May 27, 2014

What a week!  We went on exchanges this week with our sister training leaders.  Sister Harris came here to Fond du lac with me while Sister Ormsby went to West Bend with Sister Reese.  I love our sister training leaders!  They work hard and are a lot of fun, plus, Sister Harris knows Fond du Lac really well because she served here before I did.  I was able to talk to her a lot about the area and the people.  We finally were able to set a baptismal date with Kelly for June 14th!!!  Yay!  She is growing so much.  We usually have a couple lessons a week with her and usually have a member with us for the lesson.  This week we had one of the lessons in the Cropper's home.  I love the Cropper's.  Sister Cropper is a returned missionary and has been such a good friend and support to Kelly.  We have focused a lot on reading the Book of Mormon with Kelly and it is so neat to see her testimony of it growing.  Also, on exchanges we did something called loaves and fishes.  It is a dinner for the needy put on by a different church but a different church is in charge of hosting it each week.  This week was our turn, so we were able to help out with that and then we had an awesome lesson with the Lennop family and Bonnel's at one of the member's homes here.  They have a cute little farm with new chicks, which the kids loved seeing!  It is really beautiful here right now!

It is neat to see how we are able to find through service.  We met a man named Skip this week who told us he has seen us at the nursing home before and asked us if we would come and visit him.  We met with him and found out that he has been to Salt Lake City and one time when he was there he went to temple square and the prophet showed him around! 

Well, we have been doing a lot of finding work lately because our teaching pool isn't very big right now.  A lot of them were out of town this week.  I feel like we did a lot of seed planting and there are definitely some strong potentials. We met with a lady named Carolyn this week who has a lot of good questions. 

Yesterday, the branch had a big picnic and we had 2 of our investigators come!  We played ultimate frisby and were able to meet some less actives we have never met before too! So that was good and it was a lot of fun. Right at the end it there was a huge down poor!  Everything got cleaned up pretty fast, haha.

I'm so grateful to be here!  It is so beautiful!  We were talking to a women in her yard one day about the beauty of God's creations and it is so true!  When you see the hills and plants and the beautiful creations all around you can't help but feel close to the Lord. 

Well, I love you!!!!!!!  The church is beautifully true!

May 19, 2014

What a week!  Where to start?!  I feel like we saw so many tender mercies of the Lord this week! 

On Wednesday, we went out with our branch mission leader and his wife to an appointment they had with the part member family they home teach.  At the end of the lesson our branch mission leader actually invited the husband to take the missionary discussions.  That was a little twist, the member inviting them instead of us, but they said they would think about it and before we went out the door they told us we are welcome to come by any time.  I think that was a great start with them. 

We also met with a former investigator named Dave that the missionaries taught a little bit a year ago.  He told us he was not interested in converting but is still interested in learning more.  It was a pleasant little surprise on Saturday when he called us and said that he had gone to the church this week to try and find out what time the services were on Sunday and that he wanted to come to church!  The best part is, on Sunday he came to church!  And he promised he would come again and that next time he would stay for Sunday school too!  Yay!  He is a nice man and has been through a lot.  He suffered from a stroke this year and is very smart but is not able to use his right hand.

We have also been reading the Book of Mormon with a girl named Arianna.  Her family is from Mexico and have been strong in the Catholic faith for generations but they are super nice to us and love missionaries!  I just love their family so much and want them to accept the gospel and be sealed together as a family!  They are open to reading the Book of Mormon with us but won't have any part of coming to activities or church on Sunday.  I hope that the Book of Mormon will soften their hearts so we can teach them the restored gospel!   

Also, we met Chai, who is from Thailand, and a new family this week.  We were going to visit a potential and some little girls that were outside in the yard picking flowers started talking to us and giving us flowers.  We were able to talk with their dad about the gospel and have a return appointment with him this week.

