#LighttheWorld - DO IT!!

It is that time of year my friends! The initiative has officially started! If you haven't watched the #LighttheWorld yet, DO IT!! It's soooo good! It's just on gospel library, LDS.org, or Mormon.org. Also! Do the advent Calendar with it! It started Thursday.  But that's the perfect way to prepare for Christmas, to share YOUR light and the SAVIOR'S light (same thing when you serve) with others! Best ever!!!

Anywho. HI!! 😁 

This week was good! It was a busy one! We had exchanges twice! Once for just the regular exchange and another time for good ol' Mission Leadership Council. Only one time have I not had to exchange for MLC. Kinda crazy! But on exchanges the first time, I was with Sister Smith. She is from Utah. Not surprising, I know.. haha but she is great! Super great at teaching. It was my first time being on exchanges with her so far.  It was nice to switch things up! 😊 we worked here in Colusa. We had a lesson with a Catholic lady named Leslie. It was one of the most interesting lessons I have been in for a long time. Hahahah! People are so funny. Here's what went down: 

"We talked a lot about her religion. She is very active in it. She believes that she follows Christ. She loves the Eucharist and says she couldn't leave it even if God told her to. She talked about how important the Mormon friends have been in her life, she said they have really taught her a lot and she loves the health and blessings we receive as members. She really liked how we focus on finding happiness in Christ, while her religion is all about the suffering with Christ. She doesn't agree with a lot of things in her church but she said she will stay there. We talked about prophets and Joseph Smith a little. She says she just wants to follow Christ. We tried to explain that the Prophet leads us to follow Christ, She didn't quite agree. We talked a little bit about baptism for the dead. She is very knowledgeable of the church. She said that she might come along one day but she will have to see. She said previous missionaries hadn't made it clear what they were there for, so we explained that we help people come closer to Christ. She said that she thought they were there to be friends and talk religion. We explained otherwise. We shared the Light the World video with her. She didn't say much about it. We didn't really have chance to tell her about it. But we asked if we could come back and talk with her about the priesthood, we set a time to come back and invited her to read the restoration Pamphlet, since she hadn't before. She is a great lady. She just needs the gospel so bad." 

We also met with Mary. She is a nice lady. She isn't too into keeping commitments, including keeping appointments. So we just decided to pop in. She left us right in and we shared the Light the World video. She really liked it. We invited her family to participate in the advent calendar. She said she would. We set a time to come back. But it may not work out due to our Zone Meeting possibly being then for some odd reason... but that's alright.
 
We met with Cynthia. Oh man. She's such an amazing lady! I love her a lot. She thinks she isn't doing what she needs to be but she is. All she needs is something to start her in the right direction... for the past couple times I think we came on too strong with trying to help her understand that she NEEDS scripture study. I really felt like we should take a different approach and it actually helped. So that was a cool experience with the spirit. 😊 

On our exchanges with Sister Wilkinson and I found the heck outta Colusa and Arbuckle (a neighboring town about 30 min. south). Haha. 😁 We were going through our potentials and formers and stopped by the kid named Leo's house. We believe it was his mom that answered. We were able to give her an initiative card and set a time to go back. She said her kids would love to see the video so that was totally a tender mercy. 

We were tracting and Margarita was sitting in a chair on the sidewalk. We stopped to talk to her. She was super friendly and let us sit down and talk to her and her husband Jose. We talked a lot about how she came from Mexico about 25 years ago. Jose has lived here all his life but we would go to Mexico for months at a time. We met their 2 daughters Cynthia and Julianna. They are super cute girls. We were able to share LightTheWorld with them. They really liked it. We really saw something in Cynthia. She was so interested in the video and the how to begin teaching points we shared about how we are called by a prophet to share Christ's gospel now restored on the Earth and that they could find that out through prayers. We gave a card to Cynthia and Margarita with our number. They were so amazing. We asked if we could come back and Margarita said they were good where they were at.
Margarita also mentioned more in private how she really wanted to stop drinking and get away from that. We offered to give her the 12 step book. She declined and thank us again. They are such great people. Definitely follow up with them soon. 

Then the other day, we saw Leslie walking on the street. So we stopped and invited her to the Branch Christmas party. She said she was just talking to her husband about how she didn't feel like her priest whom she does confession with is truly of God. She feels like he had "other problems". She mentioned her friend again and said she was a Mormon just didn't know it yet. She was super nice but on her way to Mass. she said she appreciated the invited though. Unfortunately, there was no principle taught but this was a super huge step for her to say that! 

I feel blessed when little, simple things happen. Even just a door opening, I appreciate it much, much more now days. The Lord rewards faith. That's exactly what that was. I just love my Heavenly Father and my Savior. I don't want to even think what life would be without either of Them.. 😊 so blessed to have the gospel. 

A lot of the week we did service to help with the Branch Christmas party. So that's always exciting. Sister Scott (best member EVAAA) let us borrow her 2 person sweater!! Hahaha. It was so great! Pictures to come! It really was a really good week! This week will be be pretty crazy because Sister Duncan has her departing temple trip and sooo much stuff to do! 

So! It will be quite interesting! 😁 

Love you all!! 

Sister Hood