Monday, May 28, 2012

May 28, 2011 letter

A poem to start off this weeks letter: 

The book is blue, the church is true. 
missionary work is the greatest, and the blessings are too!!!!! 

There are so many great things that happened this week, I dont even know where to start, so i will start with something random: I have a journal that I keep of all my companion's "things".... you could say its a list of their quirks, Things that are unique to just them that I will always think of when I think about serving with them. One is sister Hirst "things" is random outburst of excitement. We will be driving down the road in silence or sitting at our desk reading something or writing in my journal and she explodes with excitement over something. That is how i feel right now, I want to just explode and tell you how great missionary work is and how great it feels to be an instrument in the lords hand to bring souls unto him, and to make a difference. I cant tell you everything because there is so much, but I will tell you a few stories: 

#1- The greatness of the members. They take care of the missionaires so well in this ward. They are all so willing to do anything for us. They give us rides, they give our investigators rides, they come to lessons, they give us referrals, They fellowship and introduce themselves whenever we have someone knew at church with us. They feed us every night even when my companion has every food allergy known to man (Dinners have actually gone up since she got here, poor elders... we are booked almost through june and they are only 1/3 of the way full). she is pretty much the talk of the ward because every member has taken it as a challenge to feed her something she can eat besides fruits and vegis. Bro Delp is a bug guy and so he comes to spray our apartments for all the nasty bugs that reside here in Florida. Mama Hollett and sister atchley brought us fruit and vegis for free (even though we told them not to because we were out of money). They dont take no for an answer, and they are great! (Mondays title for the day was "Do you have a need for a watermelon?" because that is what mama hollett called and asked us and her only requirement was that we tell her if it was good. So when we told her it was delicious she said "hot dog, Im gonna have to stop and buy me another one today then!") They are just great.

#2- Tracting experience: We were tracting for like 2 hours and didnt find anyone....BUT there was this nice old lady who must have been 90 or so who we talked to for like half an hour and she kept telling us about all her bibles she has. They when were were about to leave she said "would you like to come inside and see my bible?" SURE we'd love to see your bible. So we went inside and this bible was the COOLEST things ive ever seen. It was 100 years old (her grandmother bought it for 20 cents in 1920) and it was huge (like 9x12 and 7 inches think) it has really cool calligraphic lettering with gold leafing and tons of illustrated and painted pictures in it. It was awesome. Mix being an art major and a missionary together and this bible made my day, it was beautiful. She says that she only lets people she trusts see it, so apparently we made a good impression on her in the 1/2 hour that we were there. (Saturdays title was "HOLY bible!")

#3- This week we've been all about "expecting miracles". and that was the title for Wednesday because it was just an all around good day. But specifically because there was this group of apartments we went to tract. Last week i felt prompted to go see a less active i saw on the list but we didnt get to her, then when we asked the RS presidency a couple days later if there was anyone we should go see she gave us the same name, so we figured that she really needed us for something; but when we got there she had moved out her house had a key lock box on it and a for rent sign in the front yard. We were a little confused and moved on and then later that night we were in the area again and had some time to go finding so we decided to tract, my mind went to that complex. we decided maybe there was someone we were supose to find there. We tracted the whole thing with no success and we were almost at the end when we knocked on a door and a guy named Chad answered. He was really surprised to see us and i was a little confused. Turns out Chad was a missionary who served in Elko in sister hirsts home ward and shes been wanting to find him to say hi since shes been here. She was in a bit of a down mood but running into him was an answer to her prayers and lifted her spirits alot. It was awesome.  

#4- Yesterday was the best day this week by far. First off we decided to fast for the work because #1- we dont have alot of investigators despite all our efforts and hard work and #2- because I've never really gained a solid testimony of fasting and I thought that it was about time that i got one (and I sure got one).  So saturday we started our fast and ended it yesterday afternoon. We had the greatest day. Diane coming to church again, thats two times for her! Then after church we went to teach Cheryl, she is the referral that brother keisling gave to us last week. We asked her about her blessing he gave her and she said she had never felt anything like it, that she couldnt describe how she felt but that the best way she could say it was "the most overwhelming feeling of peace and comfort she has ever felt in her life." We talked to her about the spirit and what that feels like, and The priesthood power; That it wasnt them giving her a blessing, but that was from god. She didnt get to watch the restoration DVD last week so we watched it with her and the spirit was SO strong. When we were done we asked her what she liked about it and what stood out to her she talked about baptism and the emblems of the sacrament. then she told us about some really incredible experiences she has been having the last couple nights that only point to god preparing her for something. We taught her about the book of mormon and she got so excited about it and asked if she could keep it. She kept talking about the energy in the room and how she could feel it and we committed her to baptism when she gets her answer (which she pretty much has already gotten) and then we taught her to pray and she prayed out loud for us and it was SUCH A GOOD PRAYER my favorite part was when she said something like "Father, I know that there is something big coming, I can feel it. I dont know what it is but you do. I just ask that you will lead me to know what it is" We are going back to teach her wednesday and i cant wait. She is golden. 
Then when we didnt think sunday could get any better we went tracting (in the 102 degree weather) and we only knocked 4 doors and found 2 new investigators. One of which immediately let us in (that doesnt happen much). He was a man from puerto rico who had seen the missionaries alot there but never listened to their message. 
We were so close to the spirit all day and there were so many blessings that happened, I know it was because of our fast.

Sorry for all the gramatical errors. They are not the best worded paragraphs Ive ever written, but I dont want to go back and edit them. 
Hope yall had a great week too! 
Sister Webb

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