March 29, 2006

Alrighty,

It's been a crazy time here in Rocky River. Basically we've cleaned out our entire teaching pool. We had 5 Progressing Investigators when I got here, then we got 2 new ones, and now we have 1, but he's almost gone too. During Zone Conference Elder Dixon promised us that we would get baptisms and we know there's a lot of people out there ready to hear this message, so I guess we're just making room for all those people. Here's the updates:

Family 1: The ones I mentioned last time. We met with them and basically the dad says he knows Joseph Smith is a prophet but doesn't want to commit to living the gospel. We told them that as missionaries we couldn't spend that much time with them. That's not our job if they won't keep commitments, so we're not going back over there.

Inv 2: John. We did a fast/pray now with him to help him receive an answer if he should be baptized. He loves church and the Book of Mormon, but doesn't want to do something he can't live up to for the rest of his life. (He's 75) When we got there he says he felt like he didn't want to be baptized. He wasn't himself and he kept saying things completely contrary to before. We prayed anyway to see if he shouldn't be baptized and he said he wasn't receiving answers and that he felt better about NOT being. Crazy.
But he still came to church, and still reads.

Inv 3: Viper. He didn't feel like coming to church despite our convincing and won't pray. He cancelled our appt Tuesday. So, it's up to him. If he calls, we'll see.

Inv 4: Julie. She came to church to see what it's like. Thought it was nice, but only stayed for Sac Mtg. Her boyfriends' coming out here this weekend so we hope to meet him, but I think she feels like she's learned enough to understand what she wants to.

So that's that. Nothing like being humbled. But we've had a lot of great experiences. I love being a missionary, and I love having 'missionary moments' when it hits me that I'm actually a missionary. Like when you walk past a window and see you & your companion's reflection, or when someone's saying a prayer and says "thanks that the missionaries could come over," and you look around to see where they are. But that's me! Man oh man.

I also love it when you smile, wave & say hi to people from far away and then they stop and look at you with that look. I can't explain it really, but you can tell they see something different about you and they don't know why or what it is. That's when I go up to them and tell them about what I have that's so amazing.

Monday though, was great! We had what we call "Enos Prayer." We had from 10:30-1:30 to pray about anything and EVERYTHING. Family, blessings, leaders, things to do better, investigators, the area, ways to find etc.. It was amazing. It's crazy how you can pray and ponder and think, and when time's up you're still not done. At the end you're so much more focused on the work and so grateful for all of the blessings that you have. I am, I'm so incredibly blessed. For all of you and for how amazing you all are. I
wish I had time to pray for and about every single person and make sure everything went perfectly in your lives, but I can't, sorry. But I would if I could. Kinda like Mosiah 4:24. Anyway, when I thought about all the people I love I cried a lot. Happy ones. I felt silly, but I heard my companion in the other room and she was sniffing too.

We had some ideas to find better, so we started putting those into action. I made flyers for General Conference and handed those out as we tracted yesterday. That was fun. We also are working on a Family History link to find people that want to get started on that and so on. We're hoping to organize a city-wide service project with our district and Mission Presidency and we have a few connections, but it's in the works. One I'm looking forward to is making a booth-ish thing, with info to give out, and then I'm going to play hymns on a violin, and have a few other missionaries
there to talk to the people that walkby/listen.

Well, we had about 4 hours of spring the other day. It was sunny and nice in the morning, then by 2ish it was cloudy and cold again. Really cold actually. They say that's what we get of spring, and the super-d-duper hot summer is coming next. Yipee!

But I definitely am wearing short sleeves right now, and I didn't even shiver.

We played transfer board last night with the other sisters trying to figure out who's going where. Sister Clove's apparantely usually dead on. We think S.Clove and I are staying in Rocky River, but we'll see. It's a crazy game here with the sisters in Cleveland-not always what you expect. But, the work's great and we're making big plans for the next couple weeks.

That wraps up this edition. Half way through the first transfer!