Let us all press on!

What a great week! This week has seriously flown by. (Don't they always).

Anyway we have had some great things happen this week and also some not so great. (As usual). Tuesday was a great day, yet Satan was WORKING HARD. We had so many things planned and many of them fell through. To start off, we had a lesson with our soon to be baptized investigator! On our way, there was a baby haboob (aka dust storm that looks like it is the end of the world). Apparently those are super bad here. But this one was tiny and it didn't actually come where we were. We could just see a wall of dust in the distance. Luckily we didn't have to ride around in it :) So we had a great lesson, confirmed the program for her baptism, and answered questions she has. She is so solid and has such a strong testimony! So that was great! Then on our way from there, we had a member cancel with us (on coming to a lesson with us) and another member hurt his back so he also cancelled on us. Bummer. YET, a tender mercy came along and while we were riding our bikes to dinner right after all this happened, a girl yelled to us in her car and asked to talk to us. So we pulled over and it turns out that she is in the singles ward and wants to come out with sisters! So she gave us her number and said to call her and check on her schedule so she can come out with us! Yay! So that was awesome :)

After dinner we had another lesson to teach. The guy’s wife was gone so we had to take a girl with us so there are enough women vs guys. So, one of the young women was supposed to come with us. When we showed up to her house, she wasn't there. Her mom called her and she had ended up doing a favor for someone in the ward and had to pick up one of the other young women. However, the young woman she was picking up didn't have a cell phone so she couldn't find her. So she was far away and had to cancel last minute. So we had to hurry and find someone else because our lesson was supposed to be right at that moment. So we called another young woman that lived near where we were. She ended up saying that she could come and that it was so lucky because she was supposed to babysit, but then the family cancelled on her. So her mom needed the car, so she couldn't drive us, so we had to find her a bike to ride with us. She borrowed the neighbors and we started going and then we realized that her tire was COMPLETELY flat. So we turned around and she just got her little sister's bike and made it work. So then we booked it to our lesson. We were super late and Satan was working hard for us not to get there. But, it was SUCH a good lesson! Their son sat in and totally understood everything. He said he wants to be baptized but his dad isn't so convinced yet. However, I think it touched him to see how much his son understood. His son said he feels he wasn't baptized "for real" since he was a baby before, and they didn't put him all the way under the water like in the video (from when we took him to the Joseph Smith Restoration video!) He takes so much more in than we think he does! So that was so awesome. And the young woman with us testified and said the most perfect things. It was definitely meant to be for her to be there. It all worked out; the son must have some great things in his future because it seems like whenever we are supposed to have lessons with them, Satan does everything in his power to make the lesson fall through. AND they ended up not coming to church this week and we don't know why. They didn't answer our texts...so that was super sad.

Anyway, on Wednesday we were going to have to do a really hard thing and

give the old stubborn woman the drop talk. She is just so stubborn and likes to argue the little knit picky things. For example, when she went to the temple open house, she was going off about the "booties" that they put on your feet instead of paying attention to the temple and the spirit that you feel there! So we were going to have to tell her that we can stop by every once in a while to help clean her house (since she can't move around very well),but as for staying and talking and spending a lot of time there, we needed to use our time to find those people who were searching and ready to accept the gospel. However, when we got there, we asked how she was and she just broke down crying. I hugged her and she just sobbed in my arms. It turns out she has a blockage in her legs. She thought she had neuropathy and they have been treating that for her and nothing has really helped. So they found that out and they have to do an extensive test to see how far the blockage is. So she was crying and telling us this and then said, "I read some of the Book of Mormon too." We were shocked and once she started crying we knew we couldn't drop her that day because she always says how she feels she can tell us anything and we are her best friends. So we needed to be there for her, but then when she said she had read I was thinking that maybe she was actually starting to be humbled! I was ecstatic and we talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and then taught a mini Plan of Salvation lesson. She wasn't as stubborn and sassy so I thought for sure the Lord was getting through to her. She even willingly accepted the invitation to come to church! She asked how many more Sundays we had before I could be moved and we told her only one, so she was all over that. She really likes me for some reason. Who knows if it's because I’m sassy too or what, but she always says that I could do great things and I know a lot. She also says that I should become a minister or someone "high up" in our church. I told her that's why I'm a missionary ;) haha but we were so happy that she was so willing to come to church. But she came and of course she was her stubborn old self again and only paid attention to the kids crying, which drove her nuts. She even chewed the Bishop out for it! She was huffing and puffing on her way out because she said her body could only handle one hour. But it was ridiculous that she focused again, only on the little knit picky things. So that was sad.

