This was hard this week because we had
to walk everywhere since we are out of miles, so we didn't have as many
lessons. President Eberhardt was really proud of us for hitting the standard of
excellence (SOE). He gave us all a gift card. Apparently, one of the other
elders in our district hit the SOE a while ago and when he saw what he got, he
asked Sister Eberhardt when President Eberhardt had started giving awards,
Sister Eberhardt says, "....uh, today. He just really thought these
sisters deserved something for their hard work." I love interviews with
President Eberhardt; he truly is called of God and always helps me feel the
Spirit so strongly. I am so blessed to have the Eberhardts my WHOLE mission!
They go home just after me… (:
Even though we didn't hit the SOE this week because we
couldn't get to enough appointments on foot, we prayed that we would find lots
of new people so could continue to hit the SOE since all of our lessons are not
counting for key indicators because our investigators are all being baptized,
which is great! So, we really focused on finding.
We have only seen the Clarks once since their baptism and
they said they would be at church but they were not. Gerri’s kids cause her
lots of grief and she is so emotionally and physically exhausted. She says
prayer and the spirit have been helping her, but I know they need to be at
church to receive all those blessings. They need extra prayers right now.
The cool part about one of their lessons canceling, however,
is that is how we found one our new investigators this week! Outside the
Clark’s apartment door, there was a lady holding an albino corn snake (which I
only knew about because that is the kind Cierra had) and a bearded dragon
lizard! (What I have always wanted for a pet.) So, we started a conversation
and she told us to come visit her! ah, I love how Heavenly Father has always
got a plan!(: We will be seeing her and her husband, who is a less active member tonight!
The other Clarks are so solid but Ernie has brain problems
and gets seizures a lot and he just had a really bad one this week :( We
haven’t been able to talk more with them, so we aren't sure what Is going on,
we are just praying he is ok. His baptismal date will probably be pushed to
later in August but they are so prepared. We just really hope Adam and Gerri
will see their change so their family can mend.
The Hamiltons were just baptized, Emily and her daughter
Alexandria, who is 8. I have now taught an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old who
were baptized! haha. They are so sweet and we are sad to be losing them on
Friday to their new ward in Laramie. We know Emily will stay strong though.
We had a really cool experience with her this week. So, when
we taught her word of wisdom she shared with us a weakness she has had and she
really wanted to overcome it. We made a plan and she succeeded so wonderfully.
Fault on our part though, because we focused so much on that particular part
that we didn’t go very in depth about the other stuff. So two days before her
baptism we came to visit her and she was drinking coffee. We asked how the word
of wisdom was going and she was beaming because she had been doing so well! So
we asked if she remembered about the no coffee part and her face dropped. She
totally forgot and felt so horrible. We told her that is was normally required
to be living the word of wisdom for a week before her baptism but that would be
a day before she moved and she wouldn't be in our ward to get the Holy Ghost.
She said that after this she would promise to live the word of wisdom if we
could get permission from our zone leaders to let her still be baptized on
Saturday. We said we would check. She took a sip and we didn't know how to
approach it but the Spirit led us and we told her that if she really wanted to
be baptized in 2 days that she needed to show her faith by dumping out the
coffee and removing all temptation. She popped out of her chair and said OF
COURSE! She told us this was something she wanted to do, so she dumped it out,
then ran to the kitchen and cleaned out her cupboards and gave us all the tea
and coffee in her house. We told our zone leaders what happened and they were
really proud of our integrity rather than just ignoring it and going ahead with
the baptism and not saying anything about the one drink of coffee. They prayed
about it and she was able to still be baptized as scheduled. (:
I am so grateful for obedience and integrity and I know that
Heavenly Father always fulfills our righteous desires and grants us the wishes
of our hearts!
Life is good. Thank you for your prayers (:
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