Hey family!!! 

 

This week was amazing! It was long but good! This week seemed to be the week of service projects. The first one was helping a family move. Boy that was a doozy. I won’t go into detail on that one because mom would be mad at me hahah. But the other service project was we got to paint!! We painted some rooms in a member’s house and that was super fun! We did it with the Elders and it was a blast. It’s fun to have a change of pace sometimes! :) This Saturday our stake is having a service project in the Florida Keys and we were bummed because sisters aren’t allowed to go there. But President sent out a text saying that we were allowed to go!! So i get to go to the Keys! I am so excited. It will lots of fun and a good opportunity to work alongside with members of our stake.

Elder caught an Iguana!

This week we went to go see Sister Boga, my best friend. She is so sweet! She said before I leave she has to have me experience all these things so she took us out to try a bunch of Colombian food and then she made homemade arrepas which were the bomb!! She is awesome. She is already making plans for stuff for us to do when I come back and visit! She is so amazing!!

Last Monday we were able to teach Reniel, whose wife is a member and really wants to go to the temple. The lesson went great. He understands and loves the gospel. Basically he is a dry Mormon but he just hasn’t gotten that confirmation yet, so we are working on that with him. Brother Riggin came with us and they became really good friends so that was a big help! We are going to go and see Reniel today and teach him more. He wasn’t able to come to church yesterday which was a bummer but hopefully after the lesson with him today he will have a better understanding of the importance of church.  

Sick pic of the Iguana with my camera!

This week we got a referral from the sisters in our district for a guy named Melvin. Melvin is a 50 year old man from Georgia. He has been taught by the missionaries before and has been to church several times. He is super amazing and down to earth and really wants to learn about the gospel. On Sunday he was there at church bright and early and he loved it! He loved fast and testimony meeting and said he has never seen anyone get so choked up over the gospel and he was really touched. He said he loved how it all came from the heart. He said he wants his wife to start learning and coming to church with him. He said next testimony meeting he was going to bear his testimony because he could feel one growing with in him. He is amazing. He is planning on getting baptized on the 18th! Super excited for him.

Another amazing thing that happened was that Damien was able to get work off to come to church and guess what? He bore his testimony!!!! I so wish you guys were able to hear his testimony because it was so powerful!! It was one of the testimonies that really touched Melvin and many others. He got up and said "I would like to bear my testimony that this church is true, but I don’t need to be here at this pulpit to tell you that, because this is the true church of God and if you trust in Him you can know for yourself." Then he went on and talked about his conversion story and how amazing missionary work was and how if it wasn’t for me and Sister King he wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t be so happy. I bawled. It was so amazing. The stake president was there and was so impressed with him. I really wish you guys could have been there. After testimony meeting Damien received the priesthood!! He was ordained to the office of a Priest and next week will be blessing the sacrament! I am so happy and proud of him. Damien has gone through so much in his life and is still going through a lot but he is so strong and faithful. He is a huge example to me on what it means to be truly converted! Today we are going to buy him a new tie to wear when he passes the sacrament next week :) Then after church he paid his tithing. He is the best. I can’t wait for you all to meet him someday!!!!!!! 

Another miracle that happened this week was we found our family we have been praying for all week. Each week we set a vision on who we want to find. This week we wanted to find a family of five with two boys and girl who are the ages of 12, 14, and 16 who are from Jamaica. Every prayer we said we included them. On Friday as we were knocking doors we found them!! Exactly what we had prayed. For a Jamaica family with two boys and a girl one of the boys and girl are little older but the other son is 16 and they are interested in learning about the gospel!! We are going to see them tomorrow! Super excited. Heavenly Father is so good!! :) He is just blessing us so much!

