March 26, 2012

Hello family!!!

I love hearing from you all and hearing how your week has been going! It sounds like everything is going well. :) I pray for you all daily. I am so excited for Alayna! I hope she will send me a copy of her talk. I know she'll be a good missionary... it's just the hardest thing she'll ever do. Just like it has been for me. Seriously I feel like every day is a new adventure and I never know what is going to come of it, but it's fun!

Yesterday I was asked to go into young womens to tell the girls how my mother helped me to be more self reliant and I loved getting to talk about all that you've done for me! I shared the experience of me and you getting to read the book of mormon together 7ish years ago when President Hinkley asked us to. I love you!

This week has been good! Erica and Ty are doing great and so excited to be members of the church and start getting involved with callings and stuff. It's exciting to see their faith and excitement grow each time we visit them. Erica and Ty are answers to my prayers a lot of times when I am having a rough day. Erica will often tell me and Sister Atterton, " I know this mission thing has got to be hard for y'all but never regret coming here because you are changing peoples lives. You have changed our lives forever." Erica said Ty prays for us every night in his prayers. It's cool how an investigator answers us as missionaries prayers! :)

So since Erica and Ty got baptized last week this past week we have been trying to find lots of new investigators! It's not as easy as it sounds, but we did find 3 very strong prepared investigators and all of them accepted baptismal dates. Tanya is one of them. We had never met her but she was a referral from the Hermanas. While we were teaching the restoration she explained to us that she always felt like there was something missing at her church and she told us she knew this message is what it was. She started crying and said, "No one has ever come to talk to me like you sisters have... I know you are angels sent from God." It is when I meet people like her that I know that God prepares his children for us to come share his message.

We also met Brian. He is this BIG black guy who is very prepared too. He loves God and you can definitely tell when he prays. He kept saying, "Lord Jesus Father, I thank you for these sisters Father Jesus...." He is a funny guy. We are going to visit with him again tonight.

We have a baptism coming up on the 14th for Kate... our investigator who just got married. She is really going to go through with it. She married into a member home and they have been soo much help in her conversion process. I like working with investigators of part member families cause they can really help answer their questions when we aren't there.

Shianne, (the 17 year old who prayed with us her first time).... ah.... SHE MOVED!!! She is now living in Dallas with her aunt, but we talk with her dad every so often to check up on her. :(

We OYM-ed this old spanish guy this week who was walking around with a cane. We quickly found out that he didn't speak any english so I pulled out what spanish I could remember and told him we were the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. and then I simply said, "Yo se que Jesus Christo vivas" right when those words came out of my mouth his whole countenance changed and he kept saying over and over, "Si si si si" He got very excited. I left him with a spanish pass along card so I hope he gets the gospel someday! I wish I knew more spanish. :/

Remember the family I was talking to you about that is inactive because of sports? Well we went to visit their one oldest daughter who is the only active one in their family. She broke down to us telling us how hard it has been for her to see her family go through all of this. She said it all started with not going to church a few times for games, and then they stopped having scriptures, then they stopped praying, and now her dad and mom drink. :( This has all happened within the past 1 1/2 years. Sad huh? I think this is a big lesson for me because I am really into sports too but seeing what one Sunday of not going to church turns into changed my perspective. We are trying to work with Baily to get her family to come back to church because she leaves to BYU Idaho in September and she will be a big influence in helping them start to pray and read again. I really liked Carters letter I got this week that he explained about the importance of Book of Mormon reading every single day. It's the small and simple things that help us to stay on the straight and narrow. I just feel so bad that Baily is going through this. She started crying when she said her parents possibly won't be able to go through the temple with her when she gets married... and yet her parents were sealed there.

Keep reading and praying!!!!

I love you all and pray for you every day! Please keep me in your prayers cause I definitely need them... this is hard stuff! :)

Erianne :)