Guess what? I AM IN SPANISH AGAIN!!!! It was a long four months of English, but I guess I have learned the lessons I needed to learn there and touched the lives I was suppose to touch. But the thing is I am actually over two areas now. One of them, the Crossroads, is a Spanish branch and the other, Overlake, is an English ward. But I am very excited for this transfer! Two areas = twice the work which I am very happy about. I would rather be ultra busy than walking around, trying to find people to teach all day.
But oh my goodness, this last week was a spectacular one. I knew after having a hard week that there was a week of miracles around the corner. It started off with having one of our Chinese speaking members with us and we happened to find our Chinese investigator Carol at home before she left for China again. He was able to explain to her the difference and importance of our church. She said she will read the Book of Mormon and pray and she will try to find missionaries when she comes back to the United States.
We had the miracle of finding a potential investigator home sick, but she let us in and we taught her the Restoration. She had a hard time understanding the difference between the light of Christ, the Holy Ghost and having the gift of the Holy Ghost. She is very nice, but its going to take some more heart softening to help her accept the fullness of the gospel. It was fun though because we sat out on her deck, overlooking a beautiful lake. It reminded me of summers in Michigan.
And then there is Nikolay. He is so great. Did I mention that he looks like Jesus? Yeah, so basically the whole ward was freaking out the Sunday that he came to church. There were like, "Who is that guy?" This last week, Nikolay wasn't able to come and they all said, "Where did the guy who looks like Jesus go?" Let's just say that he will be easily accepted into the ward! We have been teaching him almost every other day. He has changed so much in these past two weeks. He will still have to take some time before he can be baptized, but so much peace and happiness has already come into his life. And it came through the small things like praying and reading the Book of Mormon. I am going to miss him!
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| Nikolay...He just shaved off his beard. |
Then we had a huge miracle....miracles come when you follow the spirit. We felt this strong prompting that we needed to cancel our coordination meeting with our ward mission leader and go tracting at 8pm on Thrusday. We felt very strongly about a certain area. Lo and behold, the first house we knocked on we met a guy named Shawn and we were invited in. He and his family are from Iran, but he loves Christianity especially Jesus Christ. We felt like we need to go straight into teaching him the Plan of Salvation. Later on in the lesson, we found out that his sister died a few years earlier and that has been a large trial for the whole family. He found so much peace through the Plan of Salvation. He believes that when we have hard things happen in our lives, it's because we are being punished. We have been talking to him about God's mercy and love. Already, in just a few days, Shawn's heart has changed so much. He absolutely loves the gospel. He came to church on Sunday and really loved it even though he thought it was weird that youth were giving sermons at church and not the preacher:) Gotta love being a Mormon!
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| Tracting up on Cougar Mountain is like beingforest rangers in the wilderness |
We had a truly incredible experience during the 3rd hour of church though. We saw a Hispanic couple in the lobby so naturally we wanted to go talk to them. The lady was getting her patriarchal blessing, but she couldn't be alone with the Patriarch so they asked us to sit in while she received her blessing...in Spanish! Oh, it was so beautiful. It was such a special experience to get to hear how much revelation a Patriarch can receive for those he is giving the blessing to. For the rest of the day, we were exceedingly happy!
Basically we just had a lot of cool things happen this week. We were tracting and found a non-interested Jewish family, but they were very nice. They were beekeepers, so they let us taste fresh honey, right out of the hive. In that same neighborhood, a man was doing yard work and though he too was not interested, he cut us some of his flowers and made us a beautiful bouquet.
Its just nice when people are nice, you know? This last thing was so funny....there were these sales guys that were going door to door too. We started walking towards a front door at the same time as one of them so it was awkward and everything....but we decided to battle it out over rock, paper, scissors. Yup, I won. Well, it was the Lord's will that we would knock on that door so naturally he insured that I won that epic game. When in doubt...rock, paper, scissors it out!
So yeah, I was transferred this morning. I have two new companions, Hermana Brooks and Hermana Christianson. Hermana Brooks is a STL too and Hermana Christianson is still in training. Looks like things are about to get super exciting around here!
Que tenga una buena semana! Les queiro!
Con Mucho Amor,
Hermana Stoddard
P.S. I am on page 229 of the Book of Mormon. Keep reading!
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