Monday, May 14, 2012

BURNT TOAST


Ok, before I tell the story of the burnt toast from the subject line, I have a couple other things I gotta write first.

First of all, it was so nice to talk to everyone last night! It was a little hard but it was still good! I miss everyone so much but I'm so glad that I can write every week and call home twice a year. If you look at it this way, I only have two more phone calls and then I'm home! haha But since those phone calls are so spread out, emails each week will have to do for now! And sorry it was such bad connection, we have horrible service where we live. Luckily at Christmas time we can Skype! Yay!! :)

Ok, so last Monday (the 7th) after I emailed, we went to the church and had a Zone activity! We played Volleyball! It was such a blast! The funniest part was when I caught the ball with my face! I laughed so hard! I'm just glad it didn't hurt and then I didn't get a nose bleed, that would not have been fun! I was kinda sad when we had to leave to go grocery shopping. I didn't want to because it was fun! I'm not very good at Volleyball but that's ok, it was just a good time!

Then that night, we had a FHE lesson at the Wilson's home like we have been doing for the last few weeks. But this time their grandson and his girlfriend were there! (They aren't members...) So we had a lesson that really focused on them and helping them come to know if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is just the basics of what we believe. Faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, Repentance, Baptism, Recieving the gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. It was such an amazing lesson! I bore my testimony right at the beginning and of course I cried and from there on it was just a very spirit-filled lesson. I'm hoping that when we go back again tonight, they will be there again and we can teach them about the Restoration of the Gospel. We also bore our testimonies at the end and gave a soft commitment to be baptized, meaning we said "when you come to find out that these things are true, will you be baptized?" And they said yes! So we have to keep working with them! Sister Wilson is someone who has such big faith that her grandchildren will be baptized, it's amazing to see her faith! The only problem though, is that they don't live in our area so we don't know how that will work if we keep teaching them and if they choose to be baptized. I guess we will come to that when it happens... But it was just such a good lesson! They are great people and they are looking for something more in their lives! Oh, and we didn't even get finished with the lesson we had planned because the spirit was so strong that we felt like we needed to talk about eternal families! And that was just really cool. It's amazing how much the spirit helps in lessons!

On Tuesday we went to City Hall to ask about volunteer opportunities. We met a less active member a couple weeks ago and she works in the Emergency Preparedness area of the city and I told them how at home mom is really into that kind of stuff and I'm starting to get into it too so that's something that we would really like to help her with (and not to mention, hopefully help in bringing her back to church...) So when we got there, we started filling out paper and she heard us there so she came up and talked to us and was so excited! She said she already has projects for us to do! So this week we are going over to help and I'm so excited! It will be a lot of fun!

Also on Tuesday we went to the home of a former potential investigator to see if we could talk to her and hopefully teach her. She let us in and we talked for an hour and it was just so great! She never was really able to talk to the Elders in the past because they would always come when her husband wasn't home so they just stood at the door and talked. But it was nice since we are Sisters that we were able to go in! We asked her if she would like to go on a tour of the church and she said yes! So on Thursday morning we had a tour! It was my first one and I was so nervous, but it was good.  The spirit was definitely there! At the end of the tour, we give a quick first lesson about the Restoration and that turned out really good, minus the fact that I drew a complete blank right in the middle of a sentence and then from there I just didn't know what to do. Luckily Sister Davidson was there and she picked up and the lesson turned our well! We both bore our testimonies at the end and she said that she really liked the story of Joseph Smith and the First Vision. We invited her to church on Sunday, especially with it being Mother's Day, but she didn't come :( So we're going to go back this week and talk to her some more and hopefully get more lessons in! Keeping my fingers crossed and prayers are being said constantly for her! I know that this gospel will help her in her life and with her family and hopefully she realizes it too.

