AH! Hello!!!
Ok seriously I feel like I need to
run.. I have so much happiness and energy and I'm in a gosh dang library and I
have to sit still and be quiet and I don't like it!! haha
Ok so this week....what happened
this week????
OKAAYY
So first matter of business…Sorry if
there are a ton of typos, I can't seem to move my fingers like I want to
because I'm so excited and I don't know why and plus I have to hurry
AHH!!
Ok so we are teaching this less
active couple, the Pyles. Weeellll
Sister Pyle HATES US. HATES. US. BUT!!! for some weird reason she has
been sitting in with us when we come to teach Brother Pyle, so we have to make
sure we include her in a special way so she doesn't flip out on us. SO. we went
over and I can't remember what the plan was to teach, but we showed her the
Mormon Message called "the Will of God" okay go watch it...I'll
wait...........okay so I started bawling and stuff and bore my testimony and
stuff and she was like that was so meaningful, I loved that, thank you so much
and she hugged us and got a little weepy and Sister LeBaron and I walk out of
that lesson and are like jumping for joy and like freaking out with
happiness. THEN she sent us a card in the mail, Sister Pyle is known as
the card lady, so she sent us a letter and was like thank you so much you are
such good people and all that and Sister Lebaron was like you have to keep that
because you were the one that taught that and I was like WE. (she always gets
mad at me when I’m like no YOU taught that lesson, because usually she does...)
so that was cool. So we go back the next week for a lesson and Sister Pyle is
not there. Well we had planned for a lesson with both of them and didn't think
of what if she is not there so we are like OH CRAP! WHAT DO WE TEACH?!?!?! And
we are scrambling to find something to teach while he is getting us water and
we are like oh no no no no!!!! so we prayed our guts and remembered Elder
Hollands quote "just listen with love, and our friends will tell us what
they need" so we just started asking him questions and SURE ENOUGH!!! He
was like I can't forgive myself I can't do this and that...and I was like AH
HA!!!! Story - forgiving oneself by
elder...ummm oh dear I don't rememer but it is from march 2007 ensign I think..
Richardson.. Chad Richardson??? look it up..I'll wait.... okay..soo I read the
part about W.W.Phelps and how he betrayed Joseph Smith and was the reason he
was in liberty jail, WELL he was forgiven by brother Joseph, BUT BUT!! he
forgave himself ANNDD he wrote praise to the man! WHAT?! Awesome story. Read
it!! SO, we just started taking about forgiveness, and he is totally crying the
whole time. I have never seen him cry that hard and it broke my heart into
pieces. I just wanted to hug him and be able to take all his pain away and it
was sooo sad! I hated it! so I read this part from Elder Uchtdorfs talk
"living the Gospel Joyful" about how god loves us, then Brother Pyle
ANND sister LeBaron are in tears…whaddya know? I'm the only one NOT crying? What
the??? What happened there? Anyway so, we watched the "Come unto
Christ" theme song video, and we all were bawling. and it was the BEST.
LESSON. EVER. the church is true every one. The Spirit is real, the
gospel is real, embrace it! Let it into your life, let it change you!! It is
the best!!! AH! Go watch that movie. Let me know if you need the link… okay
wait it is on my Facebook...go find it.
Okay next item of business...OH MY!!
So RIGHT before Brother Pyle’s lesson, we were out walking on the street just
talking to people. We met this man named John. John Heath...like the candy bar...anyway,
we OYM him and give him a card and he looks at us, looks at the card, looks
back at us and is like for real? And we are like....umm yeah...what up? And he
was like wow this must be a sign from god you know? And we were like ...yes. And
we just talked to him. He is in some REALLLLY bad stuff, but he was just like
thank you. Thank you, thank you! Thank you for talking to me and talking the
time to talk to me. Thank you so much I trust you both and I feel so good
talking to you. So we taught him a bit of the plan of salvation. And he just
talked about how bad his life is. No joke EVERY person that walked by he would
ask if they kept walking because he was convinced that he was going to die. That
someone was going to kill him and he was like are you guys bullet proof?? and I
was like uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh what??????? I sure hope so!! haha but it was
fine. That’s Portland for ya. Anyway, we got his info, unfortunately he is not
in our area, so we can't teach him but we sent the referral in. so cool. Then
he called us three times in the middle of the night just to tell us he was
alive and to say thank you. So cool!!!!
