July 2, 2012

Happy Canada day yesterday family! This week is going to be awesome! A side from the fact that i get to go out and work all day, we have been asked to not proselyte on the fourth of July. Instead we will be going to the wards pancake breakfast, and then going down to the parade with our land lords. We'll spend the day walking around main street and seeing all the things they'll have set up down there. I think there having some sort of carnival. And then fireworks that night. We are able to stay out until 10:30pm. Last week on P-day a member took us down town and we were able to go and see the St. Louis arch. We actually went up it. It's 630 feet high. You sit in these little four foot elevators that seat five people. No windows so if your afraid of heights or are claustrophobic this would not be good for you. It take you four minutes to get up, and three to get down. It was so cool. This week has been super Hot! I think we're breaking records here in St. Charles. The other day sister Randall and i were out finding and in 107 degree weather. Every door we came too the people thought we were crazy, would offer us a cold bottle of water and sometimes would let us come in to cool off in their air conditioned home. They were never interested in our message, but still praised us for our diligence. Personally, I liked being outside. I think my body is doing a good job acclimatizing to the heat... They're houses are too cold. We had two really good lessons with Angel this week. I know she felt the spirit strongly in our second lesson. We went over the law of Chastity with her and thankfully she doesn't have a problem living it. :) She is already married and has a young 20 month daughter named Fiona. Sister Willard who was our member was also in attendance to our lessons. Her daughter Pheobe and Fiona were able to play together and keep each other distracted during the lessons. We asked Angel if she had prayed about knowing if the Book of Mormon was true and if Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God. She shared a very sweet simple testimony about how she knew it was true because of the wonderful things/changes that have been happening in her life since she started reading. I love when our investigators are able to recognize the the fruits of the spirit. Faith truly is like a little seed as the prophet Alma explains. We need to let that seed be planted in our hearts. But it doesn't stop there. We need to nourish it and strengthen it so that it may get root. When we read our scriptures, when we ponder and pray about the things we read and then apply those things we learn our faith is able to grow. I hope that Angel will continue to grow in her faith, and come to understand how important the gospel of Jesus Christ truly is. Last night we had another awesome lesson. His name is Mike, he's the boyfriend of a member in the ward. He's come to church multiple times and two week ago Jackie his member girl friend invited us over to start teaching him the lessons. Last night was our second lesson with Mike. We walked through the Plan of Salvation with him, hitting hard upon the atonement of Jesus Christ and how its only through Christ that we can be saved. He had a lot of really good questions and with the help of the spirit Sister Randall, Jackie and i were able to address his questions and point out scriptures from the Bible and book of Mormon that we hoped would help him. At the end of the lesson I was able to invite Mike to pray with us. He was very hesitation at first, saying he'd never given a vocal public prayer before. Not even with his girl friend Jackie and they'd been together for almost three years. We all waited for a long time praying that spirit will help him. Finally after a couple of long seconds he finally consented to pray. He said that he would pray if someone would pray with him, then he would recite what was said. This was awesome. A huge break through. Before our first lesson i had asked Jackie if Mike would feel comfortable praying and she said that request would freak him out. Both sister Randall and i knew that we Mike needed to pray. It was an awesome experience to kneel down and hear him talk with his Heavenly father. Yesterday was a huge blessing. Sunday morning during companion study sister Randall and I had studied the importance of Prayer in conversion and had role played how to help Mike understand the importance of praying with us. Jackie and Mike had been out of town all week so at the time we practiced this we did not have lesson set with Mike. Wow, the Lord is amazing. I know that the Lord is always watching out for us. I know that he knows what we need prior to us even knowing. I know that when we seek guidance from the holy Ghost and follow that guidance that we are blessed. Jesus Christ is my Savior. I will forever be indebted to him. I know that I am a child of God. I know that the gospel is true. Love sister salmon