Week 12

November 9, 2011

Hello family!!

I have LOTS of exciting news to share with you!!

1st of all... we found out about transfers this morning!!! Drum roll please....

I am going out to Kearney, NE as a full-proselyting missionary!! (That means I won't be serving in the Trail Center for the time being. Kinda sad!) I will be serving in the Grand Island 2nd ward! Kearney is out West and about 5 hours away from the Trail Center. So this will be a pretty big change! My new companion is Sister Ashbey and I hear she is amazing and super nice. I've also been told that Kearney is really flat and therefore colder. I am really excited for the new adventure! It will be weird being away from everybody though... I will miss being around all of the sisters and senior missionaries all of the time. Sister Ashbey and I will be the only sisters out there, surrounded in a sea of Elders. So it will be like what other sister missionaries experience in other missions. Not many other sisters get this experience to be far away and full-proselyting so this will be really cool. We'll be a pretty secluded out there but it will be awesome! We will get to really focus all of our efforts on finding people and teaching!! Yay!! Bring it on! :)

This past week has been one of the best weeks in the mission as far as seeing so many blessing and getting to find and teach SO MANY people!! It has been INCREDIBLE!!!!
This area has been kinda tough the past little while because people just don't answer doors or don't have time. That has been one of the biggest issues. BUT this week basically every door was answering, we had great discussions with people, and lots were interested! We had so many lessons and lots of new investigators. Also this week we set 3 people for baptism. Right now all of them are scheduled to be baptized on December 17th. Pretty exciting! I'll tell you about some of the amazing experiences we had...

-As we were walking down a street we came across Jake and R.J.! Two boys in the 20's who were really funny and cool. We started talking about God and prayer and they are both kind of skeptical about if there is a God. One of them was saying it was a nice idea but he wasn't sure. We had a really good discussion/ lesson about how prayers are answered and Heavenly Father hears us. Before we left we had a prayer all together on their drive way and after the prayer we gave Jake said, "Whoah! I felt that... in here! (pointing to his chest.)" THen R.J. was said, "Yeah man, did it get warm out here all of the sudden?" Then we were able to describe and talk about the Spirit and it gives us warm feelings like that. I love it when people recognize feelings of the Spirit. So they want to learn more and we're meeting with them tonight and then will probably have to turn them over to the singles ward. 

-Alright so this week we met a man named James who is in his 30's! We met his dad a few days before and he said we could come back and when we did we met James. He immediately let us in and we were able to get to know him and talk about Christ and introduce the Book of Mormon and challenge him to read and pray about it. He admitted it was inspired timing to be there that night because he told us that he was just praying to God and asking Him for help. He even showed us his facebook status that he had changed about 15 min before we came talking about how He knows prayer is real and how God is there for him. He is in very humble circumstances right now and will be able to receive a lot of strength from the gospel. He asked how he can become a part of the church and so at that point we gave him the baptismal invitation... "As you come to know that these things are true, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the proper priesthood authority of God?" And he said, "Yeah, definitely!" The baptismal invite is always good to extend to people when you know they are feeling the Spirit. It gives people a goal to work towards and isn't pushy at all. We aren't making them do anything when we ask them that question but simply giving them an invitation and something to keep in mind to set as a goal. It's too bad I won't be able to see how he progresses but I have a good feeling he will keep learning and progressing. he's funny though because he was like, "it doesn't get much better than this, beautiful ladies with a beautiful message!" We just make sure we there's always other women there with us and for the next meeting there will be an couple! haha!

--We met a girl named Amanda who was a past referral from a year ago. We decided that we would pay her a visit! So she opened the door and openly greeted us and was like, "Hey! It's been awhile!" She told us that she needs more peace and strength in her life and would love to meet with us. We shared a scripture with her on her door way and had a prayer with her and then set an appointment for a couple days later. On our 2nd meeting we talked about the restoration of the gospel and about the Book of Mormon. She already has a belief in God and Jesus Christ (as do most people here). We then invited her to be baptized as well! She said she has a lot to learn but that is something she would work towards! She is great and I feel like we are all good friends! That's how I feel with all of the people we meet though. I'll be sad to leave the area.

- And last but not least... Carmen! That is Eunice's brother. We had a lesson with him and he too wants to be baptized. He's been reading the Book of Mormon and even gave his copy to his friend that wanted it. (He's a great missionary already!) When we invited him to be baptized he said, "Of course I would!!" He's great! While we were talking to him I had one of the strongest spritual promptings that I've had in a while. We were talking about something and I thought, I need to ask him to be baptized. Then I argued in my head, No we aren't even on that topic and we can do it at another meeting. Then again I thought, You NEED to ask him! And my chest was starting to burn and I felt super warm. At the same time I was thinking, "oh great, now I'm ignoring a prompting of the spirit! Ok fine, I will ask!" So somehow I led the conversation to the questionand he accepted with a lot of enthusiasm. I was glad I listened and followed through with that. Sister Hawkes felt the same thing and knew I was going to ask him. Good thing we were on the same page!

I'm going to miss Sister Hawkes and Lakeview! I love the ward and the investigators! Btw, Sister Hawkes is training!! :) She is going to be awesome!!

Talk to you all later!! Have a great week! Love you!!
-Sister Jones