In His Vineyard: Working Hard in Modesto

Me and Sister Bell

A wonderful baptism and I got to speak at it!

WOW!! Time is FLYING!!! Ahhhhh! I just want it to stop!! But sadly, God is in charge of time. So I will just do everything I can to do what He wants me to do!! This week we a week of Up's and Down's. I will tell you the Up's.

-To start off, we got to teach our new investigator Ada this past Friday! She is adorable. She has two girls. Ada has been taught by the missionaries before, but decided it wasn't the time. Then she met us, and now she is really into it. But the difficult situation is her primary language is Spanish. We tried teaching her, which was like teaching a five year old. But she was able to slowly understand everything! We did tell her: "We have sister missionaries in the area that are assigned to speak Spanish, Would it be helpful if you met with them?" She said no, she is wanting to learn English (and she is pretty good at speaking and understanding) and wants us to teach her. She said we were cute and she liked us. So that was a plus! We invited her to come to church, but her girls were out of town for the weekend. And she said she would love her whole family to come with her. So we are praying she will come next week! It is incredible to see the Lord at work. And how we (missionaries) are just the tools!

-We also had a really neat experience last Monday night! We were biking home, and opposite from us was a woman biking at the same speed. We started talking to her from across the way, and then we all pulled over. Come to find out, she has all the same standards as we do. She believes in Jesus Christ and that there is a God. She also believes that there should just be ONE baptism and with the proper power. She has been looking for a church. And she was able to recognize the spirit as we were able to teach her! We are still trying to arrange a time to get back in touch with her, but it was just a cool experience of using the "find when you teach, and teach when you find" from Preach My Gospel! It is just soooo neat that when you just open your mouth to people, they will talk to you! And that the gospel CAN RELATE TO EVERYTHING!!

-Well, we wanted to check up on one of our investigators to give him some materials to read to prepare the lesson we will be having with him this next week. We had a cute couple from the ward come with us to be friendly and to fellowship. We knocked on the door, and it was not our investigator. But the man behind the screen was so excited and said:" OH MISSIONARIES!! COME ON IN!" Me and Sister Bell were VERY surprised. We found out our investigator's step dad (he lives with his parents) are LESS ACTIVES in our ward. So we were able to get to know the step dad and it was just great! The Lord is preparing ALL his children. I am just so grateful to have been able to have such a huge miracle like that occur.

-We were visiting a member from our ward who hasn't come to church for a while. She is from the Tongan Islands. And this was the first time we had ever been comfortable with her! We had a amazing discussion about obedience to the commandments and then talked about faith and testimony! She is just the best and has the cutest kids. We then looked across the street and saw that her kids were playing in her neighbor's yard and the neighbor was outside! We all went across and started talking to her. She is agnostic(she does and doesn't believe in God) and was thinking about finding a church. We were able to befriend her! She really liked Sister Bell and I and she said when we see our member, to invite her as well to join in for a bible study! IT WAS AMAZING!!!

God is real!

Oh! Let me tell you about my lovely companion Sister Bell! She is from Utah as well! She is such a sweet heart and has been out for 4 months(just a transfer behind me). We both had left our trainers this past transfer so we have been working together to be unified. AND IT IS WORKING! She is the best.

Okay. Here are the downs:

-A baby fly yesterday flew into my eye, it took me like 10 minutes to finally get it out. My eye is fine, but that poor baby fly has past on to the other side. Make sure when you bike, to BLINK a lot. haha.

-A BIRD POOPED ON MY LEG WHILE I WAS RIDING MY BIKE! Silly birds... ha ha...