This week has been pretty awesome!!!
I am trying to decide which stories to share with y'all. Its funny because I get to the computer and then my mind goes pretty much blank. Good thing we have planners to refresh my memory :) First off, THANKS FOR THE EASTER PACKAGE! It was awesome! Pretty sure I am going to get diabetes but that's alright hehehe :) Ohhh I am sure the Elders will help me eat all the candy and cookies. Emily, nice call on the traditional Easter cookies ;) got to have those. Dad I am sorry but my taste buds haven't matured to pecans yet. But maybe some day :) Also I love those cute little knick-knacks I am guessing Momma found . Oooo and those Bueno bars are the bomb!!! Okay... so I don't think I have ever been fed as much as I have this week! Our members have been feeding us like crazy! I swear every house we go into won't let us leave with out feeding us. We have been having like two dinners a night because people sign up on the food calendar and then others surprise us with dinner. I mean it's awesome, at the same time I feel like I am going to explode very night. Good thing we have work out time every morning. Without that time to work off all those meals, I probably would have gained 20 pounds. Alright now for the good stuff. We finally got to see our investigator Karen again! We hadn't been able to see her for weeks and we finally saw her this last Saturday! We taught are a little more about Prophets and she still doesn't feel too hot about that idea. So then we told her about General Conference and we told her that she could find out for herself if she would watch and pray about it. Now we have plans to come over and watch the Saturday morning session! Woohoo I can't believe she actually is willing to watch it. It may not seem like a big deal, but Karen is stubborn. And when we first told her about prophets she wasn't too happy. Heavenly Father has softened her heart though and I know she will just love watching it. She has literally all the same standards as us, she just doesn't want to settle in one church. I am praying the conference will give her another confirmation of the church's truth. We also saw our investigator Mary this week! Last week she was super busy and so she didn't have time for us to see her. In the meantime we found out that she was being reading anti about Joseph Smith. (Mary actually gave us a referral a while back and the other sisters in our ward have been teaching her friend. Her friend told the Sisters that Mary was telling her anti about Joseph Smith. Hence we found out through the grapevine) So then this week we had to clear up all her misconceptions which was crazy hard. But in the end all was better. Now we just have to get her back to reading the Book of Mormon. She right now is going through a lot of health problems though so it's going to be hard to see her. Hopefully we can keep teaching her because we're finally getting somewhere. She now has awesome questions and I just pray she continues to seek the truth. Oh another neat thing! One of our members has talked his friend into taking the lessons! We haven't met with him yet but his name is Bill so keep him in your prayers. Finding investigators here is like finding the needle in the haystack. But we have really been pushing the Ward to do missionary work and they are really trying. We also have some more potential investigators its just a matter of the ward members being diligent. Overall the area is doing great! I am so grateful for this area and the changes I have seen while serving here. I am grateful that Heavenly Father blessed me with such a great place to start off my mission and I have learned so many lessons that I could probably write a book hahaha :) Well I love you family soooo much!!! I am so grateful for your support and your emails each week mean so much to me. The church is true!!!! Love, Sister Call HI HI HI!!!
I am first of all so happy to know that my Mom and Dad and sista are home safely and that yall had so much fun!!!! Wow that sounded like quite the trip!!! I have been there right? Because that place looked way familiar with all those pyramid things. Also I am super jealous because it sounded like the bomb diggity but then I am also having fun here! AHHH and the pictures are so great! Except I didn't get a single picture of mom so I am mad! Maybe I will stop sending pictures if I don't get one of mom soon. Keep that in mind. This last week was crazy! It was a bit on the stressful side, but we also had many opportunities and I had several more life lessons. I love the mission because I don't think a day passes by with out me learning something. One thing that was particularly difficult this week was a family is having a hard time in the ward. The mother has always been on the line of less active and so we have been visiting her and doing service with her a bit each week. Something this week went down with another ward member and her and she decided that her family no longer wanted contact with the ward or the church. Sister Adame and I, in the meantime, had no idea what was going on and stopped by. We could tell something was up but she didn't say anything. A couple days later we had a prompting to stop by to see her again. Right away we went over and shared with her a scripture to remind her of how much her Heavenly Father loved