Week #33

Well remember that one time I went on my mission to Ohio and it never stopped snowing? Worst winter in 20 years. So glad I'm here to experience it. If there's anything I've learned this week it's 1. blessings eventually come after you feel like you've just been totally abandoned and 2. careful what you pray for. It was a crazy week so this is a really long letter.

 

We had dinner with Jackie this week and we brought Tiffany. They get along great! I'm super excited. Jackie's just basically the best person ever, who wouldn't get along with her? So now we've created a friendship so Tiffany won't feel completely alone in the church. She talked to her fiance about the law of chastity.... all he said was "now I have to suffer?" so it seems like he's going to support her. I think we can get him. Now they just have to get married or get separate apartments before she can get baptized. Oy.

 

Well Thursday morning I had to get fingerprinted and I just looked like a criminal afterwards with all the black ink on my hands, it's fine. ha ha. Then we did some tracting. It was freezing!!! We met this awesome lady, Brenda who after we walked away and were almost to the next house opened her door and told us to come back! She let us warm up in her house and said she just had a feeling that she was supposed to let us in and that maybe it was a message from God. Well okay! She's baptist and really really loves her church but we told her about the Book of Mormon and she wants to read it! She was really excited and she wants us to teach her grandson. Man I needed Brenda this week. She was just so nice. Remember Brian and Angie who had a CFO that was Mormon? They own a dry cleaning business and they cleaned my coat for free! We meet the best people.

 

We had exchanges in Springfield and I got to be with Sister Jensen most of the time! I really love her. And we got a new STL (sister training leader) Sister Buhler and she is just so cute and so happy and really fun. I love exchanges, you just learn so much.

 

Saturday was probably the busiest day of my life. We had to race back to Huber for an appointment and then we had to cut that appointment short to get to another one with Melinda and we taught her husband James! He reminds me a lot of Brett. He's super nice and at the end he was like "so what do you think, would I fit in?" Of course, James, the gospel is for everyone! So then we had to book it to the church for the baptism. The elders baptized a family of 6! It was really cool and President and Sister Nilsen came. Now here's where the whole be careful what you pray for comes in. Of course President counseled us to pray for snow so we can shovel driveways, we also prayed really hard that Melinda and James would be able to come to church....

 

So the elders prayed for snow. We only had sacrament meeting and the rest of church was cancelled. Planning backups again for church! It's the best! The family of 6 were unable to make it for their confirmations and so the bishopric was trying to stall in case the Sowers could come and so this is how church went: the choir sang right after the opening hymn and then 2 of our speakers spoke and then we had the sacrament and then we had the final speaker. Church was just messed up yesterday. And we had 5 people locked in for church and because of the weather and bad road conditions nobody could make it. Except Melinda and James! We were so excited they came and they brought Hazel! 

 

BUT we have a miracle from shoveling snow. That's all we did Sunday after church and we met an awesome part member family that is wanting to come back to church. We have dinner with them tonight and they have 3 kids. They've basically been inactive for the past 20 years but they are the nicest people. Sister Loder and I want to reactivate a family and baptize a family. And we have been blessed to meet a lot of great families so far this transfer. Goals are so important!

 

Much better week this week. I'm just really sick of the cold and the snow. It's 5 degrees today and I'm pretty sure in the negatives with the wind chill. No frost bite yet. And I haven't gotten a cold! I love Ohio!

 

Well I love you lots mom and Sister Miller showed me some pictures of the goats. They're really cute!

 

Sister Clark