Well this week has been so great! We've seen a lot of neat things. Hopefully I will have time to tell them all :)
My favorite thing that happened this week was when we found Lauren. I was on exchanges and we had just gotten back from the Humanitarian Center. We were on the Square and we went down into the basement of the NVC and starting talking to this man and woman. Turns out, her name is Lauren and his name is Anthony. They are truck drivers and she is training him. We asked if they had any questions and he said she had a lot of questions and then walked away. So she was a little embarrassed but started asking her questions. She had really good ones. She also has a pretty peculiar concern I had never heard of before. But I guess we all have our own interests. Anyway, she is super nice and super sincere. She was in the Army and her battle mate was LDS so she went to church a few times with her and always had questions answered by her. We were able to give her a book of Mormon and we have been teaching her this week. She's reading the Book of Mormon. She is awesome! The last question she asked was something along the lines of, 'my husband is Atheist. He will allow me to go to whatever church I want to but I can't take the kids. if I were to convert, would I be allowed to do so or would I be looked down on? Would I be kept from anything if he and my kids didn't go but I did?' We were like no! haha of course you will be able to enjoy all the same blessings every other member of the church does. She is so great!
Last Monday before Preparation day started (I forgot to mention this one I think), we were chatting with a Less Active member named Janice. She told us how she had been a member all her life (over 40 years) and received her endowments and went on a mission, but that God had told her through the Holy Ghost that she needs to be ordained to the Priesthood. She went on to tell me that she wants to baptize her children and give blessings and I thought I was going to be sick. It just made me beyond sad to hear all the things that she thinks are coming from God. In reality, the lack of the little things like reading scriptures and praying daily and attending church and the Temple had moved her far off the path. Nothing we said by the Spirit could do anything. We have been trying to teach her this week but she is literally so convinced that she sees no other possible way of her staying in the church than her being ordained to the Priesthood. Oh man. As a missionary or member in general that is so hard to watch. We will pray for her though. The Lord works miracles on hardened hearts! The little things that Heavenly Father asks us to do may seem so trivial but they are so important! We can't miss days of doing them, it is how we put on the armor of God.
I am not sure if you remember me talking about Pam before I went outbound. Well I finally got her contact transferred back to me and I called her yesterday. Man I always feel the love Heavenly Father has for her so strongly when I talk to her! To refresh your memory, she is probably in her 60's. She had been going through all sorts of treatment for brain cancer last time we talked to her (this is after previous treatment and remission). I found out yesterday that she just had another brain surgery 2 weeks ago and she just fractured her hip...obviously she's not doing too well! She is so sweet. I just shared a scripture with her and offered to have Elders come give her a blessing. Hopefully we will be able to help her!
Okay we had the best tour on Saturday! There was a huge Girl scouts of America convention this past week, so we had thousands of people from that here on the Square. Well we took 2 ladies (they weer from Ohio so they weer automatically cool to me haha) around on a tour and they were so prepared! They said that they came to have a tour because they had heard a lot about the church and they wanted to come find out what was true and what wasn't about what they heard. They said they wanted to educate themselves so they could tell others. They were so nice and had wonderful questions and comments and definitely felt the Spirit as we took them to the Assembly Hall, the Temple Model, and Scriptures and Revelation where we taught the Restoration. One of them took a Book of Mormon and the other already had one, she said missionaries stop by often. They didn't want to learn more from us, but that was okay! It was a seed planted. We tried to harvest but they weren't ready :) One day they will be!
On Thursday at the Humanitarian Center, we took a ton of tours. On one of the tours, there were little kids that were so well behaved! At the end of the tour, we show a movie. It's way good and the spirit is always really strong. Usually when we ask kids questions after the movie, they will give us blank stares or just avoid eye contact haha but these kids said, I felt the Spirit! And another said, I felt the spirit, too. It was way cool! I actually am going to see if I can attach the URL so you can watch it...
https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/visitor-center-films?lang=eng
Hopefully that works! Now you can see the things that we show people at the Humanitarian Center. It is really cool to serve there to see where the Humanitarian Funds of the church end up. I hope you like it!
Yesterday we were able to take a family around on a lesson with some SLC sisters. Ironically, they were actually from Tucson but live here now. It's a blended family and they aren't married because they had really bad previous marriages so they are afraid to get married. But they are so sweet I don't know how anyone could treat them poorly. They are perfect for each other and I want them to get married already so the Dad can get baptized and they can be sealed! They all want that. I hope that I will get to see them again.
Our investigators are doing really well. Joelle has been getting the help that she needs. She said that she wishes she could return to others the help that she has receives. She's been going to church and sharing the Gospel with her daughter and is so looking forward to getting baptized on the 1st!
We have some other great New Investigators I don't have time to tell you about sorry!
I hope you all have a great week this week, every week is great when you have the Restored Gospel :) May we all remember the counsel given by President Monson at the Ogden Temple Dedication: "Love the Temple, appreciate the temple, attend the Temple."
Love you,
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