"oh! Mormons!"

We've had an eventful week. Sister Ward's birthday was yesterday, and we saw lot's of miracles! We're teaching this man and his 15 year old son, and we had the coolest lesson with them yesterday. We're trying to help them understand authority and the Priesthood, and the 15 year old is so open and soft hearted. His dad will need a little bit more help.

On Friday we had a baptism! Zuleica, the 9 year old daughter of a semi-active family we've been working with for awhile got baptized. It was awesome to feel the Spirit, and to see how much it meant to her parents for her to get baptized. They're from Mexico, and they make THE BEST Mexican food I have EVER had. They had a party on Saturday for her baptism, and we went and celebrated. I love that family so much. When they were in Mexico, they went through a lot of scary stuff, and saw people killed all the time, and so they decided it was time to come to the United States.

On Thursday we met the coolest guy ever. We were tracting, and knocked on his door. He answered and said "Oh! Latter-Day Saints!" When people say that, they either mean "oh... Mormons... I'm going to tell them every reason as to why they're wrong" or "oh! Mormons! I know a lot of Mormons and they are really nice, and really awesome!" Good thing with this man, it was the later. :D We had a good conversation with him, and learned that he was Methodist, but that when he was in the military, he knew a lot of Mormons, and had gone to church with them for awhile. He also owns his own large print BOM, which is cool. We invited him to learn more, and to restart on the spiritual journey that we help people through, and he declined, and said he could never leave his church. "They're family". The Spirit told us to push... usually we don't push, because we want people to have positive experiences with Mormon missionaries, but we felt like we really needed to push, and testified again what this could do for him. He then went into how he truly believed (contrary to the Methodist faith) that everyone will be given the opportunity to get into heaven, since heaven will be organized into three different levels, rather than heaven and hell, and inside our hearts and minds Sister Ward and I were like "WHAT THAT'S WHAT WE BELIEVE". We were so excited! We asked what he knew about the Mormon faith, and our beliefs of the afterlife, and he said he didn't know a whole lot. We told him that that's what we believe, and we asked him why he believes it. He told us that God told him it was that way in a dream. WOW. it was so cool. We taught a little bit of doctrine about what the three kingdoms of heaven are, and then we gave his some things to read from the BOM, and made a return appointment. It was so cool to see how the Lord works, and to be lead to our new friend. I know it wasn't a coincidence. 

Friday night Sister Ward and I found ourselves back in West Virginia as we sat on someone's front porch in this beautiful 80 degree weather we've been having, teaching the Restoration to a couple who is defined as "West Virginian" It was good to be "home" ;)

Saturday morning we had a cool opportunity to teach a family history class to 8 people here at the library. It was so neat to feel the Spirit of Elijah, and I can't wait until I'm home and can work more effectively on my family history!

I hope everyone is doing well! My cousin Amanda sent something in her latest email that really hit home for me. She said "I relearned the value of desperation. Sometimes the Lord pushes us to the point of desperation before we can see the fruit of our labors. That desperation made the success we found even sweeter. So if you're currently feeling desperate, keep trying, keep going. It's when you feel like giving up, but keep going that the sweetest joys are found!" SO TRUE. The Lord has seriously humbled me lately, and I love that he has a sense of humor about it by constantly proving me wrong.... haha!

I know Christ is my redeemer, and that he makes up for my imperfections. What a blessing.

(also, no pictures because I can't find my camera cord :( )