Monday, June 9, 2014

The Peace the Gospel Brings!

Hello family and friends!

This has been a pretty productive week! We taught 8 member present
lessons and 6 recent convert/ less active lessons. Sadly we didn't
teach any other lessons- lessons without members present. But that's
14 lessons, and sadly one away from the challenge our District Leader
gave us. But this week we will for sure get it!

Monday we had a good p-day and then taught a recent convert. We
should have planned to go with  an investigator family who went to a 
members home for family home evening. We didn't realize
that till the next day... Our bad.

Tuesday we weren't feeling too great. On our way to dinner we got
stopped by a guy. He pulled up next to us and got out and walked over
to us as we were walking on the sidewalk. He asked if we were Mormons.
We said yes. He told us he had a couple of questions for us. We said
alright so he proceeded to ask why we believe that God has a body. We
told him we believe that we are made in His image and that we lived
with a God before this life and there have been people who have seen
God and testified of His body. We also talked about the scripture in
Jeremiah how God knew us before we were formed in the belly. It was an
interesting contact. But we had dinner and a lesson with some less
actives. Then we had a lesson with one of our investigators at a members house . We watched the conference talk by President Monson from the 
October 2013 "I Will Not Fail Thee Nor Forsake Thee". It went really well. 
She loved it! We got home and had gotten a text from the man we met on 
the street saying he went to the website Mormon.org we gave him to help answer his questions, because it seemed like he wanted to bash on the 
street so we gave him the card and our number and he texted us! Crazy...
that rarely happens. He said there was only one scripture it mentioned in genesis to back up our belief of God having a body. But then the zone 
leaders got our phone to replace it with a new phone we would get the next day.

On Wednesday we were going to go to Zumba again but Sister M.still wasn't feeling too great. We also didn't have a phone because the zone leaders took our phone the night before because we were going to get a new phone on Wednesday. So I studied for about three hours and tried to find better scriptures to share with the man who stopped us the day before. I found a ton of good scriptures and everything correlated so well with the restoration! At least that's what I thought. But we used the members phone to make calls to get members out with us for the day. We taught a former investigator  who
we began teaching when we got here almost 5 months ago but she was
always so busy and never home and she was always in and out of the
hospital getting things ready to have surgery on her eye...she's
blind...so we dropped her. But we called to see how her surgery went
and she said she could now see out of one eye and was so happy! She
scheduled a time we could come by and said she is always praying for
us. Very sweet! She is also getting her teeth fixed and her wrist
broke before her eye surgery and that's almost healed. It is cool to
see the similarities between her being able to see and her beginning
again to learn about the gospel! We saw a recent convert and
enter over the restoration with her again because it had been a while.
Then we were supposed to take our investigator to do family
history again but she was sick. We got our new phone and were so
thankful! I can't imagine how missionaries did it before without cell
phones!

Thursday was zone meeting. There are certain meetings where I get
super pumped about the work and others where I feel like a failure
missionary...this was one of those I feel like a failure meetings. I
saw a lot of my weaknesses and what I need to work on with myself and
my thingies skills. I'm thankful my weaknesses have been shown but it
hurts my pride of course. We never like to hear we are wrong. But it
was a pretty good day. We went to see a new investigator but
she wasn't home. Turns out she was at the doctors. But we were able to
go by and see an investigator we haven't seen in over a month! She's
going through a rough time but we were able to go help her out. It was
good to see her again and she got a new number so that's why we hadn't
been able to get a hold of her. We had dinner with the bishops family
at the baseball park cause their son was in a championship game so we
got subway and went to eat there. It was fun. Then we taught a less
active couple to help them get back into the swing of things. They
hadn't been to church in over a month because of work. We are going to
help them go to the temple to get sealed. Then we helped our
investigator again with family history. It was a pretty good day.

Friday we taught a less active and then had sushi for lunch and did
our weekly planning. We taught the man who stopped us on the street at
the park with a couple from the ward who joined us. It was a little
contentious and he had the agenda already planned. It was letter
difficult. He was trying to teach us when he had asked us to teach him
why we believed god has a body. We were pretty bold and said if we
understand you correctly, you wanted to meet today so we could tell
you why we believe god has a body but you haven't let us share with
you yet why we believe that. He called us later that night to
apologize for taking over and talking to much causing us to be late to
our next appointment. We had a ward potluck and that was fun. Sadly
not many nonmembers, about 2. We were supposed to go on exchanges but
the other sisters forgot. We got home to meet them and called and
texted but didn't hear from them. We got really worried. We still
didn't hear from them after 9:30 and told the zone leaders. We didn't
hear from them till a little after 10. They had forgotten and their
phone was on silent. We had been praying individually that we wouldn't
have to go on exchanges and we got scared that we caused them to get
in an accident or kidnapped because of our selfish prayers. But they
were okay and we both had a good Saturday and it was important we were
not on exchanges.

So Saturday we helped a members nonmember daughter clean up her sons
birthday party. She has two boys both with special needs and we have
been doing service for her every once in a while so we've gotten
pretty close. We then had a lesson with a recent convert  and her
visiting teacher  and then went to see a new investigator from a few weeks
ago who had invited a friend over to contradict everything we said. We went back to see if he really did have intent in learning the truth. We were going to teach about the Book of Mormon but it turned into him asking us questions about our beliefs. The member we brought with  was perfect for this! As we were planning for him the day before Sister M. had the thought to bring a really strong convert with us and the sister we brought was available! All the questions he was asking were questions she had asked the missionaries. It was pretty cool. It started kind of contentious and him wanting to prove us wrong and then it turned into a good lesson and the spirit was there as the sister bore her testimony and helped answer his questions. We then had dinner at our ward mission leaders house and then had a quick meeting. We also had a lesson with our investigator. She wasn't home at the time so we went over to a members  and did some service for them there and then our investigator came over. Before she came over we had a really nice talk with the sister about some cool spiritual experiences she or family members had had. We then taught a really awesome lesson on the plan of salvation. Her father had died a few years ago and it was cool to help her know where he is and that he too
is learning the gospel of Jesus Christ. We talked to her about how the family history work will help her ancestors will be able to accept the gospel and she can live with them forever. It is so cool to see the hope this gospel brings! It just brings everything together from the temple visit and our lessons and family history! It's so cool!

Sunday was decent. We didn't have anyone at church sadly and all our
appointments cancelled on us, luckily we were able to reschedule one
with a potential family for later in the day. We had dinner and made homemade pizzas at a members! It was really fun! The dough rose really well because the sister put the dough in her car to rise with the windows up...really good idea! Then we went by one of our investigators homes  to see how she was doing. She had to go to the hospital that morning to get stitches on her leg. The
medicine they gave her made her really sleepy so she was in bed all day! But we went to teach the potential family and it went really well! The mom isn't too interested but she is ready, she just doesn't know. She's stubborn but if it's gods will she'll come around. The father is searching and the two sons are super polite. I think they have a lot of potential! Sadly they didn't accept a return appointment they said they would call. Therefore making them not new investigators in area book! But it was a good week!

I love this work and I am so happy for the hope and peace the gospel
brings! Thank you all for your love and support and prayers! I love
you all!

Love, Sister Riches



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