June 18, 2012 letter

"Faith is the courage to face things as they are"

Every week I say that I am going to keep it short, and then when I look back at it... its not that short at all. haha so this MIGHT be short, who knows though, once I start typing it just keeps coming. 

Transfers are this week and usually I wonder what is going to happen, but I haven't even thought about it at all in the last couple days and that is probably because this is only the second transfer that nothing has happened to me. The spirit is so diverse to me. I have noticed that God prepares you for everything in your life, spiritual or temporal, but only if you are listening. This is just one of those examples. The two transfers I havent moved or gotten a new companion I havent thought about them at all, but the ones that a change was coming I could feel it. I know that is so meaningless and small but I know that if there are things that we need to do or changes that are going to be made it our lives, God prepares us for them through his spirit. What a random thought.... ask my companion, I am full of random thoughts. Everyday I ask her really random gospel things that have no importance to my eternal salvation but are fun to think about and everyday she just says.. "Wow... that is a great question. I dunno" 

This week was outa control. First off Wednesday was the craziest day of them all. We were leaving the church after spending some time getting to know the mormon.org website a little better (by request of the president) and we were stopped at the stop sign when out of no where a biker collided with our car. I swear it was straight out of a movie, the biker flipped off her bike rolled up on the windshield. We both screamed and it was super scary. but she was fine. She had a little scraping on her hand and that was it. The car has a few dents and scratches but we got off pretty lucky. We were both shaken up and it made us 1/2 hour late to our appointment with Diane, but that was ok she still let us come... the lesson still went really really well and Diane committed to stop smoking (or at least try) which is huge for her because shes been addicted to cigarettes since she was 11. Its going to be tough for her, but she wants to do it!

So besides that the first 1/2 the week was slow. We had zeros across the board for all our goals up until like saturday...NIGHT. (thats a bit of an exaggeration but seriously... we were trying so hard with no fruit) We joked that we need to start setting a 'seeds planted' goal so that at the end of the night we can see a number for all of our hard work. But we kept praying and working and being obediently diligent and God always answers prayers and he came through again! We spent the whole day saturday finding. We walked like 10 miles and have blisters and 100 misquito bites between the two of us to show for it. But it was so worth it because we had alot of really cool miracles happen. First off was a kid named John. We walked a huge loop of some of the busier streets in our area to go contacting. we had gone about 2.5 miles and we were almost back to our car when we passed a bus stop and I felt like we needed to stay there for a minute. I couldnt decide if it was because I was tired and my feet hurt and I wanted a break or if it was the spirit, but either way it sounded like a great idea. So we sat down and not 2 minutes later up walks a kid who is 18 years old and is also waiting for the bus. I felt a huge prompting that we needed to talk to him so we struck up a conversation and he started asking a whole bunch of questions. He was awesome he had just gotten out of jail for drug abuse and was searching for god and how to put his life back on track. We taught him about what we do as missionaires and about the book of mormon. Again as we were talking I felt the prompting that I needed to give him a BOM and our number right them because the bus would come soon and it would be too late if I waited. So i stopped him mid sentence and said "just incase the bus comes soon, I want to give you this and invite you to read it and to pray about it because it will help you so much and bring you closer to god and help you to find truth" (or something to that effect) and 30 seconds later the bus came. We got his number and hopefully we can meet with him sometime.

The rest of the day was spent just going from place to place without any real success besides planting seeds and the last thing we did was to go see a less active lady. She was kind of on the way home from where we were at so we could have driven but we felt like maybe we should walk. So we took the car home and back tracted to her apartment on foot. We got there and she couldnt talk, so we invited her and her brother to church and headed back home. On the way we were starting to feel a little discourage because we had spent hours trying to find investigators and had none. Sis Hirst said a prayer that someone that needed the gospel would be placed in our path on the way home and low and behold, God answered our prayer instantly. In the parking lot that we were passing was a man and he was far away. Alot of the times if they arent right by us to talk to we just pass them by, but we had just prayed for people so we turned around and headed towards him. We didnt talk long but started out with our  usual "hi were missionaries from the church of Jesus christ of latter day saints.... "and he just smiled and we asked him if he had every talked to missionaries like us before and he said no, but he was still smiling. So we told him a little about the restoration and gave him a pamphlet and a book of mormon and asked him if he would read then made the promise that it would help him with whatever he is going through in life. His response surprised me a little because we had only been talking to him for a couple minutes he said "I know. (so sure of it) I think this is exactly what I need right now" we set up an appointment to teach him next weekend. Then we kept on, happy to have just one new investigator for the week when we passed a couple. It was almost too late when both of us turned and started talking to them at the same time (we do that alot). The girl is someone that just found god in rehab. She had been cutting herself and hated herself all her life but finally figured out the spirit and how much god loves her so she craves anything spiritual. We gave them both a book of mormon and set up an appointment to teach them too. After we gave them the BOM she said "yall have really touch me, and so i want to give you something back... can I sing for you?" So on the corner of a busy Tallahassee street she sang Amazing grace to us. It was so appropriate for that situation and for our day. 

...yep, see what I mean this is so long already. I cant stop once I start typing. 

One more story: Yesterday the spanish elders passed on two of their investigators to us because they are both leaving. Its a mom and her 10 yr old daughter. They have been learning for a while and come to church every week and the daughter wants to be baptized, so we gained two SUPER solid gators yesterday too! God is good. 

I am so grateful for my mission and for all the precious experiences I have every single day to come to know and understand just how much our Heavenly father loves us and how he places the spirit in our lives to help us and to teach us and to show us the way. I have noticed alot in my studies over the last few days how much the scriptures talk about coming to know the father through prayer and that if we pray all the time that satan will not have power over us. I know that to be true. If you want to know God, talk to him and then listen for when he talks back. When things begin to go wrong in life its because have forgotten that relationship to the divine and allowed satan to influence us ever so slightly. Daily prayer is KEY to staying on the straight and narrow. 

I love you all! 
Have a great week
Sister Webb 

picture: Daughters of one of the less actives... the back packs are bigger than they are. SO CUTE!