Dear Friends and Family,
So
we have been blessed to see many miracles this week! We recently have
picked up three more families to teach the gospel to! We are so excited
for that! And one of the families originates from a previous
investigator. Victor (a young man in the ward) has always helped the
missionaries visit his friends, and he was explaining this to us before
how he always helps them, but not many of them really progress or want
to change at all, but we were over at Silvia's house. Silvia has been
taught by missionaries and committed to baptism. However a couple days
before her baptism, she bailed for some reason or another. So the
missionaries ended up dropping her as an investigator. Well Victor and
us decided to go visit her again! and when we went over there, her mom
was also there. And her mom loved the missionaries, however she only
speaks Spanish and the previous missionaries only spoke English. She was
super surprised that we spoke Spanish when we showed up! and then she
just got talking to us! So she brought up a random question that a lot
of people ask, "Why don't you drink coffee?" And so we answered her
concern very simply in less then 2 sentences. And surprisingly she
responded, "I'm gonna stop drinking coffee now." And for her that was
huge! She had told us right before asking the question that she drinks a
TON of Coffee. And she pushed her coffee mug, which was on the table,
away from her and said she would never drink it again! HAHA So that
opened up perfectly for us to begin teaching her. We shared the
Restoration with her and gave her a Book of Mormon. She was super
excited and said she will read and pray about it! Man the whole lesson
and all the interactions we had previous with her family fit so
perfectly into place in that lesson to allow the spirit to teach her.
And we know that their family will get baptized. All it takes now is a
little patience and diligent work!
So that was
only one of the COUNTLESS experiences that we have experienced this
week. If I share all of them, this email will be as long as the Old
Testament. So just know that there were so many great tender mercies
like that one!
Now I think I mentioned to a
couple of you how transfers were this upcoming week. My memory is
terrible, so I don't remember how I mentioned it. HAHA However, I have
been in Foley for 5 transfers already and man I have been so down lately
because I simply did not want to leave this area. If any of you
remember how I felt about 2 transfers ago... Well it was that but like
100000000x worse! HAHA I felt so sad that I was leaving such a great
area and leaving at a time when many blessings started to come! Now for
any of you who know me really well, when I start to get really sad or
stressed I start to just do random stuff to occupy myself. HAHA So along
with that, I started to go into the stages of denial and so Saturday
night, (night before transfer calls) I packed up ALL of my stuff into my
suitcases and was ready to leave! HAHA I was for sure that I was
leaving and I was a bit sad. HAHA So we got the call Sunday night and
guess what????? I'M STILL HERE IN FOLEY!!!!!!!!!!! HAHA and lets just say
I am now telling myself every day how dumb I am for packing all my
stuff. HAHA so this morning I spent unpacking. So I guess you could say I
got transferred kinda?? HAHAHA Funny story :) Oh and I had also told
Elder Sturdevant that If I wasn't getting transferred that he could tell
me "I told you so" for the next six weeks. HAHA Its gonna be a long
one...
So yeah! Still in Foley and still with
Elder Sturdevant for another 6 weeks! Maybe at the end of that transfer
I'll pack up my bags for real! HAHA As well as feeling really dumb for
packing, I feel really blessed to be in this area for another short
period of time. That means the Lord's work for me here is not done yet!
And I set a goal to baptize one of these families before I leave, so I
best be hauling myself through every day!
Love you all super duper much! You all are Bosses for being who you are and reading my Crazy emails! Love you much :)
Until I get transferred again,
Elder Stonely :)
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| Valentines Day package. Thanks MOM!!! |
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| Matching Valentines Day ties! |
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| A Boss activity with the Ward! |
