August 11, 2014

IN A MONTH AND A HALF IT IS GENERAL CONFERENCE. SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!  I need to cherish every moment in the sun before it gets cold again.  Another winter makes me want to cry.  

Please prepare yourselves for the greatest week of your life! So many miracles! I wonder if there were this many miracles that took place when I was at home, but I wasn't in the mindset to recognize them.  So pull out the popcorn and the PJ's and get ready.  

MONDAY! yeah, it all began last Monday after emailing.  

Miracle #1 After dinner we didn't have any set appointments.  So the evening was starting look pretty long.  We had a list of people that we thought we could try and follow up with.  One of the names is Lisa.  We tracted into her about a week or so prior.  She is this adorable Mom with a little 3 year old and a new born baby.  She let us in when we were tracting and had a lot of question about missions and prophets and things like that. We left her with a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet.We both just had a really good feeling about her and were hoping she was the family we had been praying for.

So we decide to stop by her house.  But it's really awkward because we forgot to leave her anything to read from the Book of Mormon to follow up about. So we park in front of her house and we are trying to think of a normal way to talk to her and to hook her in.  So we walk up and I'm planning on asking her if she had a chance to look at the Book of Mormon and I am thinking she is going to say no, so I am trying to think of what to say to that.  bla bla bla she answers the door and I ask her just and she says YES! " yeah I got to read your pamphlet and I read only a page or two of the Book of Mormon"  So yeah, that ruined me.  hahaha I was totally surprised.  Then I just felt like I needed to be bold and tell her how much the Book of Mormon has blessed me and my family and offer her to take the lessons.  SO I DID. I don't even know what I said.  But she said yes.  SHE SAID YES! She let us in and she asked a ton of questions.  I totally was not expecting that. AND! It turns out that she knows a family in our ward pretty well.  She teaches at the High School and knows their kids. 

We set up a lesson for Tuesdsay and brought the wife and daughter of the family she knew and had a great lesson on the Plan of Salvation.  The first part of the lesson was alright but when we started to talk about temples and families being sealed for eternity the Spirit in the room changed.  Her body language and her attitude completely shifted.  She kept saying how much she liked that and thought about it for awhile.  Sister Rollins told her about her Mom that converted and had the opportunity to be sealed to her family.  Lisa asked her what Sister Rollin's mom had to do to convert and what the process was to go to the Temple.  IT WAS AWESOME! She comes from a very faithful Catholic family and she is very active so that will be difficult.  But PRAY! She is awesome! We are going back Tuesday :)

Miracle #2 So still Monday, we were walking back to our car to drive to another area of town when we ran into shirtless ED! We talked with him and another guy about a week ago as well.  We talked with him and asked him about the Book of Mormon. Ed is kinda crazy, but he was talking to us and he believes a lot of what we believe.  We were both really bold with him and bore testimony of teh Book of Mormon. We are meeting with him today :)  

Miracle #3 After Ed we continued to walk to our car when we saw a man walking his dog. I fearlessed Sister Steck to talk to him. We did the survey with him and he was really open and took a Book of Mormon and gave us his number to set something up.  GOLDEN! 

Miracle #4 Literally right after the man with his dog we take a few steps towards our car when a teenage kid starts running after us and asks us if he can take the survey.....why yes. Yes you may.  We get talking and find out that he lives here with his Mom but he has a lot of LDS family members in Utah.  We find out that his mom is LDS but he hasn't been baptized.  He told us that he saw us tallking to that other man and felt this need to talk to us.  He said he realizes that there is more to life than just hanging out with friends and he isn't sure what  it is.  ITS THE BOOK OF MORMON JACKSON! Ha we had a really awesome discussion about the meaning of life and our purpose here and how we know our purpose. He gave us his number and we gave him a Book of Mormon.  

Handing out copies of the Book of Mormon is the most fulfilling thing. Even if I don't see any results from it, I know that they now have something tangible in their hands that convinces us of God's power.  And if it isn't now, it will be later.

Since I came to Missoula I have been trying to find guy named Jake.  He was on our list of prospective Elders and I have literally gone to his house 4 million times since I got here.  He was baptized 2 years ago. His girlfriend was a member and from what I hear, he was getting ready for a mission.  A couple of weeks ago his Dad answered the door and said he moved and didn't know the address. Yeah right. What Dad doesn't know the address of their son.  LAME.  One day this week we needed to tracting so I suggested a street that I had thought about before but hadn't felt overly impressed to go to.  Get this. The first door we knock on a young man answers.  We do the survey with him and he says his name is Jake.  As the survey goes on I looked at him and then it clicked. THIS WAS JAKE!!!!! So I stop and I am like, "What is your last name again?" He said Christian and then I was like, " Shut up. You are not. I have been looking for you for 6 months." I didn't actually say that, but I definitely was thinking it.  The more I think about it the more crazy it gets.  He has 4 roommates.  If any of his other roommates had answered the door and said they were not interested we would have marked that on our list and never gone back to that house.  But he answered the door.  Nothing short of a miracle.  We asked him why he stopped coming and gave him a Book of mormon and encouraged him to go to the YSA ward.  It was totally crazy.  I couldn't believe. God has his hand in everything! And the thing is, my thought to go tracting on that street was not a huge urgent feeling that I had.  It was just a passing thought.  And how important that small passing thought was.  I have never been more aware of the Spirit and how I feel promptings than on my mission. It's awesome. I hope that never leaves. 

Do you remember Danny from Bozeman? He had a girlfriend that I started teaching and she got baptized on Saturday :) 

We got to help take care of a booth at the fair this week. It was a Family History booth.  We got to help people find their ancestors and tell people about the Family History Center. It was really cool.  

I may or may not have snuck off to see the llamas

I love you my family!! You are wonderful! The gospel is the good life. It is true and it changes lives.  I love you! Talk to you soon!!!

Sister Moliiinnnneeee