Family!!

So this week!! First off transfers came and..... me and Sister King are staying!! Yay! I am so happy because I love this ward and area and her so much!! :) It’s going to be another great six weeks.

        

This was a pic we took on our first day together

 As for Physical Therapy, my last one I scheduled got canceled but I am not going to re-schedule. I have all the exercises plus one from dad so I think I am good. As for the doctor apt, Sister Richarson came with me as well (President’s wife) Everything came back negative except some things to do with my connective tissue and as well I have a bit of inflammation in the liver. So out of the 20 things that would qualify me for lupus only 2 came back positive. Not by a whole lot but a enough to where she wants to keep an eye on me. She also thinks I can have connective tissue diseases, but lupus is also connected to hair loss. So I am not sure. Where does my back pain come into play? So all of these things are up in the air but don't stress about it. I will get the second opinion and get my eyes checked and all that fun stuff and let you know. :) But everything will be okay :)

           

Sock sliding party

 Last week on Monday night we went to go see Rachel and we knocked on her door (she was home) but no one answered. Her dogs would bark and then get quite real fast then bark again. She didn't answer the door. Later that night she texted us saying that she doesn't want us to come back again :((( I was heartbroken and may have cried lots. It was hard because I know I promised her I would bring the gospel to her but she rejected it. I am so thankful that we have such a loving Heavenly Father and hopefully she will accept it in the spirit world. In fact I know she will.

So after that sad bit, the next day we prayed about a spot to knock doors, determined to find a family. In our prayers we were really specific and asked to find a family of four with two girls. So we go to where we were inspired to knock, It was like the 5th door that we knocked and Gloria answered the door. We asked if we could share a prayer with her and she said yes. Guess what? She had two daughters! One was like 3 and the other was 7 and they are amazing. So we said the prayer with them and they loved it! We invited them to be baptized and she looked at her 7 year old daughter and said, “do you want to be baptized again?” Me and Sister King were amazed because usually it’s a fight because people are like well I have already been baptized before why do I have to be baptized again?  It was awesome that Gloria right away saw the need and understood why she needed to be baptized again and she said that she was looking for a church. Me and Sister King were so happy. The next day we went over and taught her the restoration and she loved it. It was a good powerful lesson and she asked a lot of good questions and we gave her a Book of Mormon and set her with a date for May 9th. She was so excited for the opportunity to be baptized and come to church. But just wait..... So Sunday comes around. We hadn't been able to see her after we taught her the restoration, so we go to her house to see if she and her family were coming to church and she opens the door and says that she has some stuff she needs to talk to us about before she comes to church and that they are sleeping. So needless to say one of our strengths this week was getting people antied!  But that's okay because God is good and blessed us with a miracle. On our way to church we were sad but we knew God was going to bless us with a miracle.

 During gospel principles, in walks Lynn. She is a mom with a son named Christopher who is 9 and goes to scouts at the church and she thought that she should come and check out the church. She loved gospel principles and Relief Society. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she wants to be baptized! She is Haitian. We are going to go see her this week and we are super excited.

            

 Brother White and his family are doing amazing. He takes us out every week for meals. Tonight we are going to go eat with their family and we are having BBQ chicken. Yummy. They are amazing. His wife will soon be baptized. She will just take some time but that's okay. It’s all in God’s timetable! :)

           

 So this week I was reading in Ether when Moroni is writing and he starts talking about how he isn't mighty in writing, how he has weaknesses and how the people will mock him for his writing. I was thinking about how much this related to me in a way. I have weakness and especially right now I have felt often times that I should just go home. I can’t do this work, I am not good enough. But as I was pondering, I realized that if Moroni gave up writing and just stopped we would not have the book of Ether, we would not have his amazing testimony. At the end, he continued writing in a way he thought was sufficient but he continued in faith and now the scriptures in Moroni are some of the most looked up scriptures on the internet and his testimony has changed so many people’s lives. This came from a man who thought he wasn't mighty in writing. Heavenly Father really does take weak things and makes them become strong. In the song I Know My Father Lives, it says at the end ".. and he tells me that I can, and he tells me that I can" I know Heavenly Father is right there beside us telling us we can. With whatever trials we are going through, He knows us and our potential. we just can’t lose sight of that!! :)

            

 Check this article out! https://www.lds.org/church/news/joseph-smith-atop-smithsonian-magazines-top-religious-figures-list?lang=eng

Joseph Smith atop Smithsonian Magazine’s Top Religious Figures List by R Scott Lloyd its super cool!

            

 Thanks for all you do!! I miss you tons! So excited for another week or miracles and adventures!!

Briaunna

Family!!

