Apr. 18, 2017 "The Miracles of Easter"

The Miracles of Easter

Hi family!!! Happy EASTER!! This week was probably one of the best weeks of my whole mission, maybe even my life. It was just really amazing okay. 

[BUT FIRST disclaimer  today my comp is going on the Adam-Ondi-Ahman trio they take VC sisters on for those who haven't been already. I went in Oct. so my companion is going today and so our Pday is a little messed up. I'll be in a trio with our house roomies sister ps rice and Anderson (which will be a blast) so I'll be out proselyting and then will have the rest of the day when my comp gets back to do the necessary pday things. So I'll send most of my emails out later this afternoon/evening. But we woke up early so I could at least get this out because I'm too excited to wait to share!! ]

So just a couple huge stories: 

First, Vicki Hogan. So Vicki came from a headquarters/media referral. She referred herself to missionaries online because her son had gotten married to a member and then decided to join the church and so now she was interested! 

We got the referral last Saturday, and then called her and set up an appointment for this past week on Wednesday! We went to the appointment and As we were walking up to the house she comes out and greets us! So basically I just loved her immediately. She is probably in her 60s and just the most sincere sweetest lady ever. She has been a widow of 18 years. And had recently had the anniversary of her husbands death. It still is hard for her. But she has such a strong faith in God and a sincere desire to learn more. We taught the restoration and she just accepted all of it. At the end we showed her the prince of peace video and bore testimony of Jesus Christ. She started to cry and apologized because she was emotional and said it was because of it being the anniversary but we bore testimony to her that because of the restoration, that priesthood power has the ability to bind families together for eternity. And she just looked at us and said "How do I make that happen?" And so we invited her to baptism and she accepted for May 6!!! It was amazing!!! (More on her to come) 

Next, Thursday we had a phenomenal miracle lesson with Frank! Frank is the man who has been investigating foreverrrrr and decided he wants to be baptized on Elvis Presley's birthday. But this week we had such an amazing lesson with him! The spirit was so strong, and Bishop Johnston came with us and we helped him truly understand why we want him to be baptized, but had him share why he wanted to be baptized. 

He said that there's just good people at church and he wants to be like them. It was the sweetest simplest answer. Bishop helped him to realize that he is ready to make that commitment. And helped calm some of his fears. Haha we talked about Frank getting baptized on maybe elvis's half birthday! And basically we're just like you know if you're ready, why wait? And I quote Bishop, "If Elvis were here right now, he would say Dont wait for me! He would want you to just go ahead and get baptized." Charlene and Frank were like "yeah you are right, he would want that." (lol Missouri moment right here. Haha I love them!) But now Frank is thinking about getting baptized in May or June!! That's a huge step from being baptized next January!! 

Friday we had Zone Conference and it was amazing!! I learned sooo much. (Thoughts on it to come) 

And then Saturday on our full pros day we had Correlation. Which is always straight fire. Brother Ames gets work done. Literally we have goals for each auxiliary for who to visit and we report back each week. He is the most effective and efficient man ever! He knows how to do the Lords work!! 

We didn't have any solid plans for the whole day, besides our dinner appointment, no matter how hard we tried to make plans. But the whole day we were where we needed to be when we needed to be there! 

We had an impromptu lesson with Vicki again! We showed up at her house to invite her/make sure she was coming to church and we ended up having a whole lesson with her! She had read all of the reading in the Book of Mormon we'd asked her too, read both the restoration and the plan of salvation Pamphlet and has started at the beginning of the Book of Mormon. So she started asking us all these questions and so we taught her the plan of salvation! She also asked us to write in and sign the Book of Mormon we had given her so she could always remember that it was us who gave it to her  Ahh she is just the most sincere person and I love her. But she promised she would be at church on Easter Sunday! 

We also were able to be free to meet with Kayleen. Kayleen is 14 and she is the niece of a recent convert couple in the ward. She comes to YW and church every week, but just spends weekends with her aunt Jesse. She was there Saturday night so we taught her the Restoration and talked a lot about the atonement. She has had a really rough upbringing, and her mom is currently in rehab possibly having to go to jail. We promised her that everything that is unfair about life will be made right through the atonement. She did open up to us a little bit, but it is way hard teaching a 14 year old with the attitude of an 18yr old haha but it went really well!! Grateful for the spirit there for sure. 