Want to hear a funny elder story? So we had a meal appointment on Friday at a member’s home who lives in an apartment complex. After the meal, the elders take the elevator so we sisters take the stairs when we get down to the first floor we see these two Latin ladies who look so confused. We hear banging on the elevator door. It was the elders! We then hear a HELP! We go over to the elevator and ask are you guys stuck?!? Sure enough they were. The elevator was jammed and wouldn’t open. We had to call 911 and 15-20 min later the fire fighters show up to save the day. Once the elevator door opened, all the elders fell out. It got really hot in there. Next time they will take the stairs hahah 

For Fourth of July we had to be home at 7. So we finished our planning, changed into our pj’s and just lounged around and watched church movies. Then we went out to our porch and watched the fireworks which was pretty cool. There were some really good ones. It was a fun night! :) 

Yesterday me and Sister Smith taught primary and it was a fun class. It was the 10 year olds. We taught about the ten virgins and how we need to be prepared. After the lesson we played a game. Me and Sister Smith made bingo boards and made the little paper lamp for the markers. It was fun and the kids loved it. Being in primary before I left helped a lot!! Blessings!!

This week I was reading a story called Matthew Cowley’s Mission to New Zealand and he said this in regards to when he will be released from his mission. I look forward with dread to the day when I will be released from this work. My love for this people has reached such a degree I fear that I will be robbed of contentment after I return. If it was not for the tie which binds me to my father, mother, brothers and sisters I would like to devote my whole life to the interest of the pacific islanders." As I read this, I could relate to him so well. I know exactly how he feels.  I love the people here and the work so much! Thinking about my time running thin, makes me very sad because I feel like there is so much more that I need to do and accomplish, but I am so grateful for you all and your love and support!!! Thanks for all the prayers!!! I love you all so much and miss you!!!! :))) have a good week!! :) 

   

Hey family!!! 

             Brother Riggin and family is back in town! Made me so happy! He showed me the pics he took of you! You guys are so cute!! I love it! :) The boys are sooo tall!! i left the tallest and i am coming back the shortest ahaha it was so nice to see your faces! 

 

Fresh Pineapple!

            This week we did lots of finding. Lots and lots of it! We did have a cool miracle though! In the mission we have to get 5 new investigators by Wednesday and on Wednesday we had 0. We set a vision for what we wanted to find and we prayed all day for the family we wanted to find. We set out and started knocking. We knocked for 4 hours. The last door we knocked we found the family we have been praying for! We found a family of 4 and all were baptismal age. They were all boys and their ages were 9, 11 and 15. It was amazing. We prayed and they loved it and we taught them and invited them to be baptized and they said yes! We were so excited! So we scheduled a return appointment with them. After the discussion, I said to Sister Smith, “I am starving”, because we hadn’t eaten anything all day and it was almost 8. Then she looked on the phone and Sister Boga texted us and said, “Hey! I made you lasagna, you can come eat it!” We were sooo happy!!! It was a miracle! I love Sister Boga so much!! She was so in tune with the spirit. It was such a great meal. She stuffed us to the brim! I can’t wait for you guys to meet Sister Boga and her family. Afterwards she gave me a bracelet she bought me. It was so cute! It was a miracle day! 

 

Helping someone move. Doing Service

            But it was short lived because that family dropped us. In fact everyone dropped us at the same time. L So we are back to the drawing table, but we know God is a God of miracles. Sometimes he gives us miracles, small ones even. If they don’t work out he is just letting us know he is there and that he loves us! 

 

A Latin Professional Electric Violin player who played for us. He was so good!

            It makes me sad how crazy fast the world is becoming wicked. We are in the last days.  With the whole same sex marriage. Yes we have gotten lots of questions. We haven’t had a training on how to best answer but we have passed out a lot of The Family: A Proclamation to the World pamphlets!! It’s been hard with the Warren Jeffs thing going on. Have you heard of that?! If not look it up. It’s been hard to get people to let us in because of that, or get them to listen to us. Satan is real but the power of God is more real. We already know we will win, we just have to keep up the fight and stand strong and wear the armor of God! We need to make sure we are the type of trees that have strong roots! 

            This week I have been studying a lot about trust. It’s kinda been the theme for my whole mission! I was reading a talk and a quote from it I love says, " When one follows the course marked by the road signs of the gospel of Jesus Christ and places his trust in the Lord, its influence is such that it is manifest not only in action and deed but by a marked and visible change in his very being. There is a special light and a spirit which radiates from his eternal soul. It can be described in words like brightness, light, joy, happiness, peace, purity, contentment, spirit, enthusiasm, etc." 

