December is here! I can barely believe it! There
certainly is more than enough snow on the ground here to indicate that it's
December. We got so much snow this week. One day was white-out conditions and I
got lots of compliments on my snow-driving skills. How that for an Arizona
This week was really good! Last Monday we had dinner with the W--- and Sister W--- asked how one of our investigators, C---, was doing. We hadn't seen her since her kids were sick because she was never home when we stopped by. So as we were out and about that night we decided to stop by because we thought that maybe Sister W--- was prompted to ask how C--- was.
Not only was C--- home, but she invited us in right away! We had a great lesson and were able to answer a lot of her questions. Her husband was asleep on the couch for the whole discussion which was kind of uncomfortable because we didn't know what he would say when he woke up and found us in his house. It turned out to be okay. He was in the military and his unit was full of LDS guys who he said, "tried to convert him". Hopefully we will be more successful than they were! They are both so great! We will be visiting them again soon hopefully (December is busy for them).
Then again, no ones lives seem to ever get less hectic. Isn't technology supposed to make our lives easier? Instead we just find more things to fill up the time it gives us; for better or for worse.
We also had our first lesson with A---, the elder's investigator, this week! She is so great and has so many sincere questions! She is very wary of false prophets because she grew up in a cult where the leader was a "prophet" but would tell them to do things against what was in the Bible.
She was very comforted to know that God never speaks anything contrary to what He has spoken and therefore, nothing that our leaders say ever contradicts what the Lord has already spoken.
We had dinner with the C--- this week and he told us about the study he did of the precepts that are found in the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith said that, "a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book", so Brother C--- made a study of all of the precepts in the Book of Mormon and so far he has found over 300 different precepts! That is a lot... I asked him how part two of his study was going, the application, and we had a laugh together about how it was definitely a work in progress.
President Mecham has asked us to teach the leaders of all of the quorums and auxiliaries the Restoration, so we stopped by the B--- this week to teach them and we had Brother B--- pretend to be his friend from work that he is sharing the gospel with. It was a tough lesson because his friend doesn't believe in God and it was kind of nerve-wracking because they had their RM son there who just got back from his mission, so I kind of felt like we were being graded, but it all went well.
We spent the week in J--- empty house that she's trying to sell because theC---
We drove out to the S--- on a really foggy night. The visibility was terrible and we had to drive a lot slower than normal. We had a great lesson with the S--- and got to meet their son, B---. He even stayed for most of the lesson! I wish we had more miles so we could go out to visit them more frequently.
We also visited a retirement home and sang Christmas carols to them. They just lit up when we talked to them about the Plan of Salvation. It was really amazing! You never get too old to have the gospel speak to your spirit.
I thought of a lot of spiritual parallels as we drove through the fog. It reminded me of Lehi's dream and the mists of darkness. I felt like the yellow line on the road was the iron rod, because if I stuck to it I knew I would be safe and that we would arrive at our destination in one piece.
When cars were coming the other way I could see ahead to where the road was leading and it reminded me of being a light to others so that they can find their way through confusing times.
Sometimes you can only see far enough ahead to take a few steps, but if you keep moving forward the Lord will light the way before you that you will eventually reach where you want to be. The thing is, you have to keep moving forward. If you stop and wait you will never make it to your destination and you won't be able to reach the safety and warmth that awaits you.
Thanksgiving was great! I woke up with a dry throat and by mid-day it turned into such a sore throat that I couldn't talk, swallow, or yawn. It was quite miserable. I took NyQuil at 4pm (luckily it didn't make me tired) and sucked on cough drops all day. I joked with Sister Lasson that that was the Lord's way of making sure I didn't gain weight from the 7 dinners we planned to go to.
It was so painful that I thought it might be strep, so we only went to three dinners. We went to all of them with the elders. We had a big break in between the first dinner and the other two, so the four of us played board games. I won all of them..not to brag or anything ;) haha actually, technically elder Denslow and I won one because Pictionary was a team game. The Welch's were teasing us that we were all on the same brain wave because we would sometimes guess the drawings in less than five seconds, and the drawings would be really terrible. We played Jenga and I discovered that I am a pro Jenga player. We also played Scrabble with cards. That was really fun! We had a great time. Hands down better than my first Thanksgiving here.
