Hello again.
Another week has zoomed by and here I am sitting at a computer unsure how to start. I love the gospel SO much. I love the spirit and being on a mission. What an AMAZING experience it has been.
This week has been great. It was a little unique and different as far as normal missionary life goes but it was such an awesome week.
So the week started off with exchanges. I dont know if I have mentioned this before in my last couple emails, but because there are 6 sisters in Tallahassee, President has asked us to start doing companion exchanges with each other. It has been a really great experience to be able to work in the other areas and with all the other sisters. This week i went to 2nd ward with sister Thomson. Let me just tell you how much I MISS the experiences that come with a family ward. Crazy Less actives, Old people, Black people, rude people, funny people. You just dont have those experiences contacting on campus like you do tracting out neighborhoods. First we went to see a really nice Less active lady who lives at a Sr. Center and she was in the lunchroom eating when we showed up and so we sat and visited with her and her table mates. I LOVE old people. They are so funny and so nice and tell you the same story like 6 times in the course of 30 minutes. As we walked down the hallways we could hear a lady singing at the top of her lungs and when we finally reached this sisters room, we asked her one question and in fine southern form, she talked for a whole hour. Then we went tracting and to see a couple investigators. First was a lady named Tara who has a jehovahs witness son who kept coming in and interrupting the lessons telling her that because she puts up a christmas tree every year and has angel statue things on her wall that she worships the devil. We shared jacob 32:3 with her where it talks about how angels speak by the power of the holy ghost and that there are both good and bad angels. THEN We taught this nice black man named john, and we taught him about the gospel of jesus christ. I had a really really strong prompting to ask him to be baptized and i thought I was crazy because he wasnt my investigator and it wasnt my area, but listening I did it anyways. He talked about how he needs to go back to his church in quincy to ask God if this is the church he needs to come to haha and then I didnt feel like I needed to push it any further and so we left it at that. The next day we went out the the country into a town called Monticello where the people are cold and dont really like the missionaries but by doing service the sisters have been able to soften peoples hearts a little bit. We ate brunch with a memeber and I learned that honey is really good on biscuts and gravy. weird. Then we saw another awesome black lady who I could barely understand (its been a while since I have taught anyone with a thick southern/Ebonics accent) She was so funny! She talked and talked and talked and we barely made it through reading the introduction of the book of mormon with her because she went on so many tangents. haha I hope I get to go back to a family ward, preferably out in the country somewhere at least one more time haha :).
Wednesday we were brought a new investigator, Corrinne, by the 1st ward sisters. She is GOLDEN. She has been dating an LDS boy for about 5 months and has gone to church with him many times and feels the spirit and wants to know for herself if it is true. His family watched the Joseph Smith restoration DVD with her and when we asked her what she thought of it she said it made more sense than anything she has ever heard before. When she asked his family about what she needed to do they said that she needed to meet with the missionaries and decide for herself if she wants to get baptized. We gave her a book of mormon and she came to church Sunday. She said that when she knows that the book of mormon is true that she will be baptized, so that was really exciting!
Then Thursday, Friday and Saturday sister Pulsipher and I read the whole book of mormon in 3 days. A couple weeks back we were role playing and I told her to teach me about the book of mormon and she said something like "ah, this one is always so hard for me because I know the book of mormon is true and everything but I just dont feel like I have a really strong testimony of it, so it hard for me to teach about it" I thought about that for a couple days (knowing that this is one of the most important principles for us to teach about) and after praying about how to strengthen her testimony of the book of mormon the idea came to me to read it in a very short amount of time. Back when Hurricane Issac was suppose to hit Tallahassee, we were going to spend 3 days in the church and president Jensen said if that happened that we should try to read the whole book of mormon. So I talked with him about my concern and asked him if it would be ok if we took 3 days over a weekend, where proslyting is less productive on campus anyways, and read the whole thing to be able to strengthen her (and my) testimony. He said yes, and so this weekend we did it. We read 177 pages a day and it took about 10 hours a day. Let me just tell you how awesome of an experience that was! I thought that we would be so burnt out after reading for a couple hours but the opposite happened, the more we read and the more we got into it the less we even wanted to take breaks for lunch and for dinner. We would read together for a while, then on our own to a certain spot and then together again. Even by the second day I could see sister Pulsiphers testimony strengthen and her motivation and desires for the work go up. We finished saturday night at 9:05pm. It was AWESOME!!!!
I have a very strong testimony of the book of mormon and this experience only strengthened it. I KNOW that it is the word of god. I can feel the power of the book when I read it. I felt it stronger than ever as I read for long periods of time this weekend. I know that it is a book that can both answer our questions directly and can bring a spirit into your life that will bring you closer to the spirit to be able to gain revelation on problems we have. I know that having a testimony of the book of mormon and of Joseph smith is the foundation of knowing that this is Christs church restored again to the earth. I know that the promise in the beginning of the book "that a man will get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book" is a true promise, because its one made by God through his chosen prophet, and I know that if there is any doubt in your mind about any principle of the gospel that reading and pondering and praying about the book of mormon is the solution. It testifies of our savior Jesus Christ, that he lives and that he did infact die for each of us. That if we look to him and follow after him, that we too will live eternally with our heavenly father. I know that that is true.
So then yesterday at church brother Johnson (in the bishopric) asked if I would be willing to speak in a couple weeks for 'bring a friend to church day' (which is a day that they pick every semester to have everyone bring a friend or two and all the talks and lessons are all geared to the basics of the gospel, then we have a potluck afterwards) and I said yes and asked what he would like me to speak on and wouldn't you know it.. I'm speakin' on the book of mormon! I am really excited :)
Its been a really great week!
Love you all!
Sister Webb
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