Week 22

This week was great! There were a lot of ups and downs but still good. Monday we went to the Bishop's house for dinner and it was so good. They are such a wonderful family and we even had FHE with them. They had us play a few missionary initiation games. They were so funny. We played the Key game, and the Gorilla Game if you are familiar with them. 

Wednesday was filled with great lessons. We saw one of the recent converts Robin. She is so great. She is preparing herself to go to the temple but she is the only member in her family. She is going to the Nauvoo temple and her family is going to go to all the church history sites while she is at the temple. So cool. Her family is really supportive of her and it so great to see members of the ward fellowship her and love her. 

Thursday was exchanges! And oh what miracles did we see! I stayed in Champaign and Sister Edgel went to Springfield with Sister Berret. I was of course nervous to stay in Champaign with an STL. It was my first time staying in my area for Champaign. I also had to drive. Normally, Sister Edgel drives but on exchanges i had to drive around. I was hoping that I would be able to find my way around the area well and be on time for all the plans that we had. Sadly all of the appointments we had dropped but in their place, Heavenly Father placed so many miracles. First, I had the feeling that we should go visit a potential who was interested in family history. We parked a street over and walked over, but he wasn't there. I thought it interesting that I had a prompting to go there but nothing seemed to come of it. When we were walking back to our car, Sister Herdman decided to knock on a few doors. The first door, a man answered and immediately shut the door when he saw us. The next door a woman answered and she was happy to see us. She has an incredible story including being shot in the head and surviving. She used to be religious but had had bad experiences in the past and so she said that she would be interested in coming to our church. We also set up a return appointment! 

Another door we knocked on brought something surprising. Sister Herdman introduced who we were and the lady looked at us, then pointed to a young boy in the house and yelled, "He needs Jesus!" She seemed pretty heated up and she proceed to try and get him to come to the door and said that we needed to lay our hands on him. We tried to explain that that's not what we do. I am guessing that she expected us to drive out whatever was making the boy bad.  Luckily, the boy didn't want to come to the door so we were able to dodge that bullet. haha I don't know what we would have done if the boy did come to the door. 

The next door we knocked on, another lady told us that she would only listen to us if we would be willing to pick up a rag and start cleaning. We told her we would! She was joking but we were totally serious. We convinced her to let us help her and she invited us in. Her name is Paula. She owned a cleaning business and she was cleaning this rental house for the next people who would move in. We helped her clean for 2 hours and talked about almost all the principles of the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation. It was really cool. She told us all about her life and she even had a few friends that were Mormon. At one point she was a flight attendant and she told us of stories how she used to dance in the isles of the plane with a man who had gone to BYU and had taken ballroom classes. haha I thought that was funny. She was such a nice lady and she even tried to pay us. We got her information and I gave her a Book of Mormon.  

Later we were trying to contact one of our investigators but she wasn't home. there was a man standing on his porch a few doors down and we gave him a card. No more than 10 minutes later, we get a call from an unknown number. It was the man who we met on his porch and we explained some of the basics of our beliefs. I have only had one other time where someone has actually called our phone from a card that we had handed out. I don't know if the man will ever be interested in taking the discussions, but it was a really cool moment. 

 

Exchanges was so great and it really increased my testimony of a few things. First, it strengthened my testimony of how the spirit works. Sometimes the spirit will prompt us to do something and it may lead us to what at first seems like a dead end. But there is something else in store. If I hadn't heeded the prompting to go to that potential's house, we never would have knocked on those doors and met those people. Second, it strengthened my testimony of how much Heavenly Father is in control. I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to handle all the stress of exchanges, but He took control and took care of everything. He provided miracles and placed people in our path. 

 

Saturday we had a lesson with Tommy at the church. We gave him a church tour and then had our lesson in the RS room. It was great and we talked a lot about the Book of Mormon. Sister Williamson was so great and she bore a wonderful testimony throughout the lesson. 

 

Church was great and there was so many great talks and lessons. Brother Allan, The ward mission leader gave a great lesson on the gathering of Israel. I loved how much detail we went into. In sacrament meeting we also had a great talk on charity. I love this ward. Unfortunately none of our investigators came to church. that was really heartbreaking because we really thought that some would show. 

 

On a positive note, it is starting to warm up now! I don't know if there are still some cold days in store but this next week will hopefully be as warm as the 50's. yay! thank you everyone for your support. I love reading your emails and getting letters. :) You are the best!

 

Pretty sunsets!

This is a rare thing in Illinois: hills. You know it's flat when the only hills that kids can sled down are the hills created by the overpasses of the freeway. haha :)