The four of us joke that we are all going to get transferred this transfer because we have way to much fun together.
We had one of our dinners with A--- and she got her answer! Now she is pondering all that she will have to give up when she gets baptized because part of her family is super anti LDS. She was talking to me and she said that she didn't know if she had got her answer, but she felt really peaceful when she prayed about it. I about jumped out of my skin and showed her D&C 6:22-23 and she was so amazed! She just stood there quietly for a moment.
She also was talking to us as she was making the final touches on dinner and telling us how she didn't understand how bad things could happen to good people and why God would let people do such terrible things to each other and I told her that God allows bad people to harm others so that His judgements and punishments will be just. And she just kind of nodded and kept working. Then she slowly turned around and said, "say that again". So I repeated myself, and it turned out that tons of people have asked her that question and she never had an answer for them, but when I answered her question she was amazed because it was the answer she had been looking for! Then we spent some time readingAlma 14:11 and Alma
It was a really amazing night and it was especially cool because I could speak just fine whenever I was teaching, but when I wasn't my throat would hurt so bad I could barely talk. It was such a blessing.
There are some moments as a missionary when it's hard to control yourself when the truth "clicks" with someone. You just want to jump up and down and shout for joy! But of course we can't do that. It would be undignified...not to mention it would probably scare them...and drive out the Spirit. But it is just so amazing to witness! I'm so blessed to be able to witness so many people receive their answer and come unto Christ!
We did a lot of "He is the Gift" tracting this week. "He is the Gift" is part of a new church wide initiative. It's an amazing video and if you haven't seen it yet, you need to! It's on YouTube and on Christmas.mormon.org. It is so amazing and the First Presidency have asked us to pass out at least 10 cards for it each day and we have already seen miracles!
We spent one whole evening doing "He is the Gift" tracting without much success and we were heading home and I felt that we should pull over at this one house, so we did and they definitely weren't interested. So we hopped back in the car and kept going and we decided to try a few more before we called it a night. So we pulled over and hopped out and started knocking. No one was home and we decided to just knock one more door even though it was really late. The man opened up the door and asked what we were doing out so late and we told him that we were out showing a message about Christmas and Jesus Christ and he invited us in!
We ended up sharing the video with him and his wife and then it lead right into the Book of Mormon and it turns out he is really interested! His name is C--- and he believes that no church on earth is true, but he believes strongly in God. He is very intrigued by the Book of Mormon and asked if he could borrow a copy to read it, so of course we said yes!
We had a return appointment set up with him and H--- and we are so excited! He and his wife are very interested and we can't wait to see what happens with them!
We had a lesson with the M--- this week in which brother M--- tried to convince us that the Bible says that Barack Obama is Lucifer in the flesh. It was quite interesting and I had to keep myself from laughing. It was something I had definitely never heard before! Then someone else tried to convince us that Walmart was the multiple headed beast from the Revelations.
We got stuck this week in our little two wheel drive car. Luckily we made it out without Sister Aller having to get out and push. It makes me wonder what people do when there is only one person in the car and they get stuck. Do they just put it in neutral and get out and push it?
We had a great time shoveling snow this week, Brother M--- blames it on me because I asked him if it was unusual not to have snow by Thanksgiving. Shoveling snow is quite the workout! I actually enjoy it, mostly because it's for other people. If it was something I had to do to my own house I don't think I would enjoy it as much.
We also got to be the bearers of some much needed blessings for two struggling families in the ward. One of them is a couple who are in their 90s and she just fell and broke her hip this week. And the other is a large family with a single, divorced mother who just found out her son is really sick and may die unless he can get a bone marrow transplant soon.
We found two envelopes with their names on them and took them to their homes because there was no other identifier on it and they were filled with money! It was really a blessing to be able to bring those to them and watch how touched they were to be on the end of some church member's thoughtfulness. I really hope everything works out for them both. Bone marrow matches are tough things to find.
It turned out to be a great week even though I'm still under the weather. I keep joking with Sister Lasson that I'd better not still be sick for the Christmas zone conference this Thursday!
