Wednesday, January 18, 2017

December 12th-19th, 2016



Family. Buckle up for a long email. Let me just preface this whole week with, I LOVE MY WHOLE LIFE. 

This past week has been incredible. I don't know how it keeps getting better and better but somehow is is. So we've been teaching Jim, his wife and step daughters are members and he's been taught on and off for almost 2 years. I have been frustrated because I don't know his concern, like there have been great missionaries here and I kept thinking if they couldn't help him, either could I. I don't know what it was, but we had the most spiritual lesson about the Restoration. I think what made it so amazing was he had heard the "story" and the history of the Restoration so many times. But he needed to hear testimonies of it, so we obviously bore ours, but so did his wife and daughters. His wife gave one of the most heartfelt testimonies I've ever heard. She said with tears in her eyes, "Jim I think you already know it's true. I've seen it. We've had so many great experiences. What are you waiting for?" The spirit spoke to me so clearly to invite him to be baptized. When I came into the ward the ward mission leader told us NOT to invite him to baptism, that it makes him feel pressured. His family even said he always flat out says NO to invites. But the prompting was so clear! I was so scared and i'm pretty sure my voice cracked when I asked him, but I said "Jim, I echo your wife, we have all felt the spirit tonight, will you prepare yourself to be baptized on January 28th?" He said "Yes. Yes I will." His wife about fell out of her chair. I almost said "wait really?" but refrained haha. #MIRACLE

So the temperatures have been SO COLD. Missouri is brutal in the winter haha. There is this thing here called freezing rain. Ohhhhh boy. Friday morning everyone was texting us "be careful driving!" and "be careful out there!" We were like so confused because the weather looked fine haha. But we stepped outside and it was "misting" which is like a half pathetic rain. It happens here all the time. But it was so cold that it was freezing almost instantly when it landed. (I ask everyone why it doesn't turn to snow and they give some long scientific explanation) So we walk out the door and we're like "oh it's just misting no biggy whatever" then we walk down the steps of our apartment and onto the parking lot which is a hill by the way, and instantly we just start sliding down the hill like no control it was hilarious hahahaha. I was wearing boots with NO traction and just went sliding, I could not stop. Trying to get back up the hill was even funnier. Needless to say I changed my boots. But ever our car was completely encased in pure solid ice. I'm not kidding people when I say everything had a layer of ice. It was INSANE. So we tried driving around for a few hours and it was terrifying. Talk about white knuckle driving. I kept saying "I am just WAITING for cars to get grounded." A few hours later the zone leaders texted and said we could't drive anymore. Sister Ball was like "well now what?" I was like "we are agents unto ourselves and we are going to ACT and not be ACTED UPON!" (that's a big thing in the mission these days, being agents unto ourselves) I was trying to work it out in my head where we could go and we have already tracted like a 3 mile radius around our apartment when we were out of miles last month. The only thing I could think of was Walmart and a bunch of restaurants are like 2 and a half miles away and that is the only place where people would be because Warren-town is a GHOST town after like 5 pm. So we decided we were going to try and "walk" up there. We layered up and girded up our loins and straight up SKATED to Walmart it was the funniest thing ever. We almost biffed sooo many times. It was the slipperiest ice I've ever experienced. Dare I say it was more slippery than an actual ice rink. At one point I was just holding onto Sister Ball's bag while she walked on the grass and was like surfing. She was just towing me. So fun. We walked across the interstate no problem because it was like a parking lot. People were giving us the STRANGEST looks and yelling out their windows if we needed a ride haha. We finally got to Walmart and got to help these people fix their car that had slid off the road! Well, I know nothing about cars, so I held the flashlight. When I asked if we could help I was like "well, I don't know much about what you're tryng to fix, but when I would help my dad I usually just held the light and handed him tools. Can we do that?" hahaha it was fun. They were like "who are you and why are you out in this weather trying to help people?" I was SO PROUD to explain we are representatives of Jesus Christ and we just try to do what He would do :) On the way back we had another awesome experience. This guy yelled out to us if we needed a ride, we didn't but we yelled back to him if we could talk to him about Jesus Christ. He had us come over to his doorway to try and stay warm and we explained to him about the Restoration and Book of Mormon (in the freezing rain) and after our conversation he said "you know what, I was fixin to go out and get more dope. But I don't think I'm gonna do that anymore." #HOLLA SO many miracles. When we were almost back we saw one more guy walking and we tried to talk to him but he said "I gots to go, I just got outta jail, well, I'm not supposed to be out yet, but I hafta get me some cigarettes before I go back!" and walked off. I was like uhhhhhh should we call someone? hahhahah. 

We also dropped off two trash bags of presents to Jerry for the girls to open on Christmas :) SO fun doing that. We told Jerry we were just gonna get a soccer ball, and when we walked in he was like "whoa. That's more than a soccer ball." hahahaha 

This whole week rocked. We are making every minute count and not wasting any time because time is so short! 

SKYPE INFO! We're going to the Davidson's after church. We have it at 9:00 which I'm pretty sure is 8 your time? Maybe I have that backwards. But we'll probs call around 1:00 our time which is noon in UT. If i have that wrong just email Sister Davidson. She's the homie. 

This Christmas has been so special. Christmas as a missionary is one of the most sacred times. I can't even describe my feelings. Being focused on the Savior and trying to do what he would do just really changes hearts. SO MUCH LOVE. 

pics - i sent a before and after pic of the freezing rain, my hair was frozen like that hahah it got so wet and the froze. I was so scared it was going to break off!! in the selfie, I would like to point out the snot that was also frozen hahaha disgusting i know. 

I LOVE YOU GUYS! HAVE A GOOD WEEK! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!


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