Sister Madsen's Mission Blog: Week Three!.

This week has been great. It is still slow progress with the work but our ward is still as amazing as ever. One day was filled with stepping dog poop, driving through dirt roads and small streams and other things just to name a few. What an adventure. We seem to find the craziest places to drive through. There are so many small dirt roads to get to people's houses. It makes it fun though.

On Thursday,we went to our District Meeting. We talked a lot about the importance of prayer in our missionary work. It was really neat. One of my favorite things is the Bible Dictionary about prayer. Read it if you get the chance, it is really cool. After the meeting we went to lunch together as a district. We ended up going to a barbeque place. It was really yummy but sometimes hard when the elder want to go to a more expensive place for lunch. I really like our district though. I always feel safe around those missionaries and it is cool to share our experiences and advice to one another each week. There is a lot of love there.

Later that day, we went through exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders (STLs). I left the Sandy Creek area to go to the Webster Groves area with sister Huppi. It was really cool to go to a different area and see how the work is progressing there. One of the appointments we went to was for a man named Mark. I have never met him before and Sister Huppi told us that we were going to teach him the plan of salvation. We we went in, he immediately started saying that he was finished with the missionaries teaching him and that he wanted to do some research on his own. We were so sad that he was dropping the missionaries. But Sister Huppi was strong. She convinced him to hear the message we had prepared for him so that he can at least know the 'why' of our gospel. He is a man who has lots of questions and gets hung up on the 'science' part of things. She asked him to leave all his questions until the end and he reluctantly agreed. We went through the entire lesson and he understood it. There were a few things that were interesting and new to him but he liked it. Furthermore, Sister Huppi invited him to be baptized if he learned for himself if the things we were teaching were true. He said yes! It was amazing to see the transformation of someone who wants to drop us to accepting the invitation to be baptized. I really felt the spirit there and if was a cool experience even though he was not my investigator.

Saturday was a little hard. All our appointments fell through so we spent the entire day tracting. I was tired, and there was a lot of rejection as usual. It's sad to see how so many people look at us with scared or angry faces. They don't understand how wonderful our message is and they just want us to leave. It hurts me to some extent. But I am more hurt for their well-being. It doesn't matter as much what they think of me personally so much as I want them to accept my message for themselves. Even through that hard day we did find someone. He was the very last house at the end of the street that we were tracting that night. His name is Adam. He is very knowledgeable about the Bible but he was willing to talk with us on his porch for a while. We ended up teaching him the Restoration, and giving him a Book of Mormon and pamphlet. He was willing and interested to read. He said that we was really going to compare it to the Bible. He seemed on the fence about the idea of another book in relation to the Bible. I really hope that he feels the spirit as he reads and doesn't find so many faults. Sister Gunter and I know that we are really going to have to study hard to be able to get through to him. I know we will have to back up what we say with the Bible and not just the Book of Mormon. It will be a good experience for the coming weeks.

Sunday was great. They had a primary program. The programs were left blank on the front and all the kids colored their families on the pages. It was really cute to see all the drawings. the programs was wonderful and in Relief Society we talked about the Priesthood. I loved it. This week we again had wonderful families to give us dinner. The Fishers, gave us barbeque chicken and baked potatoes and the Paniaguas gave us shepherd's pie. Our ward is so amazing. I love the people.

I feel like I am growing a lot and each day is unique and has it's challenges. I am really trying to work on feeling and teaching with the spirit. Love you all and I hope you are enjoying life.

Sister Madsen.