What an awesome and
super exciting week it has been! We had a lot of disappointments, like
cancelled appointments with a lot of our investigators but, no worries, the
good always outweighs the bad!
We had Zone Conference
this week and I accompanied a musical number! I am just so grateful that
I was able to do that! Another sister in our District, Sister Woods,
plays the cello, and I had given her the music a while back for that
arrangement of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" that Aunt Janet helped
write. Well, the zone leaders asked if anyone would like to do the
musical number for zone conference and Sister Woods, turned us in. We
actually ended up doing a different arrangement of the song that she had
though. It was so beautiful!!! I just love accompanying!
Sister Woods is a very talented musician too! It really brought the
Spirit! What was really neat, was that the last training/talk before the
musical number was a very powerful talk about Joseph Smith. During that
talk it hit me that when we decided to do that song we had no idea what the topic
of the training would be. It went perfectly! I"m so grateful
for the atonement and for how much the Book of Mormon teaches us about the
nature of Jesus Christ and how we can apply the atonement of Jesus Christ in
our lives. That was one of the things they talked about as well.
Bro. Pountain was the one that talked about Joseph Smith and the Book of
Mormon. He showed us one of the original copies of the Book of Mormon
that he had and face sculpture thing of Joseph Smith. Then he showed us
where the bible prophesies of Joseph Smith. I took some pictures to show
you some of these things. He also told his conversion story and how a 50
cent copy of the Book of Mormon he got at a garage sale was far more precious
to him than the $83,000 copy he had in his hand because of the other one was
how he first came to know it was true. Once he had felt that the Book of
Mormon was true it took him a long time to find the church. He called the
church building number everyday from Monday to Friday for months before finally
a relief society sister answered during one of their enrichment nights.
Then months later to finally meet missionaries. It was quite the
story! Anyway it was a very special zone conference, one I will never
forget.
We have an appointment
with someone new. Her name is Nicky and we helped her move in to her new
house Saturday. Her mom happened to be the friendly cashier lady at
the grocery store we shop at each week. We set a return appointment to
help her with a few more things and to find out if she is interested in
learning more about our church. I think she is :)
Then our other new
investigator is Cora. She comes from a less active family we have been
working with for a few weeks. We talked to them this week about if Cora
would like to be baptized. Cora seems very interested and Sister Zedan as
well. Bro. Zedan wasn't there so we don't know what his feelings are
yet. Cora is awesome though! We are planning on starting to teach
her next week!
Okay, now for the little
surprise we had on Sunday...On Sunday, our stake president came and guess
what?!!!
*drum roll*
Fond du Lac branch was officially made a WARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D
Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We could hardly contain our excitement!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sister Cosgrove and
I actually found out right before they announced it. When they made the
announcement the reaction in the congregation reminded me a little of when the
age change was made in General Conference. It was so wonderful! The
whole branch was just flowing with gratitude! All of the branch
presidents that had served there were present that day too! So now Pres.
Heap is now Bishop Heap. Not much is that difference but I think this
will really motivate the members to get involved more with the missionary work
too! We have a lot of work to do! I just feel so very grateful that
I was able to be here to see Fond du Lac become a ward. I never thought
that would happen while I was here. I know this church is true with all
of my heart. We had a really neat experience with Bonnie that really
touched my heart. For one it has been so wonderful to see her testimony
grow as we teach her the new member lessons. On Wed. we taught her about
temples and eternal families and she told us that she feels a strong desire to
go to the temple and do the work for her grandparents. I love seeing her
grow! She bore her testimony to us on Sunday and told us that she was
going to do it in church but she didn't think there was time left. The
Lord has truly been preparing her to receive the gospel her whole life and she
recognizes this. Bonnie is one of the most grateful individuals I have
ever met! She is so christlike and humble! Well, it has been such a
wonderful week. The work continues to move forward! Well, I have to get
going now. The church is growingly true!