her. The spirit was so strong and she opened up so much more than I have ever seen! She also came to church on Sunday despite all the drama. It truly was so amazing! Heavenly Father loves her so much! He cares so much for her! And He knew she needed a reminder right then and there! I am so grateful to be helping Heavenly Father in His work! Seeing these miracles never gets old! Another little miracle that happened this week was with the Eging family. I wonder if they will see this on the blog. If so, Hi Egings! We have been focusing on member missionary work with them and we had been talked to them about the blessings of sharing the gospel with their friends. After seeing them the last week sister Adame and I specifically prayed for them to be blessed with opportunities to share the gospel. While I was saying this prayer I said something really funny that I had never said before. I asked Heavenly Father to "throw" opportunities at them". After my prayer I said to Sister Adame, "Wow that sounded way more violent then I was intending!" Then this week when we saw them ,Sister Eging said that at work she had been flooded with people asking her questions about our faith. Sister Adame and I were smiling ear to ear when they told us this. I know Heavenly Father loves us so much and that He really does listen to each and every one of our prayers, no matter how ridiculous we may sound! It was so simple but something that really stuck to me. I feel like as I pray, read the scriptures, and teach, that I get to know my Heavenly Father a little better each day. Like in this last case, I think He kinda has a sense of humor :) When teaching people, it's common for them to think of God as someone scary and strict, but they neglect to see how He is SO merciful and loving. As you read the scriptures you hear it over and over again. That the people are sooooo wicked, yet Heavenly Father still always gives them another chance. He always gives everyone another chance! I have been noticing so much the word "mercy" and all the different forms of it in the scriptures. It's everywhere! I am so grateful for my merciful Heavenly Father and to know He loves me and listening to me. I am so grateful to be serving a mission. I am so grateful for my wonderful family and I wouldn't be where I am without my "goodly parents". Y'all are the best!!!!! With so much LOVE, Sister Call Family!!!
AHHH I hope y'all are having so much fun on your vacation!!!! Oh and I hope the boys are having fun in school hehehe :) First off, I am healthy and well finally! I have had the most annoying cough that kept me up all night for 2 weeks but it finally stopped yesterday and I got sleep! So yay!!!! Cancun sounds WAY fun! And y'all went to church? Plus y'alls missionary work, inviting your taxi driver in --man!, I am proud hahaha :) I can not wait for conference!!! I will so be looking for Kenny in the choir!!!!!!!! AHH I AM EXCITED!!!! Also Mom, that's so neat that y'all found an orchestra track for that jazz song. Yes I will be using that!!!!! AHHH I want Emily to get a solo soooo bad! And having some brass instruments would be SO cool! Ahhh I need a video of her singing!!!! soooooo...This week has been so great! Sister Adame and I were focusing on finding the less actives this week and we had a bunch of success. We had been praying for some of them in specific and ended up having so many miracles. One of the less actives in specific hadn't had contact with missionaries or anyone from the church for two years. Her progress record said she had a past for being rude and very uninterested in listening. So we prayed for her heart to be softened and that we would be able to get in contact with her. It worked! Most of the time when we stop by she doesn't answer the door, but her son was home that day and he let us in. In the beginning she was resistant, but then she opened up after a few minutes. By the end of our visit, she insisted we come back soon and she says she will pray about coming back to church. Another one of our less actives has been returning to church and now has a calling that she loves. This week she told us how grateful she was to be coming back to church and how she is praying that someday her non- member husband will join. Its incredible to see these huge changes in people. I mean it is unbelievable! I am so grateful for a merciful Heavenly Father who has created a plan so perfectly for us to come back to Him. The neatest thing is that He knows each one of us individually and He is just constantly there helping us along the road of life. During my studies I have been noticing specifically how merciful and loving our Heavenly Father is. He constantly is giving us more chances and is blessing us with opportunities to grow. He has orchestrated everything just so perfectly! I love my Heavenly Father so dearly and I am so grateful for His plan. Not only does He take care of me, but that He takes care of each and every human being on this earth! Its a huge blessing to be on a mission and see the many miracles that happen each and everyday in my life and all those we teach. I love my mission!!!! I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!!!!! The hardest part of being on a mission is not being with my family!!! Don't change too much okay?!?!? Love y'all, Sister Call Hi family!!!! How are y'all???
