April 28, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

I have been out 3 months as of today!

This week was crazy!  We have Elder's in our Ward now, so we had to split the area.  It was sad to give them some of our investigators and people that we visit, but it wouldn't be fair to them if we kept everyone so it needed to happen.  We did get the area that we wanted though, so that was good.  We now have to bike 2 miles before we even get into our area, but it's the nicer area so it'll be worth it.  We had 23 lessons this week, and bikes about 40 miles.  This weekend it was really cold (random!) so we only biked 2.5 days this week.

This week we decided to focus on helping our investigators to progress.  We extended 4 baptismal dates.  Bill accepted his for May 10th, and Jackie, Charlie, and Peggy said they would pray about theirs.  We have been working with Jackie forever and she is so close.  We fasted for her to accept the date (May 24th), because before she has said "No, I am not ready".  When we asked her, she said she needs to pray about it, and keep reading the Book of Mormon, and talk to her husband because she wants him to be there (and he works in Texas!)  She is so close!!  We went over the Baptismal Questions with her, and she believes that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God, which is a step up from last time.  She is just struggling with the church being restored through Joseph Smith.  She says she believes it, but she wants to have a little more faith before she is baptized.  Jackie is really trying to gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon, so if everyone prays for her then I know she will gain that testimony.  Prayer works!!

We also went on a 25 mile bike ride on Thursday to visit a ton of Less Actives.  We went to the very end of our area to visit 4 people that we had never visited before and they all turned us down and told us not to come back.  We were feeling pretty discouraged because we rode about 10 miles out of the way, with no success.  On our way to dinner, there was a lady who was walking out to her car with her 2 little boys.  I felt impressed to stop and talk to her.  We did, and we talked about what we do as missionaries and asked if we could teach her and her family.  She said yes and we made an appointment for Tuesday.  That was just one example of the little tender mercies that the Lord has blessed us with this week.

We also helped out with the Mormon Helping Hands.  We hula-hoed for over 3 hours at an elementary school.  Thanks to Sister Hansen we are professionals!  It was crazy and really tiring, but then we got to relax a bit.  Jennifer (her daughter, Piper, just got baptized) needed to practice her facial skills, and so we each got to have a facial.  It was interesting because we did it ourselves.  She just told us what to do.  Last night, Sister Soleta and I each gave each other massages because we were sooooo sore.  I'm feeling a little better now haha.

I read 1 Nephi 22:26 today and really studied it.  I found a quote that President Petersen said a while ago.  The verse says, "because of the righteousness of his people, Satan has no power".  President Petersen said that "That could happen now.  If we are righteous, Satan can essentially be bound".  Let us all strive to be 100% obedient so Satan can have no power over us.

 

Hope everyone has a great week!  Love you,

Sister Moon

Pictures:

Dinner at Bill's

Facial with Jennifer

Beautiful sunset :)