I love you all and remember to keep Christ in Christmas this year! I'd love to hear any good stories you have resulting from your efforts to be more Christlike!
Lots of Love,
Sister Draney
This week was really good! Last Monday we had dinner with the W--- and Sister W--- asked how one of our investigators, C---, was doing. We hadn't seen her since her kids were sick because she was never home when we stopped by. So as we were out and about that night we decided to stop by because we thought that maybe Sister W--- was prompted to ask how C--- was.
Not only was C--- home, but she invited us in right away! We had a great lesson and were able to answer a lot of her questions. Her husband was asleep on the couch for the whole discussion which was kind of uncomfortable because we didn't know what he would say when he woke up and found us in his house. It turned out to be okay. He was in the military and his unit was full of LDS guys who he said, "tried to convert him". Hopefully we will be more successful than they were! They are both so great! We will be visiting them again soon hopefully (December is busy for them).
Then again, no ones lives seem to ever get less hectic. Isn't technology supposed to make our lives easier? Instead we just find more things to fill up the time it gives us; for better or for worse.
We also had our first lesson with A---, the elder's investigator, this week! She is so great and has so many sincere questions! She is very wary of false prophets because she grew up in a cult where the leader was a "prophet" but would tell them to do things against what was in the Bible.
She was very comforted to know that God never speaks anything contrary to what He has spoken and therefore, nothing that our leaders say ever contradicts what the Lord has already spoken.
We had dinner with the C--- this week and he told us about the study he did of the precepts that are found in the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith said that, "a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book", so Brother C--- made a study of all of the precepts in the Book of Mormon and so far he has found over 300 different precepts! That is a lot... I asked him how part two of his study was going, the application, and we had a laugh together about how it was definitely a work in progress.
President Mecham has asked us to teach the leaders of all of the quorums and auxiliaries the Restoration, so we stopped by the B--- this week to teach them and we had Brother B--- pretend to be his friend from work that he is sharing the gospel with. It was a tough lesson because his friend doesn't believe in God and it was kind of nerve-wracking because they had their RM son there who just got back from his mission, so I kind of felt like we were being graded, but it all went well.
We spent the week in J--- empty house that she's trying to sell because the
We drove out to the S--- on a really foggy night. The visibility was terrible and we had to drive a lot slower than normal. We had a great lesson with the S--- and got to meet their son, B---. He even stayed for most of the lesson! I wish we had more miles so we could go out to visit them more frequently.
We also visited a retirement home and sang Christmas carols to them. They just lit up when we talked to them about the Plan of Salvation. It was really amazing! You never get too old to have the gospel speak to your spirit.
I thought of a lot of spiritual parallels as we drove through the fog. It reminded me of Lehi's dream and the mists of darkness. I felt like the yellow line on the road was the iron rod, because if I stuck to it I knew I would be safe and that we would arrive at our destination in one piece.
When cars were coming the other way I could see ahead to where the road was leading and it reminded me of being a light to others so that they can find their way through confusing times.
Sometimes you can only see far enough ahead to take a few steps, but if you keep moving forward the Lord will light the way before you that you will eventually reach where you want to be. The thing is, you have to keep moving forward. If you stop and wait you will never make it to your destination and you won't be able to reach the safety and warmth that awaits you.
Thanksgiving was great! I woke up with a dry throat and by mid-day it turned into such a sore throat that I couldn't talk, swallow, or yawn. It was quite miserable. I took NyQuil at 4pm (luckily it didn't make me tired) and sucked on cough drops all day. I joked with Sister Lasson that that was the Lord's way of making sure I didn't gain weight from the 7 dinners we planned to go to.
It was so painful that I thought it might be strep, so we only went to three dinners. We went to all of them with the elders. We had a big break in between the first dinner and the other two, so the four of us played board games. I won all of them..not to brag or anything ;) haha actually, technically elder Denslow and I won one because Pictionary was a team game. The Welch's were teasing us that we were all on the same brain wave because we would sometimes guess the drawings in less than five seconds, and the drawings would be really terrible. We played Jenga and I discovered that I am a pro Jenga player. We also played Scrabble with cards. That was really fun! We had a great time. Hands down better than my first Thanksgiving here.
