Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Tender Mercy! - November 17,2014


Hey family!

 Thank you so much for the package!! I was a little bit confused when I saw that there was cereal inside, but I was so happy to see those packages of fruity dino-bites. Breakfast has been pretty great :) Thank you for the music as well! We've been listening to it pretty much any chance we get. It also came on Tuesday if that helps at all with timing for the next time you send something. Congrats to Maddie on making the basketball team!! Way to go! Were there a lot of girls that tried out this year? I know that when I was there the numbers were pretty low. You'll have to let me know how the games go and how the new coach is. Hopefully she'll be able to do great things with the program. MeKenna told me that she was going to help coach and I'm super jealous. Maybe there will be a spot for me when I get back :)
 This week has been pretty good! We've done an incredible amount of finding which has been kind of hard but you can't teach lessons if you don't have anyone to teach. We have a lot of appointments set up for this next week and I'm just praying that they will hold. It's much more fun when your days of finding are broken up with lessons :) I'm getting more comfortable with talking to people and things are starting to get easier. It can still be intimidating but when you think of why you are out talking to people it makes it a lot easier. We taught Georgette twice this week and she is doing really well. She isn't considered "progressing" yet because she hasn't come to church but hopefully that will change next week. We also taught Nathan and Samuel, our two recents converts this week. Samuel is a 60 ish year old man from Brazil. He's really cool and funny and is doing pretty good. We taught him the plan of salvation specifically about what comes after this life. His partner passed away about a year ago and he's been having some questions about it. He understood it really well and is happy that she'll be able to learn about the gospel there. Nathan is 34 and was baptized about two months ago. He actually just got out of prison a few weeks ago for fines so we've been helping him get back on track. He loves the gospel and is trying really hard. We started the smoking program with him this week but we'll see if he does it. This is my second time starting it with him but he did it before he got baptized and I know that he can do it again. Tonight we are teaching Jeremy. He has been investigating for a while but hasn't been able to properly progress because of his job. He works every weekend and can't get time off to come to church. We are going to teach him about the Holy Ghost and how we can learn to recognize it. This is something that he's been struggling with for a while and I think that if we can help him feel it and recognize it then things will start to progress. I'm excited to see what happens!
   Miracle of the week. We received a media referral this week and went to check it out and contact her. Unfortunately she wasn't there but her aunt was and we got her number to give her a call. We had a little bit of time before we had to head off to our next lesson so we decided to do some tracting in the area. A lot of people weren't home and every one that we did manage to talk to wasn't interested. Finally we were coming to the end of the street and we had a couple more minutes. We knocked on the door and no one came. We knocked again, "once for their salvation, twice for ours", and no answer. We started to walk away and then the door opened. In the doorway was this big black man. We hurried back and began talking to him. As we spoke we found out that his name was Owen and that even though he hadn't been to his church in a while he was still very religious. We told him where our church was and he said that he wanted to come. Sweet! We asked him if we could get his number so we could give him a reminder call but he just shook his head and said, "I'll be there." We tried to set up a time to meet him later in the day on Sunday but he just interrupted and said again, "Don't worry, I'll be there."  We said okay and left. We got to church and we couldn't see him. Our sacrament meeting is last over here and we thought that maybe he would just come to that part. After relief society, Elder Beckstead came in and said, "Guess who's here? Owen!" He came! He was about thirty minutes late but he was able to sit in for a little bit of priesthood. We talked to him for a little bit in the hall and he said that he really enjoyed the lesson. Our next meeting was gospel principles and we had a lesson about Heavenly Father. It was cool because another member of our ward brought his girlfriend too so we had two non-members in the lesson. After the lesson we went into sacrament meeting. He was a little bit confused when we sustained someone but he seemed alright with it after we explained it to him :) The talks were really good and it looked like he was really enjoying it. Sacrament meeting ended and because we weren't able to do this before, we gave him a tour of the church. He was soakin' it up! We tried to set up an appointment for this week but he said he was super busy. We were kind of bummed about that but he said that he is planning on coming back next week and that he will try to bring his family with him. He was such a blessing! I'm grateful for these little moments where everything seems worth it. When you talk and talk and talk to people and then one person finally decides to accept it. I'm grateful for tender mercies :)
  Well I hope everything is going well for you! It sounds like you guys are staying plenty busy and enjoying life. Thank you for your continuous support and love. It been a little bit tough having a companion that is going home so soon but I'm grateful for the time that I have ahead of me. I absolutely love being a missionary! I've learned so much already and I'm excited to learn more. I know that this church is true. It was restored through the prophet Joseph Smith, and Thomas S. Monson has been called of God to lead us today. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is real. I've been learning to rely on it more and it has given me so much strength. I can't do everything on my own and I'm not supposed to. I know that as we continuously rely on Him that we will be able to handle the challenges that we face everyday. The gospel is so amazing! Thank you for your examples and for everything that you do. Keep up the good work! Talk to you next week!

Love,
Sister Wilde


Challenge: read something out of preach my gospel :) 






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