Things I Learned

My companion in the front and the Hermanas we live with
Just another stellar week!

Things I learned:
Count your blessings and miracles
Have an eternal perspective
Have fun
Ask for help
Fears are better addressed than ignored
Say your prayers
Live healthily
Love lots including yourself and life
Prove your diligence

It's amazing how 90s can feel cool, but it is definitely a good day if it's not the triple digits. It's not quite as humid here than it is in Kansas though. My companion here is from Georgia and she loves the heat. It motivates her. She does her work in the sauna sunroom. Not
me. I come in and lay underneath the Fan on high. Then I'm motivated. So I always make us do the bike riding in the mornings and nights. I hope I'm losing weight because it's not that this wouldn't be worth it, but I would be disappointed if it wasn't one of the benefits. I think I'll ask a member if I can use their scale next time. :) I'll keep you posted!

So my companion is super fun and super sweet - almost always. :P she is currently training me for my first 12 weeks. She's great at it although she doesn't always think she is. But I learn the most important things from her like diligence and love for the people not just the work. She is really a great trainer and I don't think she gets that the other trainers want everyone to think all is perfect. I love her. Y'all would too. She's really happy and fun to be around. She likes to laugh and so do I. We are sometimes laughing at the smallest things which is so great for me. If it weren't for her laughter, days would be so much longer. And I would be unable to talk to any of the strangers I meet. Most trainers/trainees stay together for only 2 transfers (6 weeks each) but we are really banking on 3. We sort of talked to President Marston about it and he's at least considering it. He says he loves us together.

We had so many miracles and an overall amazing week. I'll start off with Tuesday. Tuesday we had to go down and get our car from the shop. Since we were in the city and we couldn't shop on p-day due to car stuff, we shopped Tuesday morning. We were not very focused because it felt like a p-day and departing missionaries were landing so that was on our minds. We saw one of our investigators and I asked her straight up if she had ever prayed since the missionaries have been meeting with her. She got real mad and said no and I won't if you keep badgering me with it. I just told her that I was just wondering if she had because I wasn't clear on where she was at on praying. We were able to talk about it and why prayer is preparatory to baptism. Wasn't sure if we had gotten anywhere, but she wasn't mad at me anymore. The next day we went to her house for service. Before we left we asked her if we could say a prayer like always. She said yes. We said we would and then -actually do you want to say it? And she said I guess. I didn't think I heard her right. We always asked her to say it and she always said no. I didn't know what to do. I searched her face for evidence that I had heard her correctly and she yelled well don't stare at me or I won't do it! I was so shocked and we bowed our heads real quickly. She gave the prayer and at the end she said in the name of the Lord THAT's IT! It was so amazing that she actually said yes this time. This was my miracle this day. Also afterwards, we had a lesson with a nine year old girl from an inactive family. We have her on date for September 10th! Instead of calling Brother Eccles for a report that night we went over to his house to tell him everything. We really were so happy!

Thursday we had SUCH a good day! We worked so hard. We were out the door on our bikes in the morning and didn't come in until 1:30ish for lunch. This all went so well! AND we were able give a Book of Mormon with our testimony written inside to a lady. We'll see how that goes. We saw another lady and helped her with her personal scripture study. She told us that she was not ready to embrace the Book of Mormon at first even though she was baptized. She has been baptized for several years and she said that she just became ready to read the Book of Mormon more recently, but wouldn't have started if not for our push. This is such a blessing because we just took initiative to teach her because we felt she needed it. A member couple here were very very sweet in expressing their gratitude for two really good missionaries in the ward right now and how much of a difference we both make. It was the sweetest thing said in the most genuine way. It was so great.

See you soon ;)

Sister Crowther