Hello everyone!
I hope you are all doing well, it has been such an amazing week here!!
Monday:
We went to the zoo with a member of our ward. She has 4 adorable little kids, so that was lots of fun. That night we had a lesson with Rose and Chikira. They texted us before hand and said that Rose's grandma doesn't want us meeting in their house anymore, so we met at a park instead. We had decided beforehand to teach about prophets, but as Sister Carling was saying the opening prayer I received the overwhelming impression that we needed to talk about fasting. I don't think I've ever received such clear guidance about what we needed to teach. Thankfully Sister Carling just went with the flow as we entirely switched gears, and after the lesson we both agreed that that was absolutely what we needed to teach. They are both going through very rough times right now, they are looking for a job, Chikira is recovering from a miscarriage, there is a lot of fighting and heartache in their family, and so they were very excited to fast with us the following day.
Tuesday:
We had an awesome lesson with Angela! She is progressing so well, she LOVES the Book of Mormon, and reads it faithfully every day. We were a little worried to teach her the Word of Wisdom because she has to be living it for at least a week before her baptism, and we were running out of time, plus she enjoys coffee and tea. We finished teaching the lesson, she looks at us and says "well, I guess I better stop drinking my coffee then. Why don't y'all come in the kitchen and help me throw it away?" We spent the next 10 minutes knifing her little coffee packets and then dumping them in the trash. It was super fun, and she hasn't had coffee since! She has so much faith. I love her. As we were talking she asked "do y'all want to know why I opened the door to you in the first place?" She looked right at me and said "because I could see Jesus Christ in your eyes. Girl, I will never forget those eyes!" I almost cried. I was so so happy, and so humbled to be able to help one of Heavenly Father's precious daughters understand the love that Jesus Christ has for her.
We were fasting for Rose and Chikira, but we hadn't been able to get a hold of them since we had prayed over the phone in the morning to start the fast. Finally, at 10:15 pm, we got a call from Chikira. She told us that she and Rose had been in a fight, and that she would be moving to Northern Florida to stay with her mom. She was really upset, anxious, and bummed that she wouldn't be able to get baptized. We told her that she could contact the missionaries in Northern Florida, but there wasn't much else we could do. We were so sad, we love Chikira! We still couldn't get a hold of Rose that night.
Wednesday:
We had an amazing zone conference! I love President and Sister Richardson, so it is the best to hear from them. It is always fun to see the other missionaries as well.
We stopped by Angela's house for a couple of minutes to take her a water bottle. When we'd taught her the Word of Wisdom she said she needed to drink more water anyway, so we went and bought a bottle at the dollar store for her. She loved it!
That night we decided to stop by Rose's house. She had not been answering her phone, and we needed to know if she still wanted to get baptized. Her grandpa answered the door and told us that Rose had been "ducking" us, that she didn't want to keep meeting with us, and that she just didn't have the guts to tell us. We walked away feeling so sad! We had just lost two of our investigators! We were about to pull away when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Chikira running outside. We stopped and ran back to meet her. We asked her what she was doing there, we thought she'd moved! She told us that she and Rose had prayed together, and then they had been able to work everything out, so she wasn't moving anymore! Rose wasn't home, but Chikira assured us that they still wanted to keep meeting with us, that her phone was broken which is why she hadn't been able to contact us, and that they still wanted to get baptized! We had the most amazing lesson with Chikira, she told us more about her life (it has been ROUGH). I felt so much of Heavenly Father's love for her. We all sat outside, in the dark, in the cold, being eaten by bugs, and just cried because the spirit was so strong. We asked her how she'd known that we'd stopped by. She said she had been inside sleeping when "something" had told her to wake up. When she did Rose's grandpa had told that we'd stopped by, and so she ran outside to catch us. We know that was the Spirit because if she hadn't caught us, we would have stopped trying to contact them, and with their phones being broken I don't know how we would have been able to see them again!
Thursday:
Soooo.....I accidentally locked all four of us out of the house. We went out for exercise, and I forgot to grab a key, and locked the door behind us. Ooops. All of our phones, phone numbers, keys, and everything were locked inside. Thankfully there is a member that lives about 1 mile from our house, so we ran over there, and she tried to help us pick the lock. Needless to say a locksmith, and 3 hours later we finally made it into the house. Good times.
We met with Rose and Chikira again and Rose said she had felt so bad when she found out what her grandpa said to us. She still wants to keep meeting with us, and they are still set to get baptized!!
Saturday:
We went to go give service at the food pantry this morning. An adorable little Cuban lady that comes every week walked in the door, looked around, and bolted straight for my table. She showed me a little gift bag with fingernail polish inside that she'd bought me because 2 weeks ago I told her I liked the color of her nails. It was so cute!
Then we had a temple tour with Angela. An older lady from our ward drove us and Angela to the temple. Angela LOVED it, and she is so excited to go inside someday! The member and Angela got along really really well, so it turned out to be such a great day!
Sunday:
Rose and Angela came to church! Chikira was stuck at her mom's house in Northern Florida with no way home. We will have to push her baptism back a week, but Angela and Rose are set for this upcoming Saturday March 25th!!
We are so excited!!!
Love you all,
Hermana Monson
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