The four of us joke that we are all going to get transferred this transfer because we have way to much fun together.
We had one of our dinners with A--- and she got her answer! Now she is pondering all that she will have to give up when she gets baptized because part of her family is super anti LDS. She was talking to me and she said that she didn't know if she had got her answer, but she felt really peaceful when she prayed about it. I about jumped out of my skin and showed her D&C 6:22-23 and she was so amazed! She just stood there quietly for a moment.
She also was talking to us as she was making the final touches on dinner and telling us how she didn't understand how bad things could happen to good people and why God would let people do such terrible things to each other and I told her that God allows bad people to harm others so that His judgements and punishments will be just. And she just kind of nodded and kept working. Then she slowly turned around and said, "say that again". So I repeated myself, and it turned out that tons of people have asked her that question and she never had an answer for them, but when I answered her question she was amazed because it was the answer she had been looking for! Then we spent some time reading
It was a really amazing night and it was especially cool because I could speak just fine whenever I was teaching, but when I wasn't my throat would hurt so bad I could barely talk. It was such a blessing.
There are some moments as a missionary when it's hard to control yourself when the truth "clicks" with someone. You just want to jump up and down and shout for joy! But of course we can't do that. It would be undignified...not to mention it would probably scare them...and drive out the Spirit. But it is just so amazing to witness! I'm so blessed to be able to witness so many people receive their answer and come unto Christ!
We did a lot of "He is the Gift" tracting this week. "He is the Gift" is part of a new church wide initiative. It's an amazing video and if you haven't seen it yet, you need to! It's on YouTube and on Christmas.mormon.org. It is so amazing and the First Presidency have asked us to pass out at least 10 cards for it each day and we have already seen miracles!
We spent one whole evening doing "He is the Gift" tracting without much success and we were heading home and I felt that we should pull over at this one house, so we did and they definitely weren't interested. So we hopped back in the car and kept going and we decided to try a few more before we called it a night. So we pulled over and hopped out and started knocking. No one was home and we decided to just knock one more door even though it was really late. The man opened up the door and asked what we were doing out so late and we told him that we were out showing a message about Christmas and Jesus Christ and he invited us in!
We ended up sharing the video with him and his wife and then it lead right into the Book of Mormon and it turns out he is really interested! His name is C--- and he believes that no church on earth is true, but he believes strongly in God. He is very intrigued by the Book of Mormon and asked if he could borrow a copy to read it, so of course we said yes!
We had a return appointment set up with him and H--- and we are so excited! He and his wife are very interested and we can't wait to see what happens with them!
We had a lesson with the M--- this week in which brother M--- tried to convince us that the Bible says that Barack Obama is Lucifer in the flesh. It was quite interesting and I had to keep myself from laughing. It was something I had definitely never heard before! Then someone else tried to convince us that Walmart was the multiple headed beast from the Revelations.
We got stuck this week in our little two wheel drive car. Luckily we made it out without Sister Aller having to get out and push. It makes me wonder what people do when there is only one person in the car and they get stuck. Do they just put it in neutral and get out and push it?
We had a great time shoveling snow this week, Brother M--- blames it on me because I asked him if it was unusual not to have snow by Thanksgiving. Shoveling snow is quite the workout! I actually enjoy it, mostly because it's for other people. If it was something I had to do to my own house I don't think I would enjoy it as much.
We also got to be the bearers of some much needed blessings for two struggling families in the ward. One of them is a couple who are in their 90s and she just fell and broke her hip this week. And the other is a large family with a single, divorced mother who just found out her son is really sick and may die unless he can get a bone marrow transplant soon.
We found two envelopes with their names on them and took them to their homes because there was no other identifier on it and they were filled with money! It was really a blessing to be able to bring those to them and watch how touched they were to be on the end of some church member's thoughtfulness. I really hope everything works out for them both. Bone marrow matches are tough things to find.
It turned out to be a great week even though I'm still under the weather. I keep joking with Sister Lasson that I'd better not still be sick for the Christmas zone conference this Thursday!
I love you all and remember to keep Christ in Christmas this year! I'd love to hear any good stories you have resulting from your efforts to be more Christlike!
Lots of Love,
Sister Draney
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