I Love the People I Serve Here, and I Love the People I Serve With!

3/2/14

Hiya family!   Like always there's a lot to say so sorry if I ramble. :)

Well....guess what happened yesterday? (Names) WERE CONFIRMED! It was so great. I could go on and on about them. First of all, Sister had been sick ALL last week. But we were able to see her on Saturday and she was well enough to get confirmed. It was a tender mercy. 

She shared with us on Saturday how the Book of Mormon has been helping her. She just finished first Nephi. :) And she told us how she was having a really bad morning last week and her son knocked off the Book of Mormon from the shelf and she decided to pick it up and read a highlighted verse. She told us that that verse meant a lot to her at the time and she felt better and the rest of the day went better after she had read the Book of Mormon. It's amazing to think that at first we struggled getting her to read the Book of Mormon...we first had to invite her to read just one verse every day...but as soon as she did that she's been reading more and more. The Book of Mormon is very very powerful. My mission has been teaching me that. Our ward mission leader confirmed her yesterday...and it was really meaningful because he is a convert and NEVER has confirmed anyone before. He was super nervous but it all worked out and he did great :)

(Name) was also confirmed. He's a good guy and it's been awesome to see how the ward has been reaching out to him. He was confirmed by Brother (name)... and it was awesome because he did the blessing part of the confirmation in Chinese. Although I couldn't understand what was being said the spirit was super strong! :) 

The work's going great here! We're still trying to find the elect but God's put some really cool people in our paths. First guess who called us on Friday? (NAME)!!!!!! And guess who we are going to be teaching tonight? (Names)! We don't know what happened but they wanted us to come back. We are sooooo excited! I had to do a happy dance in the car when I heard what was happening. It was so hard to drop them and I'm so excited to be picking them back up again. 

Then last week we decided to drop by a potential investigator’s. She lives at an apartment building where a sister from the ward lives. We were just talking to her and helped her take out her garbage. She was nice but we never could set up an appointment. So we decided to go drop by her randomly. She let us in instantly and then she just burst into tears and unloaded all these things that were going in her life. She was questioning her faith and was just overwhelmed because she just has a lot of things going on. We had to listen to the Spirit big time...and so we did a lot of bearing testimony, listening, and we even pulled out some Mormon Messages on her computer to invite the Spirit. By the end she was happier. I know that God needed us there and it was really cool to help her. We were supposed to see her yesterday but she cancelled so we will be seeing her on Wednesday...and we are going to be teaching her the Plan of Salvation. I'm stoked! 

Then there was one more guy that was really cool. We were running to an appointment...but there was a guy sitting in front of a store...I was so close to not talking to him because we were late but we decided to stop and do it anyways. Turns out that he just BARELY turned his life around and BARELY started to believe in Christ/God. We had a good talk and scheduled an appointment and said a prayer on the street with him. After the prayer...he stopped and said..."You know...as you were praying I was reminded a few weeks ago I was praying to find some real Christians and a Christian church to go to. I think God just answered my prayer!" We were so excited! He was solid! ......But then....he bombed his appointment and we haven't gotten ahold of him since. AH! We keep meeting all these solid people and then we can never meet with them it's frustrating sometimes! Well...God's timing is perfect I guess we won't give up! 

(Name) is doing okay..still some drama here and there. He's just had a hard life so it's a roller coaster ride....Man....but he's in the right place doing the right things most of the time so I think God's watching out for him. I feel peace that although sometimes things get really stressful with him...it'll work out. I don't know how but it will...

It was a good week last week! (Not as stressful as the one before) But that's missionary work for you...you have good weeks and not so good weeks. Good times and bad times. :) It makes me really appreciate the good moments! But I loved it because it was....ZONE CONFERENCE! Oh man I love zone conference so much. I could go on and on for like five pages but I won't. So for zone conference we went to London.....Ontario. haha. (Don't worry I've confused the two before) It was pretty awesome. We talked about the restoration and the apostasy. And it was really neat to see President Scott bear testimony about the Restoration...super super powerful. 

I just love the missionaries here! I was able to see some good old missionary pals...Get this: my trainee was there, her trainee was there, AND my old comp was there...so 3/5 of my companions were there. I was pretty happy! There's such a spirit when you gather together in the same room with a big group of missionaries. I have really grown to not only love the people I serve, but the people I serve WITH. There are some elect people serving here alongside me in this mission. They have taught me SO much! 

District Meeting

Eating out!

Sister Selfie

Catching Up with Sis W!

But to be honest I had a pretty....emotional? sad? bitter-sweet feeling. There were a lot of departing missionaries that gave their last testimony during the zone conference. And there were a lot that I knew whom I had served with. It's really sad to think about how people are leaving.... people who have taught me SO much and have helped me out....Why is everyone leaving? And it just hit me pretty hard that in a few months I'd be doing the same....I'm just not ready for that yet. I feel like I have SO much more to learn and SO much more to do here! But...life goes on. I just have to be grateful for EVERY MINUTE that I have to be here. I can't take the time I have here for granted! 

Well I love you family! Thanks for supporting me out here in Canada....it's been the best thing ever!