LITTERALLY FULL OF MIRACLES!!

Hey Fam & Friends!! 

Happy Belated Madre's day to y'all! I know for me, it was a fantastic day to remember how INCREDIBLY blessed I am to have my momma and my grandmas, as far back as they go. They truly are a blessing and such a strength because of their testimony and the way they chose to live their lives. ️ I thank my Father in Heaven everyday for my momma! Not gonna lie though, it did make me miss her more than normal. Haha. I guess that's only natural, right! ️ 

It was SO great to see you guys!  it almost feels like you aren't real... I dunno, it's hard to explain but it was awesome to talk to ya!!  

Well!! This week is literally FULL of miracles! Everywhere we look we are being blessed and our eyes are being opened to the Lords handy work! We have been so blessed! This week for our goals it was amazing. So in a District Meeting we set goals as a district. Since Sister Singleton and I have been doing really well in the New 'gators department, we decided to set our goal for 7. (As a district, our goal was 11) So we know that as we set goals to make them realistic and attainable, you want to be able to put names with the numbers. You have to have people in mind in order to make it happen, at least for the majority of the goal. Then there's still room for miracles, of course. 

So we were thinking about our goal of 7 and we know in past weeks we had had people in our minds who were potentials. But now, since we had gone through most of those in our areabook, we were a little shaky on our goal. But I felt strongly that we could make that happen. I knew that if we worked hard and were diligent, the Lord would bless us to reach our goal! Even though I was kind shaky too, I felt like we should keep it. So we did. 

Throughout the week we had none. No one was home, no one wanted to talk to us. It wasn't until Friday that we felt prompted to go to this family's house who we had been trying to catch for weeks. And BOOM!!! She was home. So we talked with her. Then slowly, after that with our tracting, we were able to be lead, inspired and the people's hearts were open and we were able to reach our goal of 7 new investigators once again for this week. It really blows my mind. I can't believe that the Lord literally just puts people there in our path!!! Ah!!! We aren't even doing anything super spectacular to deserve this! We just want to do His work and we are being SOO blessed! To kind of put it into prospective for you, we have been able to find more new people in 3 weeks than the entire Zone did last transfer... WHAT IS THIS!!! I just can't wrap my head around it! ️ so blessed. 

So yeah! That's the miracle of the weekly goal! Haha. There have been countless others. But my personal favorite for this week is with a Less Active/Recent Convert, Thelma. This was in the top 3 of my most powerful moments of my mission. Here's what went down. ️ 

Thelma sometimes calls us randomly and asks us questions. A few days ago she called us and asked if Jesus came down right now, would she "go to hell" because she was smoking again? Well, first of all we were a little shocked because the week before she told us she had no desire to quit again. So we were pretty stoked to hear that the spirit had been working on her. We explained that Heavenly Father and Jesus are the only ones who can decide that, but They wouldn't be very happy with her choice to keep smoking. She said okay and just kinda hung up. THEN! A few days later, she called us again and asked us how to repent. We told her we could come by and teach her. So we read in the Gospel Pamphlet about faith. She understood what faith was. Talked about how repentance means to change and turn to the Lord again. She read through each step of repentance and we talked about it. We explained each step and she told us what she thought it meant.

We talked about obedience to the Lords commandments keeps us happy and safe. We talked about how service helps us replace the bad things with good things. Invited her to church to partake of the sacrament to be cleansed like she was on her baptism day and to say the opening prayer in gospel principles. She said she probably would. We told her how much Heavenly Father and the Savior love her and how much we love her.  The spirit was super strong you could see it working within her. Invited her to go in her room alone and go through the repentance steps with Heavenly Father. She just sat there for a little bit and her roommate started talking to us, Thelma got up. Since I was standing in her way, I just stepped back but she just came up to me and gave me a big hug. It was so tender!  Thelma doesn't do that... it almost made me cry. Haha.

After she just went and did that on her own, she came out and we asked how it went and she was beaming and told us about it. It was amazing!  you could see that she had felt it. She said the closing prayer and it was amazing too! ️ these are the kinds of experiences that make you NEVER wanna take this tag off. After this experience, I sleep with it on because I am realizing how amazing of an experience it is to teach people repentance and to lead them to the Savior. I want to wear this tag as much as possible... this one literally changed my heart. It was incredible to see the Atonement make an immediate impact on someone's countenance. It's one thing to feel it work in your life,  but when you can see it in others lives, it changes you in a different way.  