Yesterday was pretty neat.  We had a lot of meetings to go to and our dinner appointment went kind of long so we were a little discouraged that we felt our day had just slipped away from us.  We went out with some members to go visit a less active in the ward but had a few calls to make so we let the members go in and meet her and we stayed out in the car.  Heavenly Father answers prayers!  My companion and I had been praying for a street to go to and I know we needed to be on that street, even if it was a little weird how we happened to be there.  After our calls, we went out and started talking to some of the people on that street.  As we were walking down the street, a boy riding a skateboard turned around and said, "hey, are you guys momons?"  We said yes and then he told us he really wanted a Book of Mormon because he had been given one but had lost it.  He said he has never been religious but something had really stuck out to him when he read that book.  Now he wants to start meeting with us!  Tender mercies!  Well, gotta go! Love you!

The church is astonishingly true!

May 11, 2014

       We had an appointment this week with someone at the Rosoland which is a big building in town and so we were waiting outside for them and went up and talked to a man sitting on one of the benches.  He told us that some of his family came from Puerto Rico and we started to talk about family history.  Long story short, we have an appointment with him this week at the library to help him get started on his family history!  Yay!  We had zone conference this week and it was all about families and using family history to find new investigators, so it was neat to have a little experience with that this week. 

      We met with a lot of less active members this week.  There is a lot of single women in the ward that have gone less active and we really tried to reach out to them this week and share a message with them for mothers day.  We went out after we skyped yesterday and it seems like we went to the right people.  A lot of the ones we stopped by didn't have there families with them for mother's day. 

       Kelly our investigator that wants to be baptized bore her testimony on finding her answer to be baptized and the Book of Mormon yesterday in relief society and also two other converts.  It was great.  Angel, one of the very new converts, also told us that she was able to talk to her sister about the gospel!  I love seeing her great desire to share the gospel with those around her!  

 I'm so grateful for Heavenly Father's wonderful plan for families to be together forever!  What a powerful message this is! The church is mightily true!

May 5, 2014

What a week!  The work is moving forward here in Fond du Lac.  I feel that Sister Ormsby and I have a great work to do here!  The branch has such a strong desire to do missionary work and to rescue the lost sheep here.  We go out at least 3 times a week with Sister Schrauth.  On Friday we went out with Sister Schrauth and our branch mission leader and today we are going out with her and the relief society president.  Needless to say, we work a lot with the branch and are working hard to correlate with them.

Well, it sounds like Kelly has made a lot of progress.   She said before she didn't really know if she wanted to be baptized and when she prayed about it she really just didn't know but now she has told us that she wants to be baptized and all she is concerned about now is the date! She really wants her family to be able to be there for the baptism so she is praying about a baptismal date right now.  There is still a lot of trials that she is going through but I think she's starting to see the light out of it.  We met with her probably 3-4 times this week so we having been striving to keep really good contact with her.  We were out contacting one day on foot because it was the last day of the month and we were almost out of miles and she saw us walking and was sweet and texted us.   We arranged to have a little lesson with her at one of the members homes near by.  So she is really open to meeting with us.  We talked with her a little bit about family history work as well and she seems really interested in it. 

Also, an exciting thing this week was that Virginia came to church!  She is another investigator that the sisters here have been working with for a long time.  She has not come to church for the past three months so we were super excited that she came and stayed for all three hours of church!  She is in her 80's and admire her interest in the church.    It would be really hard to grow up your whole life in a different religion and then be willing to learn about something different.  She is praying about baptism. 

We are working a ton with less actives right now and one of them came to church yesterday, which was good. One we met with last night is Mong and can't read English and doesn't understand it very well.  So we will have to be a little creative in teaching her.  We offered to help her with her garden this week so maybe we can start by serving her.  It was kind of an exciting visit.  Her dog attacked my companion but the son came in and took the dog away.  It was just a little tiny dog but very feisty, haha.  My companion is fine.
 I hope we can get in with some more part member families this week.   The family is truly so important our Heavenly Father's plan for us.