OH-IO!

Hey!

Today we went to the State Fair! It was tons of fun. It was hard not riding the rides or eating the food (i'll explain later) but we all had fun as a district. But unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to write, which is particularly sad this week because we had miralces left and right! We taught so much this week it was incredible! This has been one of the best weeks of the mission for me.

So Kenny was the traveler who we invited to stay in Columbus. Our District Leader, Elder Bishop, promised him that if he would stay, that he would see huge changes in himself. Well not only did he stay, but he has come so far in the past week! We met with him everyday since then! Last monday, he came to our lesson, and I could tell he was drunk. I felt prompted to just be straight up, and bold. And I guess he needed that. The spirit was strong. He came to the next lesson sober, and it was so different! It was incredible. He asked for a blessing and since then, he has stopped drinking, smoking marajuana, and stopped smoking since yesterday! He has been a pack a day smoker for 7 years but is trying to quit cold turkey with the help of us and members. He has progressed so rapidly it's insane. He knows the book of Mormon is true and the church is true and he is getting baptized on the 16th of August! He even came to both wards on Sunday, so he came to 6 hours of church yesterday, and then an Open house at the Mission Home! He is so solid, such an example to us. So to help him quit smoking, we all have given up something. I chose sugar, which was particularly hard today at the state fair with all my favorite treats :( But it is so worth it!

Funny story of the week....Do yoou remember how I set traps (lint roller sheets) around our apartment to catch the millipedes?? Well we actually caught one! One of my greatest moments of accomplishment to date. Haha. I'll attach a picture. Also there's another picture of another we had to kill this week. Do you feel my pain? Haha

Jeremy has been a little lazy, sadly. We just love him so much, we want to force him to keep his commitments haha. But we have the faith that he will!

Eric is doing great too! We taught him the Plan of Salvation and he told us that he is going to read the Book of Mormon in 2 weeks (so by next wednesday) so that he can know for himself if this church is true. Can you believe that?! He is way open.

Molly came to church! We met with her twice last week and she came to church. She is so great. She is opening up to us and I think she really enjoyed church. I know that she definitely needs some peace in her life. When we met with her last Monday, she basically unloaded a bunch of trials she had been struggling with by herself. She has had a really rough life, I know this gospel will help her.

We are also teaching Derek, Kenneth, and Nick that I will tell you about more next week, I love our investigators, they are the best. I have realized this week how badly I want to stay on OSU this transfer. I really hope I don't get transfered because I can't leave these people! Pray that I will stay :) haha

Okay thanks for reading my ungathered thoughts. I hope you have a great week, Love ya!

Time flies....

This picture is because a lot of people looked at us weird because we all had really long skirts and buns, so we looked a little weird, people on the street kept asking us why we dress like that haha it was embarrassing! And we are wet because it was pouring rain during the seizure incident.

I can't believe it's been another week. Time flies by faster and faster each week.
It's been a great week for sure.

We had a great lesson with Jeremy on Tuesday. We were studying what we should teach him and we all decided that we still need to focus on God is our Loving Father in Heaven. I didn't think we should move on until he gets there, because everything else that we would teach him wouldn't have relateability to him. My companions agreed so we were able to share more about Heavenly Father and faith and show a Mormon Message. It was a powerful lesson, the spirit was so strong! While studying for him, I found a quote that we were able to share with him. "The power of our prayers depends on us." That was so profound to me. It really is up to us to make them meaningful. If prayer is not a priority, if we are not willing to do anything to receive an answer, then why should Heavenly Father be willing to make an answer known to us? He has been praying, but doesn't feel any differently, and doesn't feel that he is receiving any answers. We talked a lot about prayer with him and were able to share personal experiences. I shared a small experience that was pretty embarrasing haha I told him the struggles (to say the least haha) I've been having with the millipedes and how I haven't been sleeping well because I am too afraid to get up in the middle of the night to go use the restroom, so I've been praying and asking Heavenly Father to help me to not have to get up and use the restroom. haha. And He's been answering my prayers! Haha it was a small experience, but we were able to show Jeremy that even on a smaller scale, the things that are important to us are important to our Heavenly Father, and He wants to help us, we just have to ask for His help. We still feel like he is holding something back, though. I think that something has happened in the past that would prevent him from wanting a relationship with Heavenly Father, so we are going to try to find out that concern this week.

Later that night, Brother Kyees from one of the YSA Bishoprics took us out to dinner. It was way fun! He has daughters that live in L.A. and was telling us how one of them is the Celebrity nail artist, so she does Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Rhianna, and a ton of other celebrities' nails. It was pretty cool. Plus we got a great meal.

