October 7, 2013

It's getting cold here as well. We were planning on going shopping for winter clothes today, but we had a really unique opportunity to go and teach a couple Theology classes at a place called Unity high school. The teacher called and invited us to teach that. We basically taught them the Restoration, Plan of Salvation, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The students are researching other religions so that was really cool. As we taught them obviously we weren't allowed to testify. So the Spirit was there but not as strong so it was kind of hard. It was cool to be able to teach like a teacher would.

Well like I said earlier we did have a Tornado. 3 actually. But luckily they never made it into Le Mars. Just in the surrounding towns. But it was SCARY! We watched the skies turn green and it was lightening everywhere. We had to clear a spot in the garage for our car because of the golf ball sized hail. The wind was insane! The tornado sirens went off and we had to evacuate into the basement and pray that the tornado wouldn't hit us. The C's were so great and got out all of the emergency equipment and we sat in the basement eating mint ice cream. Hahaha. :) We were like, well if we die at least we die eating ice cream! Only in the Le Mars. Thankfully we're okay. A family, the R's, in our ward were hit. But it was cool the tornado went right by their house and completely destroyed their property. But their barn and house were just fine. We spent all of Saturday chainsawing trees down and stacking wood. They also have a cow named Stew. I decided to pet this cow named Stew and he licked me. It was the grossest thing ever. So yeah anyway that was cool and freaky at the same time.

Another cool thing that happened this week is we had interviews with President W. My interview with him was really powerful. He told me that if I would use the Missionary stress handbook thing that I would be a "Super Mom" in the future. :) Haha Hopefully the skills that I'm trying to develop will come in handy someday. He also told me how much I've improved in the past couple of weeks. He made me cry. He said that the work we were doing is pioneer work and that we needed to be patient and realize that it was going to be slow.  As for transfers I have a feeling I'm going to be here for awhile. The way that President W made it sound like Sister K and I should be here for a couple more months. I'm completely fine with that. :)

This week was a hard week. Not really because of stuff that was happening just hard on the emotions. You know how you just keep getting stressed and more stressed and more stressed and then you just freak out and kind of "blow up" in a sense. Well that happened to both Sister K and I. Ha. Oh dear. One of our Ward missionaries is Sister K. W. She is the most Christlike person I've ever met. But we went over to the W's house for dinner and she could tell that we were a little tired and stressed. She sat us down and she taught us a lesson on Faith. It was a simple lesson. But by the end we were just balling. If I would've known there would've been this many tears on a mission I would have put some second thought into coming. Haha, okay not really, but seriously a lot of tears. Thankfully our Ward Mission Leader Brother W was able to give a blessing. Something that really stood out to me in his blessing was he said that I was a valiant Spirit and that in the pre-mortal life I was standing next to our Heavenly Father teaching. This was really cool because in my Patriarchal blessing in goes into a little bit about my pre-mortal existence. I know that when we get blessings our Heavenly Father really is talking to us through a servant of the priesthood.  There is peace and comfort that truly do come from Him. :) I'm thankful to know that truly we have a LOVING Heavenly Father and that Christ helps us with the Atonement. :) I was also humbled and reminded that I had MUCH to work on.

Another cool thing that happened this week was that we were able to find a awesome new investigator. We had the feeling to go to a less active house here in Le Mars. We had already gone to that house previously but felt like we needed to try again. We went to their house and knocked a couple of times but they wouldn't answer. So we were like why would we get a strong spiritual prompting to be here when nothing is happening. So we decided to knock on the door next to that house. A guy name J came out and he was like this is so weird. I've been asking God to help me learn more about Him. We were like SWEET! Here's a Book of Mormon, let us teach you the Restoration. So that was a cool experience. :) The Spirit is sneaky. :) haha

Something that really stuck out to me this week was in the Hymn Book #112. We don't sing it that often but it's the song that is on the credits of 17 miracles. It's called Savior, Redeemer of My Soul. The lyrics just really impacted me. I invite you to read and ponder them.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bff55utu-U. The version that I like the best is by a guy named Dallyn Vail Bayles. He is amazing. And this song has brought me great comfort, peace, and strength. :)