My Dearest Family!!
This week has been so awesome! We’ve
been so busy getting our area organized and trying to get some sense of
structure to our area because it was a bit of a mess when we found it. Our
project today was all the referrals. We cleaned them out and got them into a
notebook so that we don’t have people all over the place and still on the board
from several months ago. We also finished lists of everyone in our area by
street name and put the streets in alphabetically based on what area of the map
they’re in. It’s been pretty fun! We’ve been trying to iron out who all is
active or inactive and the other missionaries hadn’t been marking down when
people were no longer interested, so we’ve had quite a few upset people.
We
don’t do a lot of tracting because we’re so busy with other things at the moment
that we never even finish what we had planned for the day anyways. We only
tract when we bike into an area and our appointments all fall through or we’re
prompted to knock on someone’s door. But, I do have two cool tracting stories
for you this week!
First,
we went to visit a potential investigator but they weren’t home, so I told
Sister Rider that we should knock on the next door over. So we did and this man
came out with quite a few tattoos, holding his little 5 month old daughter and
ended up inviting us back! It turns out that he was the same guy I saw smoking
on his porch the second night I was here and that I had felt prompted to go
talk to but I didn’t end up talking to him because Sister Rider thought it was
a sketchy place at night and because I didn’t push it enough because I was new
and uncertain. It’s nice to know the Lord gives us second chances!
Second,
we went to visit Sister Demree and when we left I stopped to talk to the guy
that was raking her leaves and we ended up giving a Book of Mormon away to him!
He seems super prepared by the Lord and he’s so enthusiastic! It’s interesting
because he took us to meet his parents (he’s living with his parents for a few
weeks because he only moved here a few weeks ago and he’s trying to find a place)
and it turns out his parent’s house is the one Sister Rider had felt prompted
to knock on a week ago but they told us to go away because they were Methodist,
but it turns out he lives there! So it was so perfect that he happened to be
coming around to offer raking services at the exact moment we were in Sister
Demree’s house. We had debated whether or not to see her because of something
that had happened earlier that week that I’ll tell you later, but it’s a good
thing we did!
This week we got our first baptismal date! One of our
investigators agreed! She wants to bring her whole family into the church. Her
boyfriend that she lives with is inactive but wants to come back to church and
they have a young son who they want to bring as well. Her mom is even interested
and wants to come to our weekly Book of Mormon study class. We’re super
excited! I danced a little happy-dance when we left :D. We will have to get
them married first though, or get one to move out, so we’ll see how that goes…
I
handed out my first two Books of Mormon this week and that was super exciting!
I feel like such the missionary ;) haha and we handed out a big stack of
Mormon.org cards. We have to get more from the mission office today. It’s been
great!
We
played district volleyball this week which was really fun. It’s not competitive
so everyone just enjoys themselves and it gives us a chance to be silly, which
is great. We need that break every so often even though it means we have to
wake up at 5:30 am to go do it. It makes the rest of the day just that much
better. Speaking of exercise, Sister Rider is a runner, so in the mornings I
speed walk with sister Asay while she and sister Finell run circles around us.
I’m sure people must think we’re pretty strange.
There
are deer all over the place here! I love it! Just the other week on the way to
church a whole herd of antelope crossed the street right in front of us! It was
so cool!
The
weather here is crazy and bipolar. I told you last week that it snowed, right?!
Well, this week it’s warmed back up to the 40’s-50’s, so pretty warm, but the
other day when we were riding home from a lunch appointment it started to rain
and the rain was freezing! Then just as we got home it turned into hail, then
it because snow which melted 30 minutes later when the sun came out! We could
barely see while we were riding and it was pretty miserable. However, I can’t
complain that all the snow is gone. I love the fall. I’m so excited that people
are starting to put up Christmas lights! I love it! Plus, it makes it feel
safer to walk around after dark. The sun sets at around 4pm here, so there’s a
lot of time spent walking around in the dark.
I had a
dog jump on me this week with poop all over its paws! It was quite gross but
luckily we were visiting her owner for a lesson so I got to clean it off. I
don’t think I smelled very good for the rest of the day though…
Last
night we had a member make a really interesting cabbage stew. I thought I
wasn’t going to like it but it actually turned out to be really good! Not to
mention I was so hungry at church yesterday that I could have eaten a bear!
I also
met a really famous artist, Bill Rains! You should look him up online! It was
so cool! We cut us out a buffalo out of paper and signed it. Some of his
paintings and sculptures can go for up to $150,000! It was so cool and he was
really nice. It certainly made my day! I’ll probably send the buffalo home at
some point, so if I do, save it and the postcard in my photo album!!!!!!
So far I’m 55 pages into my
journal! They think I’m strange for writing so much for each day. I really hope
I’ll appreciate it a lot later since I’m putting so much time into it!
I’ve
also started keeping a revelation journal and it is the greatest thing. I would
highly suggest doing the same. It’s great to look back on past revelation and
the Lord is always willing to give you more if you write it down/act on it.
It’s been a big blessing so far.
My
Mormon message pick of the week this week is “Courage”. I would encourage you
to watch it and share it with people you think exemplify courage in your life.
Please
give everyone my love and know that I’m think about you often and that I pray
for you! Also, I’ve been trying to say prayers of just gratitude lately and I’m
finding it’s making my prayers a lot more meaningful. I would encourage you to
try it for a week. Read 3 Nephi 13:31-33 and remember, the Lord knows what you need,
so don’t just pray like you’re calling out for groceries. Make it a
conversation!
I love
you all forever!
Photos: 1) My companion, Sister Rider 2) our house 3) one of the horses at our house 4) snow at our house! 5) Me :)
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