Happy Halloween from Modesto!

Fall has fell in Modesto!

Happy Halloween!  Hope you all have a wonderful fun Halloween and stay away from anything suspicious.  Especially clowns, right?  

It's beautiful here in Modesto!

I have to admit, this week was a tough one.  But God gives us these experiences to try our faith and to help us reach out to Him for help.  I am grateful for the chance to grow and rely more on God as we do His work here as missionaries!  Here is a quick sum up of what happened this week:

Two of our investigators dropped us.  They even had us over and prayed for us saying, "Dear God, please help the girls not feel like they are failures ..." as they said goodbye to us.  But I can say that we were able to get very good progress out of one of our investigators, Sister Harris.  I seriously love her so much. Something cute about her is that she LOVES Joseph Smith.  She loves it when we talk about him or she sees a picture/painting of him.  She is awesome.  She has felt the Spirit more than ever and has come to Church twice and loves it.  We believe she could be baptized by the end of the month and we are trusting God and His timing.  Also, patience is something needed in my life, so God is giving the opportunity to exercise that.

We love this wonderful sister, Sister Poye!  She makes us happy!

A cool experience this week: we were at church yesterday and we were in a class with Sister Harris learning about the importance of scripture study.  I was listening and pondering the things being taught.  I then began to pray in my heart, asking God why it had taken Sister Harris so long to get this far without getting baptized, and asking if the reason she has not accepted baptism was because I was not a good missionary.  These thoughts led me to feel bad and discouraged with myself.  Then at that very moment, a slide popped up in a PowerPoint in the lesson with Alma 36, with the very scripture I had read that morning with the phrase "trust in God" and I knew at that moment God heard me and it was personally an answer for me.  It cheered me up and reminded me that God loves us all and is mindful of our hearts and needs.

We also asked Sister Harris at the end of the lesson if she would come to church next week.  She said she was going to go to another church she is investigating.  We were patient and respectful and said she would be missed.  Later that day we had dinner with our Ward Mission Leader who had picked up Sister Harris that day for church and then taken her home.  (We ride our bikes to and from church).  He said that after a long silence in the car while he took her home, she had told him she had decided to come back and go with us.  We are praying for her and excited for this next week.

Frozen Yogurt

Riding home with dinner is a challenge . . . 

I am grateful to be out here learning and growing.  I love everything about my mission.  It is the hardest thing I have ever done, but I am so grateful that I chose to be here.  I know that I couldn't have grown or learned so much about my purpose and God's love for all of us anywhere else. I am so happy to see the changes for good in my life already from serving a mission.  I know that this gospel is true.  And I know that when you trust God and go out of your comfort zone and endure to the end, that there will be miracles.  I love you all!

Sister Guilott

Happy Halloween from Missy the dog!

They delivered a mattress on a rainy day so we had to dry it out . . .