I Love Being a Missionary!

Brook is doing great, she came to church, we committed her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, and next Saturday we are going to teach her the Plan of Salvation and commit her to be baptized.  She seems to be prepared to hear the gospel at this time and hopefully she will be able to attend the baptism of Daniell next Saturday!!  JR is great in everything but not coming to church, which is a problem.  He says he will come once he gets his teeth in 2 weeks, so we will have to see as time goes on.  Katie is moving to Viselia soon, she is doing great, the only thing holding her back is she is living with her boyfriend, the problem is they a 6 year old daughter and she can't afford to live by herself, so they need to get married.  Angela, for whatever reason we have not seen her in too long, but we saw her last week and are going to call today to set an appointment so we can bring a member and teach her the Plan of Salvation in her home.  Robert told us he would come to church again and didn't, he says he wants to change, but if he keeps not keeping appointments or commitments, then he is not ready at this time.  Jorge we were not able to get contact info for, so we do not know how he is doing.  The Hakker family was not home for our appointment so we are back to square on and try and find them home.  At the moment, Brook and Angela are keeping commitments, they are reading and came to church so they are counted as progressing investigators and they acting for themselves which is awesome.  I forgot to take pictures again, I can never really think of exciting things that would qualify for a picture.  I enjoy when things go as planned, which takes lot of effort and I really love seeing people change by the Spirit and feeling the Spirit more often as it is so central to everything I do.  I don't think I anticipated peoples confusion and lack of knowledge, like saying everyone can be a prophet and how so many people are just complacent so we have to really work to get their attention and want things to change and get better.  I had lots of raisen bran for breakfast last week, so I need to branch out my options.  I do not thing I have had a peanut butter and banana sandwich because whenever I buy bananas, they go brown before I eat them.  I have been having lots of ham, cheese and lettuce sandwiches recently.  I think I just struggle with wanting to know what I want to buy.  I think just having them fall in love with the Book of Mormon and coming to a deeper understanding of the Atonement stick out to me at the time.  I am not sure what I like the most, possibly prophets and the Book of Mormon.  Also, I have been thinking about buying a smaller set of scriptures because my quad is pretty heavy and bulky when it comes to biking.

This week was so great!  It started out difficult at times as we had 7 or 8 appointments fall through in the first few days of the week, but we kept at it and things worked out.  We started off the week with like 4 referrals to contact, most referrals are media referrals and so the people give us very confused looks but we had some for missionaries and so we had some hope there.   We were able to meet one, Frank, but he is very busy and so we have not been able to find a time to come back and teach him yet.  Tuesday we had a great lesson with JR and helped answer some of his questions about the Book of Mormon.  The other highlight was meeting the Woodsford family, another family that my companion had not ever found home in the past 6 months.  We set a return appointment but they had to cancel so we will see them again Thursday evening where hopefully we will find out how we can help him.  Wednesday was so much fun because I was on exchange with my district leader, Elder Tongish who has only been out 5 months but he is so amazing.  We had 3 appointments with referrals that fell through but we saw Angela for the first time in 2 weeks and it was great to see her again.  Later in the day we met a member on our records, brother Flores, that has been going to a different church for years now but said he wouldn't mind if we continued to drop by.  We talked to lots of people and got some phone numbers and addresses so we will see if any of them are interested this week.  On Saturday we were able to see all of our investigators and teach 4 of the 5 and leave them with commitments to read the Book of Mormon and to come to church.  Sunday was a big broadcast to 281 stakes and there were some amazing talks on how to build our faith, to not fear, and how we can answer questions and be respectful of others.  It was wonderful to feel the Spirit as the General Authorities bore there witness of the Savior.  What made it better was that Katie and her daughter made it, along with Angela with her young son, Brook with 3 kids, and Sister Perkins and her husband, who is starting to come to church more often.  I love being a missionary!