Physical Therapy has been going good. Its helping. My last one is on the 23rd. It has been helping with the inflammation and pain.

​Elders tagging our car with a "I love One Direction" balloon. Silly elders haha

So this week we dropped Lisa and Angel the Jamaican family. They are great but just not quite ready yet. They just got really contentious and when we would teach them the spirit wasn't there. So we had to drop them. :( But I know that soon they will be ready to continue moving forward. They just need time.

1 Year Mark

We haven't been able to see Rachel, but tomorrow we will. She was dog sitting last week but we called her every day and she is reading a chapter a day in the Book of Mormon and loves it! She is amazing. We love her to death! We will continue to teach her this week :) Super excited!!

Went to the Temple with Rachel!!

This week we had interviews with mission president. I love interviews with him. So amazing. This one was super spiritual. We always have to go in with a question to ask him and my question this time was "How did you learn to trust God and what were some of the experiences you had that helped strengthen that trust?" He told me an amazing story. When president was young, his mom passed away when he was 7. A year later his dad re married and president and his step mom did not get along. So every summer he went to Canada to be with his step moms mom and dad. He loved them so much and they loved them. He spent a lot of time with his grandma and he would brush her hair for a quarter an hour and they would just talk as he brushed her hair. Well later on her spine started literally crumbling. When he was on his mission she wrote to him and said I can’t wait till you get back because I want you to give me a priesthood blessing because I know you can heal me. So after his mission he went to go see her in the hospital and he gave her that blessing. When the doctors took an x ray a couple days after he gave the blessing, there was bone where there wasn't before. Her spine had rebuilt itself. He said that his grandmother had faith. Lots of it. He said that's the key to trusting in Heavenly Father is faith. It was super good. I love learning from him! :)

Closest to sand we can go!

This week we have been working a lot with less actives and one of those families is the Whites. They are Vietnamese. Brother White, who is the member, is adopted and grew up here in the states. He is amazing and his adoption story is amazing. Anyways, he has a little girl who is 4 and we love her and his wife is awesome as well but catholic. They have us over every week and feed us amazing food! This week it was that soup I sent a pic of (Pho). He took us out to eat at a Chinese place and it was like really authentic Chinese food! I had whole baby squid, chicken feet, and surprise soup! haha Half the stuff I ate I didn't even know what going in my mouth. We also had shrimp in this rice thing and for desert, which was the best, was this white bun thing. It was like a roll that had a crème in the middle. It was a crazy experience but so much fun! And yesterday he came to church with his daughter for the first time in a long time and loved it! He really wants to go to the temple and get sealed as a family! We love them.

First time eating Pho at the White's home.

The other family is the Espinosa family who we love we are going to see them tonight so cool!! They are the best!

  

This week we found and are teaching Mike and Emma. They are from Trinidad. They have had contact with the church before. They love to can so they have been to the cannery. We taught them the restoration and it went really well! Mike was super interested and loved it and Emma was really quiet. She didn't say much but it seemed like she liked it. We gave them a Book of Mormon and they are going to church next week. They also have a daughter Abby who is 13. We haven't met her yet though. We are seeing them tonight and super excited about it!! We don't have a lot of people to teach so we are happy.

Yesterday we were visiting with a member and his son and his son isn't a member but he is practically a dry Mormon. He asked us a question. He asked "When Jesus comes and calls us, will you be able to recognize his voice?" That made me think? Will I be able to recognize His voice? It made me think of Mary when she was at the tomb and she was crying and Jesus called her and she knew it was the voice of her Savior. So I decided to get to know my Savior better. I made it a point to read the New Testament every day and study more about the atonement. It’s something really cool to think about.

​Got locked out of our house, so we ate Wendy's and chilled in the mothers lounge at church building for our dinner hour....

I was reading in Mormon 8:25 and it was talking about all the things the prophets went through for the church and it made me think of the previous dispensations. The prophets of old were able to go through failure, torture, and torment because they knew they were laying the ground work for us. They would be a part of the success we would have in this dispensation. That’s probably what gave them hope and helped them endure knowing that they needed to do this for us because they knew we would have success but we needed the foundation they set. It’s crazy all the sacrifices people have made leading up to this point for the church. Because of their faith and trust, they knew this church was true and they would do anything to make sure it was spread through all four corners of the earth. I love this gospel sooo much!! It has changed my life so much. It is true!! I have never hungered so much to read the scriptures. :) I am so grateful for all the prophets who gave their lives so we can have the Book of Mormon :)

 

Planning and studying in our princess room

Thanks so much for all the scriptures dad!!! I love them, thanks for all that you do!! I love you all so much! Hope you all have a great week!! :) Miss you!

Briaunna