July 15th, 2012

Ok so its not that weird that you invited the guy over because you are a member missionary that's true. I received your package on Wednesday. We had leadership training on Wednesday... The office elders forgot to bring it, but we live so close that they brought it by later that day for me. I love all the goodies. The granola is so good. I shared some of it with my land lord JD and he thought it was super delicious! This I already know. I'm so spoiled. And the eye spy game and little drawing pad is perfect. I showed it to my land lord and jokingly she asked me "aren't you a little old for those toys?".... I don't think so. That eye spy game kept me pretty occupied when i first found it. There are some cool things in there. It was a slow week for sister Randall and I. Full of tracking and member stop bys. I'm trying to help sister Randall become more acquainted with the members because i'm pretty sure she'll be taking over this area in a months time. I'll have been here for 6 months this August. We an interesting run in with a very devote Catholic priest. Kyle is a young father who grew up catholic and just loves his faith. It was non confrontational. He did a lot of speaking, and sister randall and i were content on just listening to what he was saying. It was very educational, and at the same time as we listened sister randall and i sensed that he was also looking for more from his religion. We shared some of our basic beliefs as well and extended him a pamphlet on the restoration. He took it and genuinely and said that he would read it. Our time was cut short due to our dinner appointment, we were already going to be late. He apologized that he had done most of the talking, but said that we could come back the following week and discuss what he will read in the pamphlet. We invited him to pray with us and gave a very nice heartfelt prayer. I had leadership training this week. Actually didn't find out until the day before. The theme of the meeting was on elder Uchtdorf's talk from this last priesthood session entitled The Why of Priesthood Service. But instead of focusing upon the Priesthood, we focused on the Why of missionary work. And from there we broke it down into two branches. The mechanical side: showing obedience, and then the spiritual side: doing something because you were moved by the spirit, because you greatly desire it for you brother or sister. The messages that were shared were very inspired. And as always, i couldn't wait to get back out to apply what i had been taught. We weren't able to meet up with angel this week. She was sick for the first half of the week and when we went to go see her on Saturday she wasn't home. We called her later and found out she had been in a serious car accident and flipped her car. Miraculously she and her daughter were fine and were able to attend church yesterday. Saturday morning sister Randall and i had volunteered our time to go and help a sister move. Sister York was a women we had tried various times to go and visit but could never catch her at home. With all the help that showed up we had her out of her old apartment and into her new apartment and just a couple of hours. Sister Randall, a few other sisters and I stayed behind to do some last minute cleaning. As we did this we were able to start up a conversation with Sister Yorks neighbor Tracy. Tracy was very impressed by all the people who had showed up to help Sister York move and had come over to see the progress. We were able to have a short lesson on the book of mormon and share our testimonies that we each new it was true. She has a very strong faith and belongs to another church, but seemed very interested in reading the book of mormon. She kept thumbing through it as we shared our testimonies. We're going to stop by her house later this week to check up on her. I love sharing the gospel. I kick myself whenever i see a missed opportunity to share my testimony, or to make a contact. I know that when we simply open our mouths and put our faith in God that everything will work out. Even if what we said may not make sense in our minds. Sister Randall and i were driving down the road Saturday night when i felt an impression to park the car and back track to where i had seen an older women sitting on her porch. I didn't know why, but i knew that i must not ignore the impression. I told sister Randall how i felt and that we should park the car. We did, and had a good conversation with the women. Nothing spectacular happened during that visit. I know the lord is helping me recognize the promptings in my life so when a prompting comes and i really need to obey i can know it. After that visit sister Randall and i went out to dinner and we were blessed with a free meal. A gentleman visiting from Utah with his high school basketball team saw us sitting eating our meal and came in introduced himself to us. Then when we asked for our check the waiter said that it had been taken care of. God blessed us in mysterious ways. :) K family i love you all. i'm out of things to write at the moment. sister salmon dad (and anyone else) there is a cool website that my WML told me about. It has two articles that i think if you haven't already read would really enjoy. Its on missionaryleaders.org . The first one is titled: Sister Susan Fulcher Case Study and the second is titled the field is white.