On Wednesday the 9th, Sister Davidson had a meeting with all the Zone Leaders since she's the new Sister Trainer and so I was able to spend the day with my MTC companion, Sister Lehman, and her companion, Sister Filimoehala (Sister Fili...) It was such a good day! They had a lesson set up with a 19 year old girl who has friends who are members of the church and she's been an on and off investigator for about a year or so now. It was such an amazing lesson! Before we got to the institute building at Mt. SAC where we taught her, Sister Fili said that if any of us feel like we should commit her, just do it, no hesitations. So I didn't say much until about 20 minutes into the lesson but then I shared a scripture here and there and shared some thoughts and that was it. Well, after I read one of the scriptures (I can't remember now which one it was) I felt the spirit so strongly that I commited her to baptism. She sat there for a minute and said that that's one thing that she's been thinking of for a long time! She's worried that if she joins the church, her family will disown her. Well, we talked about it for about 15 minutes and then we had her pray to ask Heavenly Father if baptism is what He wanted her to do. Her prayer was AMAZING!!! The only other time I heard a more amazing prayer was in my last class of institute before my mission given by a student with down syndrome, that was the best prayer I've ever heard! Anyway, we sat there in silence for about 10 minutes and then Sister Fili started to talk and said how they had prayed about a baptismal date for her and that is June 3rd. We talked for a few more minutes and Julia said yes to that date! It was just the most amazing feeling ever to be in that lesson! There were so many tears it was crazy! But that's because the spirit was so strong and we knew that baptism is Julia's next step. We understand that it will be hard for her to go against what her family wants but she knows that she needs to do it. I don't know why I was so lucky to have been apart of that lesson but I'm glad I was! It has helped me to know where I want to get with my future investigators. I've knewn that's where we want to get all along but to actually see and be apart of that was amazing!

Ok, so on Thursday morning I was getting ready and I smelt some horrible smell out in the kitchen. I ignored it for just a couple minutes cause I was in the bathroom and Sister Davidson was in our room so I figured she had smelt it to and was looking for it. Well, I went back to our room and she was still in there so I went to the kitchen and there was smoke EVERYWHERE!!! In the kitchen, the front room, and in the tv room! It was so scary! Sister Davidson had put in some toast and the setting on the toaster was off somehow and it was burning the toast! I ran to the toaster and there were small flames in it, so I yelled for her and said there was a fire! I turned off the toaster and unplugged it and didn't know what to do from there. I froze! luckily the fire wasn't big so we just let it dwindle out in the toaster but the smoke was so nasty! We opened up windows and doors and even the garage door to hopefully get it out. Well, it's been four days and the smell is finally all gone! It was so scary!! I'm just very beyond thankful to my Heavenly Father for keeping the flames small and keeping us safe! I don't know what we would have done if something worse than that had happened! It ended up being a little funny because that day was Sister Davidson's half way mark and we had been trying to figure out what she could burn. Well, there we go, burnt toast for Sister Davidson't half way celebration! :)

Also that morning, after the church tour, we had District Meeting. We have a new District Leader after and Emergency Transfer (don't know why there was an ET but it keeps me wondering LOL It doesn't matter why but it is kinda interesting...) Well, our new DL, Elder Martinez is so amazing! He is so intune with the Spirit! It was the best DM we've had since I got here! Then that night we asked him to help us in our finding new investigators and he told us that he prayed about it and he wanted us to read our Patriarchal Blessings and our answers would come from the talents mentioned in our blessings! It was so cool to go read mine and see what the Spirit was able to come up with and teach me. It was just so amazing! I'm so thankful for Elder Martinez and his willingness and love of the gospel to be so intune with the Spirit!

Well, I'm running out of time and that's about all I have to write for this week but just wanted to wish Happy Birthdays to Jane Orton tomorrow, Micah Palm on the 17th and Jason McNeece on the 18th! Hope you guys all have wonderful birthdays! Love you!

And also, WELCOME HOME to Sister Wheatley the 1st :) I'm so happy to hear that you're coming home today and that I was able to share a month and a half of our missions together even though we were in different states! :) Love you tons!

Love you all so much! Until next week :)
-Sister Wheatley the 3rd :)




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