Hey Everyone!

I’m in a hurry this week, so this letter will be a short one, sorry! However, maybe it’s better for you to not have to read so much. ;)

D--- and C--- didn’t do their reading. D--- is a lot more excited about this than he is. She really wants to move forward with her investigation but she also doesn’t want to be divided with C---, which makes it tough. We’re still working on them though! We had a really good phone-lesson with her this week. She really wanted to know why we had joined the church and told us about some of her past experiences and it turned out to be a really good lesson.

L--- lessons are going GREAT! We had a really long lesson with him. There were 4 missionaries because he wants all of us to teach him but I’m the one who primarily does most of the teaching. Not to toot my own horn or anything but I’m the only one who really knows the Bible (I’m the only one who has read it) and so I’m the one who is able to answer his questions and really make it so he understands. We’ve had some pretty intense discussions and he took a Book of Mormon and is really excited to read it! One of my favorite things he said was, “How long does it take to be converted?” and I answered him and he said, “well let’s meet every week, or maybe more than once a week for as long as it takes.” I was doing cartwheels inside!! :D I was so happy! Also, he refers to the LDS religion as “we” now. After only two lessons! He’s like, “well, they just don’t understand us” or “we just need to tell them the truth!”. He is amazing!

We were frustrated with K--- and our ward young women leaders this week. We stopped by K--- house to invite her to mutual that night and she was so excited to go tubing but as we started calling people and no one would pick her up her enthusiasm greatly diminished. Eventually she told us she didn’t want to go anymore and we were so frustrated!! We feel like almost no one has faith in K---. They all think she will become inactive after getting baptized, so they don’t even bother to fellowship her or invite her to anything. Oh, I had such a hard time keeping my cool when I talked to some of the people about showing more support for K---. We’re going to assign some young women specifically to be her fellowshippers this coming week with the help of the YW Beehive president. She’s a sweet girl.

I had another lesson with the D--- family this week. I had been feeling strongly to go back there because who knows when another missionary that knows ASL will be in the area? So we went and had an awesome lesson with Brother D--- (no one else was home) but he agreed to come to church this coming Sunday! I am so excited!! Poor Sister Session, she had no idea what was going on; she just kept nodding and smiling and when we left she was like, “So what happened?!”. It is difficult for me to watch other people sign, sign my replies, and remember to verbalize everything for my companion. I’m just so happy with the result! I’ll keep you posted on if they come.

D--- came to church this week! It shows that service really works! It reminds me of the service of Ammon. It may not seem to produce fruits at once but in the end it turned out the greatest results! Because of his service the doorway to the gospel was opened to thousands! Never forget the importance of service. It is one of the most important things we can do as missionaries. We need to show the people we care, not just say that we care. Actions speak louder than words. That’s another reason why it is so important to be an example of the believers in all that we do because you never know who is watching and your actions will speak volumes to people that watch us. Live what you believe all of the time and you will never go wrong!

We had an awesome Zone Training this week. We focused on the small and simple things that we do every day in missionary work. I really appreciated that because it’s so good to get a reminder about the basic things that have been asked of us and to find ways to better magnify our callings. It also helps us bounce ideas around for how to use our time most effectively. In fact, we had more lessons this week than we have all transfer! President requires at least 20 lessons a week and this week we finally managed o go way beyond that! It felt really good.

Sister Session’s family came to visit this week because her grandma flew in from the Philippines for the first time in 18 years. She has really bad alzheimers and she probably won’t be around much longer so she got permission to see them. It was so great to get to meet all of her family. They’re so sweet and funny. It was really cool because her uncle is the manager for Journey, so they had all kinds of cool stories.

They told us some of the funniest stories about her grandma. Apparently she woke up in the middle of the night a bunch of times and kept wandering around the hotel saying, “I’ve got to cook rice…I’ve got to cook rice…”.

Oh there’s so much more to tell but the library is kicking us out, so I’ve got to go. More to come next week! Don’t forget to write!

Love you all lots!

Sister Draney