This one was super cool too!! This is with Erica and Reed. Erica and Reed are together and they are about to have a baby. Erica has 2 little kids from previous relationships. Whenever we visit them, we are usually just standing out on their porch talking. Our goal was to get inside their house this time and share the Plan of a Salvation with their family! Well.... Obviously Heavenly Father was aware because it just fell into place, once again!   this was a really great start! 

It was great! They opened the door and let us right in. We didn't even have to ask if we could come in... We sat down with Erica but Reed was doing the dishes and cooking dinner. He seemed to be listening while he was in the other room. We told Erica that we wanted to share the Plan of Salvation with her. She called her kids in Patience, who is 6 and Daniel who is 5 to come listen too. They have a lot of questions about that kind of stuff. We talked about all of that and they asked really good questions. Erica was listening and helping us a little bit to explain some things to them. We shared Familes Can Be Forever Together video. They all felt the spirit. Invited them to church. Reed came in when we were saying the closing prayer. He said afterwards that he wants to join us next time because he has some questions for us. He asked about where the Book of Mormon came from. We explained that the Book of Mormon was being written around the same time as the Bible. He knew a little about Joseph Smith. But we said we would come back next week and share more. It was really good!! ️

So! We had a lesson with Diane. She is so stubborn.... we are trying to help her realize that it's all about humility. If you're not humble, you won't get an answer.. so that's what we wanted to do with her this time is kind of call her to repentance and try to let her come to the conclusion that she needs to be more humble.. so this is what happened... unfortunately, it didn't have the desired effect but she is slowly having a change of heart. Please pray for her... haha. She's a tough cookie! 

Diane is still busy with work and has allergies that she's dealing with. She hasn't been able to pray on her knees yet, so we invited her again to do so this week and she said she will. We read 2 Nephi 4:16-35. She liked verses 27 & 28 because she said they stood out to her and she liked the wording of it. We talked about what we read with her and related it to being humble. Also related some of the verses to our sins and weaknesses which lead us into reading in the gospel of Jesus christ pamphlet with her.

We went over the 6 steps of repentance with her and invited her to repent of whatever it is she needs to repent of. She wasn't sure of anything besides maybe language. We told her she could pray to ask what she needed to repent of. Talked about how repentance isn't always big things, it's also small changes in life. She was willing to try this. She said the closing prayer and said that she felt the spirit. She said texts are helpful for reminding her of the things we invite her to do. 

Another super cool miracle!! I got to go to a baptism on Saturday for Hannah who we taught for a minute in Colusa!  Linda drove us down to Yuba and took us to lunch at Sizzler! Whenever we are with her, we are always eating!  it's pretty fun! But anyway... it was such a great baptism! She is about to pop too (Have her baby)! Haha. Their story is so cute. Zack (her, now, husband) was less active and they met and started talking about religion. Hannah was looking for a church apparently. Sooner or later they found out there was a baby coming and they both felt like they needed to get their act pulled together. So that's when they started coming to church and then we came in and started teaching them. She was SO solid. Man, she's the most prepared person I have met. Haha. It was awesome to see Zack be able to baptism his new wife though. It was also great to see some of the Colusa people!! ️ 

Something else cool!! I got to see Sister Reid from Corning at the Bishops storehouse!! Ah! It was awesome! She's one of the fav's. ️ she updated me on things. Some things were not good though... I found out that Austin, one of the guys we taught and baptized, is now into into drugs and stuff and involving other people in that.. It actually broke my heart.. it really bothered me. I started wondering if I wasted my time on him and others I had taught there because they were all kind of struggling... After hearing about it, I was reading in the Book of Mormon because I just really needed some comfort. And I felt prompted to turn to Alma 26. I just started reading. It's talking about missionary work but in verse 5 is where it really got me. It uses the words "they are not wasted". Ah. I kinda lost it... I felt such peace and I knew that the Lord's time and my own efforts had not been wasted. Even though those I taught, some of them are really struggling, the Lord is so aware of them. "He numbereth his sheep..". Of course He is aware that they have strayed, but they will come back. It was just such a powerful reminder for me. 

Anyway. That's basically my week!!! It was AWESOME!!  I love being a missionary. What a privilege to serve my Savior and be an instrument in His hands. I hope that I can be who He would have me become, and that we all can choose wisley. We all have the same divine gene.  

I love you all!! Have an amazing week!

LOVE, SISTER HOOD