I never thought about how trusting in God can affect your appearance and make your light shine even brighter. That’s something I am working on too is learning how let the light of Christ within me shine bright. It’s been an ongoing thing but I love it! I hope to one day trust in God so much that I just glow :) 

 

Fishing with Elder's on P-Day

            Damien is getting the priesthood!!! I am so excited!!! He is amazing! :) Sorry this is so short, I don’t have lots of time but I love you all so much!!!!!!!!! :) Oh and I love Sister Garrett!! She is amazing!!!!!! So sweet.

            If you want to send me packages or mail it has to be to my direct house address now. Or else I have to wait. 

Love you all!!! Have a great week!!!!!!! :))) smile!! :)

 

Me and Sister Garrett

Hey Family!!!!

Damien’s baptism was amazing!! He just had his interview  for the priesthood! He has the biggest testimony of keeping the Sabbath Day holy. It’s amazing. He loves the ward so much and he says after he leaves the church he gets in the car and prays and thanks heavenly father for letting come to church. I love that kid so much! 

Gregory dropped us. It was sad:( He said he read the Book of Mormon and prayed and said that this isn’t something he wants to do right now. It was a bummer. So we started from scratch again but we saw lots of miracles this week!

The first one was towards the end of the evening and we felt like we needed to be in a certain part of our area and we didn’t know quite why. We went and visited all the members and less actives in that part of town but none of them were home. We knew we needed to be here for a reason so we decided to knock on some doors. We prayed about what street we needed to knock and we felt like we needed to go to this particular street. We knocked and knocked to no avail. Then we saw a house that caught our attention.  We went to it and sitting outside was Erin. Erin is in her 40s, black and has been looking for a church to go to. We said a prayer with her and she loved it and we invited her to be baptized and she said yes. We were so happy!! We set a time to go see her this week! She is so open and excited to learn about the gospel!! She was our miracle. We were so happy that we followed the Spirit that led us to her.

Our other big miracle that happened this week was yesterday. It had been a long day filled with knocking on many doors. We had knocked in two apartment complexes and no one let us in. It got to the point where we were begging Heavenly Father to let us find somebody who needed the Gospel. We wanted to find a family who were looking for peace. We had an hour and a half left in our day and we decided to go to a different apartment complex. We drove by one and we felt that we needed to go there. We went and found a place to park and started knocking. The first 4 were unsuccessful but we still kept going. On the last door we found George. We told him that we were representatives of Jesus Christ and that we were here to share a prayer with him. He accepted and we asked what we could include in the prayer and he said that his dad had died a year ago and that he and his family needed peace. After we prayed, he was in tears. We testified and said that we knew his dad had sent us to him that night. We invited him to be baptized and he said yes right away. He was like yeah so where do we do this baptism?! He said he and his sister have never been baptized! We then asked him how old he was because we thought he might be YSA and he said he was 25 but he was engaged which means he is ours! We were so happy. It was just what we prayed for! We are going to go and see him and his family tomorrow! It was such a blessing. 

On my mission I have gained a strong testimony of specific prayers. Like very specific. When we are specific with the lord and the things we need and we have that vision and faith and trust he will give it to us. The scriptures say knock and it shall be open unto you, ask and ye shall receive. Heavenly Father does listen and answer prayers, it just takes faith and diligence.   I have learned so much about prayer on my mission. It’s amazing. It’s something that I love to do. I can’t wait to go home and just talk to my Heavenly Father and tell him about my day. I have never felt so close to Him. I can honestly say he is my best friend.

Sister Smith is boss and I love her so much! She is so sweet and we get along great!! Today we are going fishing as a district with a member so that will be fun! It’s exciting to change things up a bit lol 

Thanks for that scripture and quote dad!!! I loved it! Super motivational!! :) Thanks for all your love and support!!! :) You guys are the best!! :) Love and miss ya’ll tons!! :)

Briaunna