Cockroaches and Jehovah Witnesses make studies fun!

September 17, 2012

Cockroaches and Jehovah Witnesses make studies fun!

How's my family?! I'm so glad we could write back and forth for a bit. That was fun! :) It sounds like everyone is doing great. Last night we were at dinner with a family in our ward, and they have a 5 year old girl who is a month younger than Dylan and 2 months younger than Jaylee and I couldn't believe how big she was! It makes me anxious to see how much my nieces and nephews have grown! 3 more months till I'll see y'all on skype again. :)

By the way How is Jen doing with her pregnancy? When is she due in November?

I'm doing good! We got transfer calls this morning and luckily I'm still staying here in Maplewood. Sister Moreno and I will be staying together! So that means another transfer to learn Spanish. :) It's kinda nice not getting changed for once. :) We had so many members tell us on Sunday they will be so sad if one of us leaves, so we can't wait to tell them we'll both be staying. I've gotten really close to the ward members here. It's going to be really hard when I have to leave this area. But for now I'll live it up!

Not much happened this week since we were in for most of the week being sick, but I have a few funny stories...

One morning while we were sitting at our desk studying I see out of the corner of my eye a HUGE, and I mean HUGE, Cockroach coming towards me. So I jump up and start moving away from my desk screaming. Sister Moreno is like, "Sister Avery what happened?!?" I am now standing on a chair across the room holding my scriptures and pointing at the wall where the cockroach is." She grabs the broom and starts whacking, but that little booger wouldn't give in. It was super fast! Picture this, I'm standing on the table chair screaming and my comp is jumping around our living room tearing apart everything to try to get to the roach. Finall I get my tennis shoe out and she whacked it to death. But man, nothing drives the spirit away faster than a 3 in roach! It was gross, but looking back now I can't help but laugh. If someone were to look in our window and see that they'd think we were crazy.

The next morning we are in the middle of our language studies when we get a knock on our door (we never have a knock on our door because no one knows where we live.) Surprise! It was the Jehovah Witnesses. There was a women and then an 8 year old boy with her. She said, "Hi we are coming out to help people understand the bible better." Then she looks down at my name tag as I say,"I was actually just studying the Bible!" She then said, "I don't speak english" and started walking away.... haha. So I say, "wait! my companion speaks spanish!" So Sister Moreno comes out and the lady looked like... oh great what did I get myself into? We ended up teaching the whole restoration lesson and getting her to pray at the end! She was so hesitant to pray (i think because she knew what we were trying to do) but we kept saying, if you are out to teach about Christ shouldn't we pray to him? So she looked around to make sure no one was looking and said a quick prayer. One thing that made me really sad while they were standing there is we gave them a restoration pamphlet and she wouldn't let the little boy read it. He wanted to, but she kept taking it away from him. It's sad, but I hope they come back again!

As for the people we've been working with...

Billy and his mom came to church again yesterday! But the bummer thing is that Brother Vermilyea didn't.... and he called Bishop to reschedule his interview with him. It's so sad! Because I know that Billy is ready, his mom is ready for him, but Brother Vermilyea isn't taking the steps he needs to for his family to get more blessings in life. I wish I could just tell him flat out, "you know this is your sons salvation at hand!" We are going to have to start being more bold with him...

I'll keep y'all updated on their progress. Please keep them in your prayers.

We have been working with 5 different less actives in the ward and all 5 of them came to church this sunday! We were so excited to see them there. It's good to see how they recognize the difference in their lives when they come to church. Matt Delaney is a less active who we met last week. He hasn't been active since he was 14 and now he is 40. We visited with him 2 times this past week, he remembers lots, and he is very open to come back! It was great to see him there yesterday. :)

I'm so grateful to be a missionary. I have so much to work on to be the missionary that Christ needs me to be, but I'm glad I've still got time for that! :) Please keep the people here in Houston in your prayers.

I love y'all so much!!

Erianne