October 11, 2006

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to think of what to say this week. Lately it feels like I'm always writing the same thing. I guess it's true though. I write it in my journal, in letters to the mission president and then here as well. If something cool happens I end up writing about it 3 times. I guess I'm not crazy. Too badly…

I guess here's a few stories about investigators… I'll include Sandy Caq (my new adapted abbreviation), Jon & Kathy Grierson, Josh Becker and Garnetta (No last name needed).

Sandy is still doing well, but she keeps being wishy washy about wanting to be baptized. When we're there she wants to, and she always believes what we tell her about why it's important but then she's not quite sure the next time. It's probably our fault for now immersing her in the gospel as much as we should. We're working on helping her see why it's important to act on answers we receive although we can't always see the results until afterward. Mostly she needs to come to church. We'll see what happens.

Jon & Kathy are doing really well. We brought another couple from the ward that they really hit it off with as well. Jon says he has no problem believing any of the doctrine, he says he just needs to change his life to fit in the time requirements of living the gospel. During one of the lessons someone mentioned something about how being the bishop requires a lot of time, and then said, "but you won't have to worry about that." Then from what Jon said he seemed like he half expected himself to be in a big calling right off the bat. I think he already sees himself leading the church. He loves everything about it and with every new thing we teach him he nods and says, that's exactly how it should be. The coolest thing is that Kathy is really excited now too. She used to always sit back, mostly since Jon doesn't quit talking, but now she takes time out everyday to read the Book of Mormon and now really wants to come to church.

In addition to teaching them, we've become good friends with their wolves. You would all be surprised at how well I do with having dog/doglike animals around me. I guess it's expected since pretty much every house has at least one dog, usually 3 or 4. I like them most of the time… except when they try to give you dog kisses. I'll never be okay with that. That's just gross.

Josh Becker is this 14 year old kid that called us up and wanted us to teach him again. Mostly he needs a counselor, but he's eager to learn. And to change. This week we're helping him quit smoking. Sad that he's so young and has to deal with those kind of problems. His parents smoke though, so there's no reason for it to seem that wrong. His family doesn't want to be taught, but want us to teach him. He has a lot of problems, a lot that I think are due to neglect and lack of love at home. We're trying to help him improve his relationships with him family too. That's what the gospel does I guess.

Then Garnetta. She's a aunt/guardian of a recent convert Joe. And she's been an alcoholic since her husbands death a year ago. Joe always asks us to help her so we try, mostly out of support for him. Her friends come over and bring her huge bottles of whiskey. I don't know who thinks that's a good idea. She does really well for awhile but can't turn it down when offered it. Anyway, she stopped for awhile and started reading the Book of Mormon a lot. She can tell it's truth by the way she feels when she reads it, and it makes sense to her. After awhile of visiting her we found out she's been afraid of churches for her whole life. She has tried to come with Joe before but got to the parking lot then ran off. She said she really wants to go but can't make herself get over the doorstep. Funny I know, but a serious problem too. So, we took her on a tour of the church, with no people. That was the catch. At first she only wanted to walk around the outside, but then we opened the doors and let her look in, and then she wanted to see inside one of the rooms so she came in too! Then we walked around the whole church (granted really slowly) and sat in the pews and everything. It was great. Then she talked about it for at least 2 days straight to anyone she talked too. That was kindof a fun time.

This is going to be a great week, and a great transfer. I hear there's a lot of stuff that will be changing in the mission soon. Zone Conference is next week so we'll get the scoop. They should be opening 9 new areas this next transfer and I think they'll be in our zone. They keep changing who's in my district and now it includes half of the zone. My first transfer here there was only 4 in our district, now there is 10.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for now.
Thanks for listening,
Sister Salisbury


Is it weird that Daylight Savings time is happening so late? I thought maybe they stopped having it and I just didn't know about it. And are we still not supposed to eat spinach? I'm kindof missing it.