investigators--those who are ready and prepared. And that night we found S.
She is solid.
I don't have time to relate the whole story now but I hopefully will in my journal.
And the next day we were able to teach V. And R came to church and told us how she had read the chapters in the BoM that we had assigned her and loved them and read them over and over and that she definitely felt the Holy Ghost in Sunday School (I taught it on Gifts of the Spirit) and we were able to teach Mary too all about Jesus Christ and she said that when we come she feels tingles and that she feels really good after we leave. We're like, "Yeah! That's the Holy Ghost! It's REAL!"
Anyway, God is great. And merciful. And I found a quotation by Pres. Monson that helped me this week too about praying about our assignments in humility and how the very foundation of the philosophy of faith promises us an answer of some sort from the Lord.
Well, Sister T and I are still peachy. She's just great and I love her. Both of her parents passed away in a car wreck about 4-5 years ago so that's why she moved from Samoa to New Zealand, to live with her aunt and uncle. It's so powerful when she testifies of families..... it really touches people and they have no idea she's lost her parents.
I love you and miss you all to pieces. It's crazy to think I only have 4 transfers left. Anyway, get in some more good hikes and take more pictures if you please! I love them! And read Mormon 9:19-28 this week. It really, really struck me this week as I was going through our little trial. And I realized that the times in my life when the Spirit really witnessed to me that certain things were true, it was in complete harmony with verse 25. That it was when the doubt finally left, that He came and confirmed the truth--conFIRMed it.
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