Sunday was most definitely the BEST DAY OF THE WEEK. Not only was it Easter, but we had the most amazing day at church! Kayleen, Frank, Arielle, AND Vicki all came to church!!!!! And not only was sacrament meeting amazing and spoke right to Arielle and Vicki, but Sunday school was AMAZING. Brother Ames taught it, and he taught such a powerful lesson about the Priesthood and why it is necessary to run God's church. He used scriptures all out of the Bible which really helped Vicki because that was something she was struggling with understanding. But wow it was so good! Then in Relief Society, we were talking about how we can look to Christ.. and 2 sisters just happened to share their conversion stories, each having been raised in the Catholic church and then becoming baptist, before getting baptized into the Mormon church. One sister in particular shared how each religion she had was just building on each other, but that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has more, it has this completeness about it. When she said that, Vicki leaned over to me and whispered "She just explained that perfectly!" She was so excited and blown away that those two ladies had the same story as her! AHH!! The Lord is so aware of His children. He knew all of our investigators would be there, and that they would be needing to hear the specific things that spoke to them. Definitely a testimony builder for me. 

Sunday night was also miracle filled!!! We were super nervous for our lesson with Arielle because of a few things: first, we didnt have a lot of time to prepare because our day had been crazy... but also we were planning on teaching the plan of salvation, but we also had to commit her to living the word of wisdom and we had to teach the law of chastity. We know she is living with her boyfriend, but she doesnt know that, and we had a tentative plan to give her for other places to live, but we didnt know how the heck we were going to bring all of this up. But we prepared best we could with our little time, and just relied on the spirit. And it went SO SMOOTHLY!!! The spirit was just so strong, and we just really connect with Arielle so our lessons really are more of discussion than lecture. We went smoothly from the plan of salvation to the commandments and teaching about the word of wisdom, which she has already started living for the past two weeks on her own! So thats awesome... and then once we brought up the law of chastity, Brett piped up and said they already had talked about it (because Brett, her boyfriend, is a member) and then Brother Miller (bretts dad) piped up from there and gave her like 3 different options of places to live. One of the places being the home we had been having her lessons in, and Sister Burch (we were at the Burch's house) even took her on a tour upstairs to pick out her room! MIRACLES!!! I am so excited for her baptism on April 29!! 

All in all it was an amazing week. As missionaries, we truly are only instruments in the Lord's hands, and it is His work we are to keep pace with, and here in Liberty 1st it is hastening!!! 

At zone conference, we learned about being One with each other and most especially how we MUST BE ONE with Jesus Christ and our Father in Heaven. We learned about diligence and obedience and how this qualifies us for the spirit and for doing His will. We learned then about following the Spirit and how we must respond immediately just as firefighters would to the promptings of the holy ghost. And lastly talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon. Truly it is the foundation of our religion. It is the book by which the fullness of the gospel has come forth. 

I am so eternally grateful for the resurrection and sacrifice that our Savior Jesus Christ made for us. His love is unending, it is all encompassing, and it is our Saving Grace. We truly owe it to Him to become better people. Because He is the One who made it possible for us to be so. I know He lives with every fiber of my being. He is the one true way back to live with our Father in Heaven. We need not qualify for His love or His grace, but truly it is sufficient. He will take us as we are and make us better. 

I lastly just want to leave this quote with you: 

"Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come" (Joseph B. Wirthlin, Sunday Will Come, October 2006).

Love you all. 

Sister Bleak

PICTURES!!! (Sorry here they are finally)

1. Zone conference pics with the sistas we live with! 

2. Ten months I've been out w my bff sister Dawson :) 

3. The cutest little 3 yr old u ever met. Our recent convert Patricia's son :) 

4. Sisters we live with are the cutest and made us Easter breakfast. Haha that's a bunny :) 

5. & 6. Lib 1 Squad Easter pics 

7. More easters 

8. & 9. Beautiful Liberty :) 

10. Visitors from far west yayy! 

11,12,13 oh yeah herded cows this morning!!