We also had a lesson with another man this week. It was our first lesson with him and he is divorced with two little girls so we had to take a woman with us. We found a lady in the ward to come with us and we were so excited because we had worked hard on his lesson plan. We made it fun for the girls and just talked about things that we want to implement with the dad since it was our first lesson and such. So the beginning of the lesson was super good. We taught the Restoration and focused a lot on prophets and such and everything was going well. However, once we got to talking about Joseph Smith, his face turned red and he just blew up. He just burst out that he did NOT believe in the Book of Mormon (even though the week prior, he read some of it with his girls and we taught him about it). He was totally fine then) and that it was wrong and a lie because the Bible said not to add to it and a whole bunch of stuff. He even brought up polygamy. So we were super confused and didn't know where this was coming from because he was totally fine before that. So then he said that he had talked to his Bible study group and they had asked him all these questions and apparently riled him up. Sooo, that was a huge bummer. The spirit was gone and we were trying to calm him down and testify that the only way to know if it is true is to read it. Then he asked why he would even want to do that and goes off again. He is just super uneducated and is just repeating random rumors and things that his Bible group told him. And of course his preacher, who he pays, (ya let's trust him....not) is going to say things to make you stay! Anyway so long story short, it was a trainwreck. BUT he still wants us to come over so he can learn more. He said that he hopes he didn't offend us but that he is just saying what he thinks and such like that. Ridiculous. Pretty sure the lady in the ward thinks we are the worst missionaries ever.

This week we had another bike crash.... we had passed some people on the side of the street and I was looking at a little map trying to find the other half of the street (because streets here stop and go and get cut through and such...it's ridiculous) so I slowed down and decided we had better talk to the people we had just passed. So I stopped so they could catch up to us, meanwhile I looked at the map. Sis C was behind me and to the side of me. So apparently she looked back at them and when she turned back around, she had drifted into me and she screamed and smashed into my handle bars (they were slightly turned) and so my hand got all bruised and it knocked me off my bike. I have no idea if I landed on the ground or what because I just saw her start face diving and all the sudden she does some matrix moves and her bike crashes yet somehow she landed on her feet facing me. So I may have fallen and then rushed to help her because I literally thought she was going to die. So I have no idea what happened to me other than I have a tiny bloody finger from being smashed by the handlebars. So no one really got hurt but the people thought we were so weird and just kinda ignored us and she hit me so hard that it blew my tire. My front tire was instantly flat and you just heard a big whoosh of air come out and then it was flat. So we had to walk our bikes to dinner.

The Elders borrowed our car (we have it for meetings twice a week. We only get 200 miles a month) that day and we had a few miles left so we called them and asked them to put their bikes on the back, drive to their dinner, and then come give us the car after. So they did but they had no idea where we were at. They were supposed to call us after their dinner and they didn't. So we called them after our dinner(oh, which the member luckily had another inner tube so he actually was able to fix my tire!) and we head out because we had a lesson that we had to get to. So we call the Elders and look over and they are on the same exact street we are on! Out of our WHOLE area, they randomly picked the same street we were on. And it was back off of a main road a good ways too! Crazy right! Yet another tender mercy. So we were able to load our bikes up and get to our lesson a little after we were supposed to be there. CRAZY!

SO the lesson we were headed to was a guy we had taught before! He called us and said he wanted to start meeting with us again! yay! So we met with him to see what his desires and intentions were, and he said he is willing to change if he knows that is what he needs to do. He said he is open minded though so that is good. He also said he didn't have a testimony of modern revelation and prophets. So lucky us, he can listen to General Conference this next weekend! Woo!

I'm running out of time, but another quick tender mercy...Our dinner cancelled on us so we decided we wanted to go to Chick-Fil-A so we were headed there and street contacted a group of people. Long story short, they weren't interested in our message but they gave us $40! What!? Just random people gave us a bunch of money! How nice!

So I have so much more to tell you, but I'm out of time. SO the best part about the whole week was our baptism! It was SO good! This girl is seriously the cutest thing ever. She bore her testimony and she is just so solid. She said she can't wait to start her new life as a follower of Christ and having the Holy Ghost with her. She also used to be atheist so this is a huge change for her! It is so amazing to think that I went through this whole process with her. She has changed drastically and just hearing her testimony makes all the hard days worth it. She is so amazing. She was so nervous to bear her testimony but she did so good! Also the Woman's Broadcast was SO perfect for her! It was the best thing ever and the spirit was so strong! I pretty much cried through it. It was great. I was so tired that night from being so spiritually drained! But man, it was SO good!!!!

I wish I had more time to tell you everything else, but it was a great week, people take good care of us, and I love being a missionary :) I seriously love it. I had a dream the other day that my mission was over and I pretty much woke up almost in tears. Then I realized I was still a missionary and it was all good :) I miss you all, but I love doing this and helping others. It's the best experience of my life so far. I know this church is true and I'm so excited for General Conference! I promise if you have questions or concerns and you spiritually prepare and listen with the spirit, that your question will be answered! Have a good week! :)