This week has been one of the craziest of my whole mission! Being an STL definitely requires a lot of stamina because there is never time to stop. I love it so much, the sisters are awesome!
On Monday night we saw a cool miracle when we were knocking doors. We met a lady named Amy, and she told us that she recently fell and shattered her elbow. She had to get surgery on it because it shattered, but then that caused an infection which spread to her heart, which led to a heart replacement surgery. On top of all that she recently had knee surgery, and also is going through a divorce. She is amazing, and talking to her makes me so very grateful for everything that I have. Anyway, she was studying with missionaries a few years ago, but then she moved away and lost contact with the church. She has recently moved back in to live with her mom, and has been looking for a church to go to. She does not agree with her mom's Jehovah's Witness beliefs, and so she was talking to her uncle about trying to find somewhere. She told him that the only time she ever felt good about a church was when she was studying with the Mormons, and then we knocked on her door a few hours later! It was awesome. She let us right in, and taught her about the Restoration. She has been excited to come to church all week. Unfortunately, she didn't come. We stopped by her house after church, and she explained that her daughter had fallen on her knee and caused lots of problems so she wasn't able to make it. She was so touched that we'd come by to see her again, and she is really excited to meet with us again this week!
We also had a great lesson with Freddy and Darlyne that night, and our ward mission leader came with us. We taught them the second half of the plan of salvation. Freddy couldn't believe it when we taught about eternal marriage, he said "you hear that babe?! We can be married forever!" They are so adorable. Darlyne was really quiet, and we were concerned about it. The next day we felt like we should stop by unexpectedly in the afternoon when Freddy was at work so that we could talk to her alone. We were so glad that we did because she was able to explain a lot of things about her background that helped us to understand more of her concerns. We were able to tell her how much we love her, and how much God is here to help her. She has been so open ever since that, they both love us, and we love them! One night when we were going to visit them our goal was to help them set a baptismal date. We had tried several times, but they wouldn't commit for some reason. We decided that we were going to bring a calendar, but when we went to the Dollar store to look for one, we realized that they don't sell 2017 calendars anymore! We were already running late to that appointment, but we didn't want to go without a calendar because we'd promised to bring one. We both said a little silent prayer, next thing you know we dig up the ONLY 2017 calendar left in the whole store. It just reminded me that God is in the details. Having a physical calendar helped them a lot. They prayed, and decided that September 16th will be the day of their baptism! We are so excited for them! We are still working to help them stop smoking and get married, but they are doing well. The only bummer is that they got sick, so they couldn't come to church yesterday. Satan is trying really hard to keep them away, but it won't work! They are just wonderful.
We also went on a lot of exchanges this week with the other sisters. It is so much fun being able to learn from them, and see how they like to do missionary work. I went on a full day exchange with Sister Ricardo. I went to the area of West Palm Beach where we did service for 3 hours scraping some really thick wallpaper off (we couldn't feel our shoulders by the end), it was lots of fun. After that we went to teach their investigator that has suffered 6 strokes, and he can't really talk. He was so excited when we showed up because he handed us a business card and said "man, book." After some questioning we figured out that he had given his barber a Book of Mormon, and now he wanted to meet with us! He needed a new copy of the Book of Mormon, so after an extremely simplified Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson he followed us to our car. When we opened the trunk and he saw all the supplies inside his eyes got so wide and he loaded himself with 5 Book of Mormons, 3 packs of pamphlets, and 2 packs of cards. He excitedly gestured to himself, the materials, and all the surrounding apartment buildings. We understood that he wanted to hand out all the materials, how could we say no to that? It was so cute. It was awesome to work with Sister Ricardo, she is a fantastic missionary with a lot of love for people.
The next day Sister Peterson came to pick me up, and I came back to Royal Palm Beach.
It has been a great week! I just love missionary work!
Love you all!
Love, Sister Monson
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