On Wednesday, we found a New Investigator, Jacqueline. She is way nice. She is Catholic, but is open to learning more. We are looking forward to meeting with her when she returns from vacation. On Wednesday night, we were making phone calls to set up return appointments with Potential Investigators we had met while contacting, and I really felt like we needed to call Eric. We had met Eric on July 4th. Here in Columbus, they celebrate Independance day on July 3rd, with an event called Red, White and Boom. So the morning of the 4th, we were out contacting on High Street, and were running into a lot of people that were hungover/still drunk from Red White and Boom. We walked past Panera, and we saw this guy sitting alone looking a little...haggard haha but we started talking to him. His name is Eric and he had had a crazy night from Red White and Boom and was still a little intoxicated, about to be picked up by a friend. But we just talked with him and got to know him a little more and his beliefs. He is Agnostic but open. Usually Potential's like him don't pan out, but when we called him, he wanted to meet with us! So we met with him Saturday. We were giving him a chapel tour, and he had a lot of questions. I told him that I didn't want to overwhelm with a lot of information but he said that he wouldn't mind at all, and that he actually likes getting a lot of information at once. So we taught him the Restoration in 5 minutes and he thought it was pretty interesting. He also came to church yesterday! He really liked it and afterwards, he said, well I still want to learn more. We were way happy!

On Thursday, we went on exchanges and Sister Malloy and I went to Worthington, where I knocked my first door! haha it was great, but no one was interested. I still enjoyed it but when we got back to OSU, it felt like home.

We had interviews with President Daines on Friday, they were great He is so caring and his wife is so funny! They are great to serve under.

On Saturday, we went to a baptism in Sister Malloy's old area. The members there are fantastic! I was a little sad though because Megan (the one I was teaching when I was at Temple Square) was supposed to be baptized that same day, so I was sad I couldn't see it, but I actually just found out today that she hasn't been baptized yet but is progressing towards it so I am not sure when she will be. She is so solid though!

Earlier in the week, we had met a traveler (I seem to be a magnet to them haha) named Kenny who stopped us and really wanted a Book of Mormon. He had lived with an LDS couple for a few m onths and had gone to church with them and met with missionaries. We set an appointment with him for the next day, but he missed it. We saw him a few days later and gave him a Book of Mormon, then last night, we were contacting and met him again, so we invited him to the institute to have a chapel tour. He said that this time he feels different, that usually he only spends a few days in one place, but that this time was different and that if God told him to stay, he would. So we gave him a chapel tour and showed the movie the Testaments and i9nvited him to be baptized and he said he would if he felt God wanted him to stay. We convinced him to stay another week and we have an appointment with him today so we will see if he shows up!

I just want to add my favorite part of the week. It was Monday night and we were getting ready to go home. One of the members came in and said that someone was having a seizure. We went out to help, and immediately, my District Leader began giving a blessing with his companion. The guy, Ryan, was foaming at the mouth and seizing everywhere. As soon as the words blessing of healing came out of his mouth, the seizure stopped and he relaxed and became alert. I saw the power of the Priesthood work miracles right before my eyes. I don't know how to convey that miracle to you in so short a time, but I hope you got goosebumps :) 

This church is way special because it is Christ's church, and the power that He held to heal people, is held today. I know that power and authority is real.

Well that's all that I have time for. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

OSU Adventures Continue!

The Adventures have been nonstop, haha it's been another great week.Because of weird boundaries, we are in 2 zones, so we had another zone activity today! For this one, we had a talent show. We decided to do a pie-eating contest for our talent haha it was so fun! Except for the fact that we got pumpkin pie everywhere, including up our noses. Haha. And I smell like whipped cream. I wish I could attach the video! But once again, I don't have much time to email because of the activity. Next week we will have full time!

Shoutout to the Somerville's for coming to see me in Ohio! :) That was way cool.

So to update you on our investigators' progress:

We taught Kevin again this week. We taught him about Obedience and the Word of Wisdom. At first he was a little flabbergasted that we don't drink tea or coffee, especially considering the Asian culture, they drink a lot of tea. But we were able to explain why we have the Word of Wisdom and what God promises to bless us with by keeping it. We also told him he can drink herbal tea and told him we would bring him some. He was pretty open about it and said that he would try to keep the Word of Wisdom. He is doing great, he is so open and willing to do anything for his newfound relationship with Jesus Christ. It's amazing to me that a month ago he had no belief in Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ but now, just 4 weeks later, he knows that they exist and that they love him.

I am not sure if I told you about Mohsen, but he dropped us. He said that he had spiritual confirmations from God that were telling him not to learn more about this church and that the Book of Mormon was enticing him to do evil things, so I'm not really sure what that is all about haha. I guess he just wasn't ready!