Okay, so for your weekly update! This week I don't have that much to share because we only went out in our area for two (and a quarter) days. We got cheated and they gave us an extra day at sites this week. Then on top of that, I got a pretty nasty cold so we had to stay at home on Saturday and part of Sunday. I am alright now -- I think. I got a blessing and I feel a hundred times better. Man am I grateful for blessings! But besides being sick, the rest of the week was great! Sister Adame and I experienced a couple of miracles. On Tuesday a bunch of our appointments were cancelling and it was super stressful at first. When we decided where we were going to go next, we typed it into the GPS and headed out. (BTW, a super kind member, Sister Warner, gave me a GPS she didn't want because she is a boss!!!) So the GPS actually took us to a different member's place than we had planned on. I guess I just hit a different address by accident. So when we got there, we were like, "how did we get here?" "Oh well -- let's go see how these members are doing". So we did and had an awesome appointment with them! It ended up working perfectly because we were just going to show up to our other appointment early but the GPS thought we should do otherwise. We are convinced that Heavenly Father planned that out. Especially because we have been working hard at reaching our goals each day. If the GPS hadn't directed us otherwise, we wouldn't have met our goal for the day. I guess it wasn't a huge miracle, but it meant a lot to me. I feel like Heavenly Father LITERALLY directed us to exactly where we needed to go. I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers, no matter how simple or unimportant they may be. We are so important to Him and that's just a crazy thing for me to grasp sometimes. Ah... it was just so cool! The best part about being on a mission is that I get to see these miracles everyday! I get to see Heavenly Father taking care of His children first hand. Its the coolest!!!! I love the gospel so much!!! I love my family so much!!!! I miss y'all like crazy!!!!! Hope everyone is doing well back home!!!! Also to be put in the blog post -- Shout out to George and Kaylyn for being the best!!! They feed us poor starving missionaries all the time!!!!!! Well I got to run family! Love y'all lots! The church is true!!! Love, Sister Call FAMILY!!!!
HIIIIII! This week has been fabulous! Sister Adame and I got 23 lessons. So one-upped from last week! We have seen so many miracles. Also this week was the best because literally everyone of my family members wrote me! WOW NOW THAT IS A MIRACLE!!!! So now that I have almost responded to everyone, I shall tell y'all quickly about my week. First my companion is THE BEST! Shes pretty much perfect, nuf said. We work super well together because we both want so bad to get the work done in the area. One thing I have always said is that I want to go to bed at night exhausted because I knew I worked hard and gave my all. She feels the same! So every day we work our butts off and when we got to bed, let me tell you, we are ready for bed. Wow she is a trooper. Especially because sometimes I can be a bit of an overachiever, but hey its for a good cause! So this week we had the coolest thing happen. I am sure ever missionary has this but I had it and it was so amazing! So all our appointments were falling through and we were super having a rough day. So then we checked out our backups to see what we could do with our time. I felt this prompting that we should visit one of our former investigators Latanya. We hadn't even written her name down for backups but we felt impressed to go. So my before experience with Latanya-- she never was home and if she ever was home she was too busy to talk. Anyway, we had stopped by plenty before and never had any luck, but this week we were prompted to stop by so we went. She was home for like the first time and all her kids were home too!!!! Literally never happens! I wish i had time to give you more of the details so y'all could understand how huge it was, but I have like 10 more minutes till its time to leave. Anyway, it was a big deal! So then we invited her to take the lessons again and she agreed and knew she needed to! Ahhh so pray that we can actually see her and that we can find times that she is home and available to teach. that will be the difficult part. but still, miracles! Another miracle... A less active we have stopped by nonstop but they never answer. We knocked at their door and nothing happened so we started to walk away. Ten secs later a car pulls out of the driveway and one of the people in the car is the less active. He was super high but he was really nice. He said he knew he needed to come back to church and stop being dumb. He also gave us his number so hopefully we can help him get back on the path. Sisters who have been in this area said that was the first time in years anyone had got in contact with him so that is way cool! Another miracle... There is another less active we have been stopping by for what feels like years. Her name has always stuck out to me so I am always praying for her with our companion. Her name is Sarah and she has a down syndrome son who is darling! I guess she stopped coming to church because someone was rude to her son :( But we have been stopping by and she NEVER answers the door. We know she is home because her son would run up to the window and wave to us. Then she would pull him away and just never answer. long story short, she came to church out of the blue yesterday!!! We finally got to meet her so hopefully she will warm up to us soon! And another miracle.. another less active ( I don't know If I have told y'all about her) Her name is Torri and she is so cute! Her husband isn't a member which is why she is less active. Anyway, we have been seeing her a lot and she will come to sacrament meeting but never all three hours. Well she has been putting forth the effort to come to all three hours and she just really loves coming to church now!!! YAY!!! Well I am really out of time but I love y'all to pieces! Ahhh the church is so true and Heavenly Father just really cares about each and every soul. No one is forgotten! I am so grateful for our heavenly Fathers mercy. I have seen such a huge change in me. I feel like before I was just such a judgmental person. But now it is just so amazing to go into peoples homes and just automatically love them so much! And to know their Heavenly Father loves them so much too! The church is true!!! I LOVE Y'ALL SO MUCH!!! Love, Sister Call |
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