Update!

 July 16th, 2012

On Friday, July 13 I had the opportunity to have a meeting with my mission President (President Weston) He is an amazing man! Such a good President. I absolutely love him and his whole family. They have become like a second family to me here.

On Saturday we had English lessons. I don't know if I have mentioned this yet, but we get to teach two women from Afghanistan. We are teaching them English. What an incredible experience this is. We are trying to track down a Pharsee-English dictionary so we can find more ways to teach about what we believe along with our lessons.

We teach a lot of less actives. We are working on helping them to come back into the fold. Strengthening the ward is SO important! It is a really sweet experience to be able to step in Jesus' shoes as we try to find the lost sheep!

We are teaching a girl named Taryn. I love her to death! She is 14 years old and is excited about learning more. This last week we set a baptismal date and this Sunday she brought her friend to Sacrament meeting with her. They both stayed for all 3 meetings. She has not even joined the church yet, but she is already being a little missionary! Her friend will be coming along to the next lesson and we will hopefully be able to start teaching her as well.

Sundays are sweet days for Sister Withers and I. We have decided to take about an hour of the day to go and visit our sweet members at the rest home. Sister Withers sings Alto and I sing Soprano so we go to each friend of ours and leave them with a song and a thought. it brightens our days... probably more than it brightens theirs.

This Sunday Sister Withers and I got to talk a lot in church! It was crazy. I spoke first in Sacrament meeting. I talked about not judging others. Shared the story from my childhood about the time when we had a "Cousins Court" because someone stole some peas out of Grandpa's garden. It was pretty good and got a few good laughs. I think it was kind of one of those experiences though where I thought it was super funny.... but no one else did. haha (dang it..) Following sacrament meeting we were out in the hallway for a minute and we saw our Previous Investigator Mark!!

Mark is one of my favorite people I have met on the mission. He is the man who had a friend who was investigating the church. His friend had a Book or Mormon in his room and Mark started reading the introduction pages. Mark had been an alcoholic for a while and desperately wanted to quit drinking. He had tried everything to quit and nothing had worked. As Mark read those introduction pages, he was intrigued and asked his friend to call the missionaries to come and help him. (Wow... what a miracle.) Sister Withers and I started teaching him and as he prayed and read the Book of Mormon he was able to quit drinking. It is an incredible story that keeps going on. Mark started taking slow and steady steps toward a huge change in his life. He knelt in prayer (which took overcoming a big fear) and he mentioned quitting smoking as well! We were so incredibly proud of him. I came to love this man as if he were my literal family... Mark moved just outside of our area a few weeks ago, so sister withers and I sadly had to hand him over to the elders in Sutter Buttes (Clanton and Heward). We were pretty bummed but knew that Heavenly Father knew what he was doing. Mark was at church for the first time on Sunday wearing the white shirt and tie we had given to him. He looked so sharp! like a whole new man! I was so proud!

Sister Withers and I got to speak again for about 15 minutes in relief society about how the ward members can help us as missionaries. It was such a great opportunity to be able to testify of the importance of members in our work and to help get them pumped up about coming along with us! (Life as a missionary is so fulfilling.. I love it!)