Before I post her last 2 letters I will quickly share my experience...Last night Don and I went to the temple. It was the first time since we took Haley through. My little "Escort" tag was still attached to my dress. I must say I felt an outpouring of the Spirit and felt lots of prayers answered. Afterward, sitting in the Celestial Room, I started to miss my beautiful Haley so very much that I started crying...hard. You know, the shoulder shaking, quiet gulps kind of crying. Then I thought how embarrassed Haley would be if she was there because she is really not one for powerful, public dispays of emotion. That made me laugh, which made me cry all the harder! It was actually pretty funny to me. I love that child so much and I am so proud of her. She made such a difficult decision, didn't let the adversary dissuade her and now the blessings are pouring out on her head. Everyone of her friends are lucky to have her.
Here are her last two letters...
P.S. Sometimes I change the names of people or just XXX them in order to protect their privacy. This is the internet, afterall!
April 9, 2012
Guess what??? I've made it through my first transfer!!!!!!!! We'll be
getting a new district leader which is sad because he was awesome and also
Elder Trammel will probably be leaving which really is so sad! We're definitely
going to miss him!
So this week.... hmmm not a whole lot
happened that I can think of. We only had one investigator lesson! One! We had
at least one more planned but the guy cancelled on us like he almost always
does ha ohhh xxx. XXX is the roommate of XXXX so we were talking to her about
him and she says to give him one more shot and just be really upfront with him
about everything, like tell him what's going to happen to him after he dies if
he doesn't start pulling his life together (he's an alcoholic). He just doesn't
know much about anything, including the real purpose of life, even though we've
gone over it several times and he still doesn't really see why our message is
important... that WILL change! But anyway, since we only had one lesson we
spent a lot of the week tracting.
--OH! I almost
forgot! We started riding the bus this week!! Haha it was great! And we didn't
get lost once! We were so proud of ourselves! One of our less active's
boyfriend is a driver for the bus system here and it just so happened that we
got on his bus one of the times and it just so happened that the less
active, Cindy, and her son, Timmy, were on the bus too! Timmy loves us so
when he saw us he yells super loud SISTERS!!! We had our own welcoming
committee on the bus! Then he told us to close our eyes and he just
started praying on the middle of the bus! It was seriously the cutest thing
ever! We also walked to a bunch of our appointments instead of driving to
save what little miles we can. We felt like such legit missionaries haha no
fake visitors center missionaries here (the joke that goes around is
that all visitors center sisters aren't real missionaries)!
The one lesson we had was with an Indian couple who have been
investigators FOREVER! Their names are XXCXX and XXXX. It's been really
hard for them to make a full conversion over from Hinduism because we have so
many similar but different beliefs, including the whole multiple Gods thing.
They know the BOM is true and that pretty much everything that we believe is
true but they just want to add all our beliefs to their beliefs. And also they
won't get baptized because they feel like it would be selfish of them to do
because it would ruin things for their future children and it would completely
kill their relationship with all the rest of their family... They're really
hard to deal with. We love them, they're so sweet! They always make us
refreshments when we come over and they're really just so nice.... we just are
having a hard time knowing what to do with them. They're totally ready to get
baptized, it's just a matter of them having the faith to make the sacrifice.
I got through my first holiday without
the fam! And it went pretty well! This cute girl in the singles branch named
Tiffanee got us our own easter basket! She's so sweet, I just love her! She
lives here alone so she knows what it's like to be on your own on holidays and
she didn't want us to feel sad or lonely or be without an easter basket so she
took care of us! Then our dinner with one of the fam's in the ward cancelled
because the mom was in the hospital so the senior couple that works with the
singles branch had us over for easter dinner with a few of the singles! It was
so great and yummy! And we played phase 10 after! Loved it! It was really hard
to not get competitive like I normally do ha I had to hold it all in. It was
good practice for patience that's for sure!
much love fam!
April 16, 2012
ohhh man last week.... it was
definitely different. Almost all of our appts cancelled and we had to drop
another investigator, XXX (roommate of XXXX). He just wasn't into it anymore and
he cancelled on our last 5 or 6 appts. Still working with the [Indian
couple] ... they're a tough case. They
really just need to make the full conversion over and know with all their
hearts this is the ONE true church. They know the BOM is true, they know the
church is true, they know Joseph Smith was a prophet, etc but for some reason
they still don't know that this is the one true church! We're going to go over the first vision with
them again, though, and hopefully that will help. We also figured out that they
haven't really been searching for an answer. They pray to know here and there
and they expect some big sign. We talked to them about diligently SEEKING an
answer by praying all the time and reading the BOM every day and find their
answer that way.
We did find 3 new investigators,
though! XXXX is 28 so he's for the singles branch. He has really bad ADD,
though, so it's gonna be a process with him... especially since he had no real
belief in God and he'd never prayed before. He has a really big heart, though. DDDD
is a former investigator from a couple years ago that we stopped by on Friday night.
She is just a total sweetheart! We just talked and got to know her for about an
hour and she is BIG into sewing and loooves her fam. We invited her to take the lessons again and
to start reading the BOM again and she said yes! woohoo! Then there's also CCCCC!
I told you about her a week or 2 ago. We hadn't been able to contact her for awhile
so we went and stopped by again and set up a real appt for later this week.
She's a total sweetheart and I just know she's going to get baptized! We also
found a potential yesterday while tracting whose name is DDDD. He's awesome! He
says he wants to check out our mormon.org
website and see more what we're about before he takes lessons from us so I'll
let you know next week if he's a check yes!
Yet another rough week for XXXXX...
hence the interesting week. I just don't know what to do anymore. …she doesn't
think she's been feeling the spirit at all for the last few weeks and her
testimony is starting to dwindle.... I was speechless... I still am. It's just
not the sister I thought I knew, and i just don't know what to do anymore. I
was trying to be more loving, give more compliments, and be a good example of
always staying positive but I don't think it's doing anything. It makes it sooo
hard on me because it says right in the scriptures not to teach if we don't
have the spirit so I get really worried about that but then I was thinking of
the 2nd article of faith and how we're punished for our own sins and realized
that it's the same way with this. I can still help other people feel the spirit
as long as I still feel it. The ability to help other people feel it is not
going to be taken away from me because of how someone else feels.... So that's
what i'm trying to focus on. …I don't
know.... I'm just praying all the time
for her and I feel so bad for her. What an awful feeling that must be. I'm kind
of wondering if maybe she's looking past the feelings of the spirit and just
not recognizing it... This week is a new week, though! It's going to be great!
So I studied the Sacrament this
week and I didn't get too much out of the study but something I understand
better now is that taking the sacrament is part of the doctrine of Christ. To
receive the blessings we are promised, including the presence of the Holy
Ghost, we need to take all the steps. Faith in Christ, faith to repent, and
keep all the commandments as faithfully as we can throughout the week, then
take the sacrament... ALL steps are necessary to receive such a precious gift,
it doesn't just come because we've been baptized and confirmed. We have to always renew our covenants.
I think that's all... I always get so lost
while I'm writing my emails and can't think of everything but this should do
for another week haha lots of love!