Here's a story to make ya laugh:

We were out street contacting and it was the end of the day on Tuesday, right after p-day where we had zone activity so we were exhausted. We stopped to get some water and it made us feel a lot better. So we're talking to this girl named Molly. She gives us her information and we start to make an appointment and she goes, wow you guys are really energetic. So I go, yeah, well we just drank water. Haha okay don't know why I said that. Haha needless to say, it's a miracle we are teaching her. Also, I ruined another contact a couple days later with a case of the hiccups. I would have thought my companions would save it, but no they just laughed at me.

We had lunch with Cheyenne. She hasn't read form the Book of Mormon and wasn't able to come to anything this week. Hopefully this week will be better!

I'm so excited to tell you about Jeremy!! So we found him on the street a little over a week ago. We contacted him outside the institute. We were asking about his beliefs, and he responded honestly. He wasn't intending to offend us, but he said some pretty offensive things about God that hurt! He wasn't raised with any religion, he is agnostic, so the whole bad things happening to good people thing makes him think that God is a mean person if he does exist. He was I guess you could say bold, so we were a little surprised when he gave us his information so he could learn more. We still didn't really think anything of it though because a lot of people who give us their information never respond when we try to get a hold of them. Well we texted him later and he ended up saying yeah I'll meet with you, how about tomorrow? We were like okay! So we met with him and he is just so sincere! We taught a lot about God is our Loving Heavenly Father and more about the nature of God. He was really receptive and asked questions like why would God allow a toddler to die of leukemia, etc. He even committed to pray. Later that day he texted and said, okay the people around the toddler that dies of leukemia get taught a lesson (by missionaries), I get that. But what about the toddler, are they just a pawn? He was thinking about what we taught him!! S we encouraged him to pray about it and we would talk about it in our next lesson. So we taught him again on Friday. This lesson went even better! He hadn't prayed however. He said he didn't forget but that he chose not to. Well we taught him about the Plan of Salvation, but simplified. He really liked it! He is so sincere. At one point of the lesson, we asked what he thought about the Plan of Salvation and he said "it's what I always hoped was true." We were basically speechless! That was a journal moment haha. He said that he really would pray this week, that he wanted to this time. We invited him to church but he ended up not feeling very good that day but he texted us a couple times and apologized and said he would come next week. Holy cow, this rough guy I never thought would want to listen to what we have to say is like way prepared and willing to act on the faith he didn't know he had! We are way excited to teach him again tomorrow. It just goes to show that you never know who is prepared! You never know. That's why we have to open our mouths to everyone!!

We found some way awesome people yesterday when we were contacting, we will be teaching them this week so we will keep you updated next p-day.

I wish I could share more but time is up!! Thanks for all the support.A quote for this week: "You can't kill time without injuring eternity." God blesses how we use our time :)

Love ya!

Happy 4th!

Zone activity!

Happy late Independence Day! Hope you had a great one, I sure did! We got fed by members and contacted the whole night, it was great!

So we had a Zone Activity today, we played Ultimate Frisbee and Softball and it was way fun but it took our whole P-day :( So I have absolutely no time so please forgive my wimpy letter, but hopefully attaching pictures will help.

It's been a great week! We were able to teach Kevin, and really figure out what's holding him back from being baptized. It turns out that he really wants to be baptized, but his family is a huge priority for him, and his family doesn't support him wanting to be baptized. He is from China, and all his family still lives there. He has been telling them about meeting with the missionaries, but his grandma is really unsupportive because she had a bad experience with another Christian church, s she thinks that all Christian churches are the same and that our church is like that one. We taught him about Fasting and how he could fast for his family on Fast Sunday and he was excited. He came to church with us on Fast Sunday and he was fasting! He said he felt great. We're excited t teach him again this week.

We also taught Cheyenne this week. We gave her a chapel tour and taught part of the Restoration. We learned that she needs to be taught very simply but she is very interested. Actually right before we contacted her, she had been praying that something would come into her life from Heavenly Father to help her feel closer to Him, and that's when we walked up! That's why she started crying because she knew it was an answer to her prayers. She really wants to come to church, but her boss makes her work on Sundays, so she is trying to find a solution. We have been praying for her, and will be meeting with her again tomorrow.

We contacted this guy Jerone on campus last week, and he is one of our new investigators. He is Atheist and has never known any religion. We were able to share some things with him and pray with him and he is sincerely interested. He is scared of coming to church though so we will have to work on that! But we know that once he feels God's love for him, he will begin to change! We are excited for that.

Well I am sorry this letter is so lame! It's been a wonderful week and I wish I had more time to tell you about it! Let me just say that I feel your prayers and that they are working miracles. We are so blessed to have the Gospel and the knowledge it gives us. Every morning is a decision of destiny that is in our hands. I love being a part of Heavenly Father's work.

Love you all!

Happy birthday to Adam and Nate this week, love ya!