January 28, 2019

AHHH! Hello again! Can y'all believe I've been out for over 2 months?! Man, time flies! I hope you're all doing well! This week has been so good!

On Tuesday while we were tracting we were able to meet a man who is interested in learning more about the gospel!! After we introduced ourselves he told us that he had seen missionaries before but hadn't really talked with them. He was about to tell us he wasn't interested when he mentioned he was originally from Arizona, and I was like, no way! I told him I was from Mesa, and it turns out he grew up in the Apache Junction/Mesa area. As a kid his mom had him go to a bunch of different churches, and he says he attended our church for about a year, but he doesn't remember much about it. He asked us if we were the ones with the Book of Mormon, and we were like blessings from above yes we are, and as a matter of fact we could give you a copy if you'd like. Anywho, we talked with him about how the Book of Mormon can help his life and how it testifies of Christ. He invited us to come inside and share more with him, but as sister missionaries, we aren't allowed to go inside a home if there is only a male there, so we stood outside his door and talked with him for about an hour. He invited us to come back later with another person so we'd be able to come inside, so a couple days later we came back with Sister Frary, a lady in our ward. (Oh btw, his name is Tim). When we came back we shared Alma 43:45-47 with him, because it talks about how the Nephites had to fight to protect their family, and the Lord supported them because they were fighting for a righteous cause. We were hoping this would help Tim because he served in the military, and he doesn't feel like he can pray or go to church because of the experiences he had in the military. We shared about the Atonement of Christ with him, and how Christ understands every little thing we feel, and that because God loves us He provided a way for us to be able to repent and change and feel clean again. We invited Tim to keep reading the Book of Mormon and pray about it. We're going back to visit him again this week, so we're so excited about that!

This week we also visited with a lady named Debbie. She is very religious, so she invited us in so that we could talk about Christ. She is the sweetest person, and she seemed pretty interested in learning about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. We were able to talk about the Restoration with her, and she said she is very interested in reading the Book of Mormon along with the Bible because she wants to read more about Christ. It was pretty interesting because before we left her home, we asked her if we could leave her with a prayer. She said that would be great, and asked me to pray. As I was praying, I heard her whispering, but I couldn't understand what she was saying. She explained that she believes if she speaks gibberish while people pray, the devil will not be able to understand what we are praying about. We thanked her for wanting to protect our prayer and set up a time to come by again this week. One thing I've loved about being on a mission so far is learning about other religion's beliefs, because it's pretty interesting.

This week we were also able to do some service! The Bishop Watson and his family are trying to sell their house and move closer to town, so this past week they were getting their home ready to go on the market. Sister Watson has a bit of a hard time doing a lot of manual work because she has a genetic condition where her tendons don't hold her muscle to her bone very tightly, so her joints are very loose, which can make working and even walking very painful. She asked us to help her drop off some stuff at the dump, and can I just say, IT WAS SO FUN! Haha that sounds so weird but I miss going to the dump to drop off tree branches and stuff with my mom and dad. It was cold and rainy but I had a blast haha. I never thought I'd miss going taking trips to the dump. Later in the week we spent a day helping the Watson's deep clean so that they could get pictures to list their home. It was super fun and I'm so grateful we were able to get to know them better. They own a lot of farm animals, and they have a chicken coop. They told us about how they've had problems with skunks staying under the coop, but they told us a really funny story about how they found out how to get rid of them. I guess they googled it and saw that if you leave chocolate laxatives out, the skunks will eat them, won't be able to stand the smell of their own nasty, and will leave and never come back. Anyway, the way they told the story was super funny and I couldn't stop laughing.

We had some awesome experiences this week, but we also had some sad ones. We met a woman while we were tracting, and she said she was interested in coming to our church because she wanted a church to take her family to. We invited her to come on Sunday, and she invited us to come back for a lesson. When we came back the next day, there was a note on her door saying she'd done some research on our church and didn't want us to come back. She said she didn't have time to talk and didn't want us to knock on her door or ring her doorbell. It was pretty sad for Sister Gatchalian and I, because we just want everyone to be able to experience the joy and comfort we've felt from learning of and following Christ and His gospel. We were pretty bummed out, and as we were driving home, we listened to a talk by Elder Holland. Basically he said if it wasn't easy for Christ, it shouldn't be easy for us as missionaries or as followers of Jesus Christ, because we need to come to understand just a little bit of what Christ felt.

Sunday we finally had church because it wasn't cancelled, and Sister Gatchalian and I were asked to help in young women's because they don't have enough leaders. I sat in with the Mia Maids (there were only 2) and we had a really good lesson about Christlike attributes, which is one of my favorite lessons, because we all need a reminder that we need to always be focused on the Savior and becoming like Him. It was really nice because I miss being in young women's, so it was fun to help out with that.

I'm running out of time to type but this week has been great! I hope y'all stay safe this week and count your blessings!

This is outside the library we email at.

Cheesy picture to show how happy I am
 to have warm feet because of these boots.

This was after helping at the dump.

Working at the dump

Working at the dump

We looked at a book shop/ antique shop today and
a pass along card was stuck in with a bunch
of other religious stuff.