It is awesome. Being a missionary,
you are set apart from the world. as a Representative of JESUS CHRIST. We get
to feel just a SNIPPET of that love that he has for each and every one of us. And
even that little snippet seems so overwhelming to me. I love the Lord, I love
that he is there for us every step of the way. He has not forgotten about you,
but sometimes we are the ones that turn our back. We turn our back on him and
then get mad and wonder where he is, when really, he is there the whole time,
you are just not paying attention. Don’t do that! Always include him in everything
you do, and I promise you, I PROMISE you as a representative of Jesus Christ!!!
I PROMISE you will be happy. I know it.
We put our Islamic investigator on
date to be baptized. He is so funny, whenever we start with a prayer he will
say "yes I'm waiting. I'm addict!" hahah with his accent. So
funny. It is really hard to teach him for some reason. He has no
foundation of anything, he wasn't active in his Islamic faith and so we have to
teach him about god and Jesus Christ…for some reason that is difficult. Plus
the language barrier makes things hard. We don't know if he really understands
or not. But it is going good!! COOOOL!
SOO this week was SO GOOD, but it
was a struggle too. I don't think I have ever prayed so hard in my life. SO let
me tell you this story of awesomeness. It was just a slow build up I guess, I
was just feeling all these things and getting all upset, but not because I just
don't want to get all bawly and stuff. So well...eventually I blew up. So on Saturday
I prayed and prayed and prayed and I was like I DO NOT know what to do to make
these feelings go away or to even control them. And I just prayed and prayed
and prayed and praaaaayed, and I thought about what my mission pres. told me in
my interview. To call him if it starts to build up and call him before I burst.
So I was like Noooooooo I'm not gonna waste his time, but I WISH I had asked
him for a blessing. So now I'm like should I call him? No. wait should I? No.
so I don't. Well anyway. That was on Saturday, well Sunday came and I
decided to do my own little fast. so we got to church and after church, like a
half hour after, we are still there just talking to people, because EVERYONE
ALWAYS has to talk to you, so it takes us forever to get out of there, well I
just turn my head and look at someone walking towards me and LO AND BEHOLD -
it's President Taylor. And Sister LeBaron and me are like WHOA what the? Why
are you here? And he was like “oh I just had to talk to someone”. Well, a couple
days previous I was telling sister LeBaron how I wished I had asked him for a
blessing, and I wonder when I will see him again to ask him. And we were like
what the. So Sister Lebaron asks him “how long you gonna be here?” And he's
like “not long”, and she is like “long enough to give a blessing?” And he was
like “probably not”, but then he looks at me hahahah and then back at LeBaron
and was like “who needs it?” and I was like “me..” and he just smiled and
grabbed my shoulder like "I knew it" and then he is like wait here a second.
So anyway, I got a blessing from him and I feel like everything I had thought
and prayed for was made clearer and it was just the best thing ever. GOD
DOESN'T DO RANDOM.
No joke, then Sister LeBaron was
like I hope you know how NOT random that was. That NEVER happens, he NEVER
shows up. Ever! You never see him
outside of missionary functions’ or meetings. Ever! She was like God just went
out of his way to send the Mission President to you. And after my blessing, Pres.
Taylor said, “I knew I had to come down here for something, but I wasn't sure.
I thought it was to talk to Elder --- but I guess I really needed to see you.”
GOD. DOESN'T. DO. RANDOM. He is SO
aware of us! holy crud!! It was amazing! Oh man. The best. Love the lord people
!! I love him!! He is so good to us, and I love Pres. Taylor. The. best.
Anyway. that is it for now I guess. you
should watch the Mormon messages "the Hope of God's Light" and
"New year’s: Look Not Behind Thee"
ready go.
Love ya!!
