Church Coming & Book of Mormon Devouring

You know, it's been such a long awesome week that I don't even know where to begin. Or what to write.  But lets start with the most exciting:

 

Our friend came to church! The miracle one that we found 6 weeks after we lost track of her. She was the first of our investigators that Sister Gonzalez got to teach with me, and she is doing great. She is so intelligent but completely open and starting to feel something when she prays. It is such a privilege to get to teach her. I think her favorite part about Church was the screaming babies - honestly. But she did like it for other reasons besides that. I'm grateful that was a plus to her instead of a negative. Thank you wanting-to-be-a-grandma instincts.

 

In other news: Sister Gonzalez is awesome! She came from Dansville, which is a farming area an hour away from Pennsylvania and so she is a bit at a loss being here and realizing that people don't want/don't need to be served very much. She spent the last three transfers shoveling poop and branding goat ears. It is great serving with her! She is so loving to everyone - she knows how to find what they really care about and be a friend to them. She has also taught me a lot just in a week about different ways of teaching. How to be creative with teaching, which is good because I am kind of a boring teacher to little children. On tours this is especially a problem.

 

Oh! So at transfers we had an all mission meeting, which is really unusual, but it was incredible and President invited all of us as companionship to read the Book of Mormon aloud in 1 transfer - six weeks. It's thirteen pages a day. It has been amazing, but also a bit stressful, because it takes up every spare minute we have. We read it at breakfast, during lunch, at dinner {when we aren't at members} and after planning while we get ready for bed. If we work at the sites we try to read it during any down time. I love it because it helps me think about the atonement pretty much all the time. We got behind yesterday, so today we will be reading 26 pages... whoops. You can join in if you want!

 

One of the less actives we get to meet with is doing really great. my testimony about God being able to change the desires of our hearts has been strengthen as I've watched her make changes in what she wants to spend her time doing, or being with. She is starting to feel the spirit again and her desire to follow the savior is increasing.

 

other activities of the week: cleaned a really really really disgusting house, which was followed by an asthma attack, but we were glad she let us do it. Trying to think of ways we can connect better with our ward, and help break down the barriers they have with missionaries from the past. We will try working with them through hosting Family Home Evenings I think. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Awkward moment of the week: after cleaning previously mentioned disgusting house in our jeans, we needed to get to an appointment but had to change. So we stopped at a gas station. No bathroom. Then another. No bathroom and finally another and still no bathroom! So we decided to park at this big parking lot by a gas station and just change in the car. Note: there were no cars nearby thankfully. As we had both just taken off our pants a BIG tall truck decides that out of all the other parking spots available where we are is the best spot so they pull into the parking spot RIGHT NEXT TO US and I look over to make startled eye contact with two guys that unfortunately are in a truck that looms over us and naturally places them in the position to look down into our car. Sister Gonzalez and I just kind of awkwardly hunch over to pretend like I'm wearing pants and try not to laugh so we don't draw attention to the obvious situation.  They get out of their car to go to the gas station and we decide changing in the car would be better if we lower our seats all the way down. By the way - changing while you are laying down is difficult. And the worst part is that we missed the appointment because of the changing difficulty and getting lost :( But she had canceled without us getting the message, so... it was okay.

 

p.s. I think I forgot how to drive a car. Thankfully Sister Gonzalez is very patient with my spastic turns, bad parking, sudden stopping, lane swerving and no sense of direction.

An elder in our mission called us this week and said "Does sister A's family live in Rigby, Idaho? And are they farmers? and are they associated with Cooks?" They were calling to tell us they ate at 5 guys burger and fries and saw the L & Cook Farms there :) How fun to be connected to that!

 

I love you all. I'm so grateful to be here in upstate NEW York. Hope everyone made it through the hurricane & earthquake safely. Some people felt the quake here, but I was at the Smith Farm and didn't feel it. Be safe. Pray. Read your scriptures. Eat.

love,

Sister A