We had a successful week this week and were able to meet a lot of our goals! We've been trying to bring more members with us to lessons, and as we've done that, our investigators tend to progress more and we see blessings in all aspects of the work. Have you ever gone to a lesson with the missionaries? Ask them if you can join them. They'd love and appreciate that. Members play such a powerful role in the progression of investigators because they listen to you, as real people, and your testimonies, and have a new friend to invite them to activities and answer their questions when the missionaries aren't around. Missionaries leave after a few months, and so it's vital that the investigators and new members develop strong relationships with the ward. That way, they don't fall away from the church when the missionaries leave.
We went to a baptism with Sina on Saturday and it was a neat experience. He sat there with a smile on his face and as the service went on he began to giggle... So I'd look at him and ask "what's so funny?" and he'd just say "nothing." But he kept doing it and I could not figure out what was so funny so finally I just said "Sina! Tell me what's so funny!" He said (in a Persian accent), "nothing, it just feels good." Haha the Spirit is expressed in many ways! It was neat though because Sina had never felt that way before and didn't know how to express it, and so it just came out as a giggle. It happened again in fast and testimony meeting on Sunday, after a spiritual testimony he giggled a little bit and I knew it wasn't because the sister had said anything weird or funny. Spiritual giggles. Ha! We found out some doubts and concerns he has right now about the church, so we might have to change his baptismal date and push it back a week or two, but we're not too worried about it. We all have them and then we all overcome them. It's an ongoing process in all of us.
We had a good time with Claude and Jill this last week and will be meeting with them again on Thursday. They both watched conference and loved it, and we had a nice conversation about the message we each got out of it this year. Claude is a really good cook and fed us dinner! and... THEY BOTH CAME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY! It was great! :) That was a neat story mom about our great grandfather Claude :) I might share it with him! That's really cool! Sister MacKay will really appreciate the story too, because she's a softball player and is really good and has played for years, even in college. She's doing good, by the way. She's a hard worker and learns fast and I rarely have to tell her to do anything. She's on the ball and a great missionary.
That's so great that you all are getting into family history! Fun story about that: the other day we came to the library to print off a conference talk and we went to our assigned computer, and the man next to us was doing genealogy on ancestry.com (or is it .org?), and we got super excited because we just learned about family history and how to use it in finding investigators. So we slid him a piece of paper telling him about familysearch.org. He took out off his headphones and looked at us for a good few seconds, then said, "are you the mormon missionaries?" We said yes. He paused and then told us about how he's been doing genealogy for 14 years because he feels such a strong connection to his mom who died 14 years ago. He told us he uses familysearch.org sometimes and has even been to the family history center in Vista, and he has a dream to go up to Salt Lake City and use the genealogy library up there. He continued to tell us some of his really cool family history stories and we could see how happy it made him and the pride he had in his ancestors :). We told him that we would love to meet with him sometime to talk more about eternal families and even help him with some of his genealogy. We gave him our information and we hope to hear from him soon! It was just a cool experience that showed me that 1. we were not coincidentally placed next to that man, and 2. that the spirit of Elijah is a real thing! haha
I'm proud of you Torie for doing so much family history work and for sacrificing to go to the temple. You are such a wonderful example to so many. Congrats on making it to state! Thanks for all of the journal entries dad :) I love them and can relate to them, and I like learning about your history.
I'm so excited that the temples are almost done down in Arizona!! That is so exciting! Aunt Muche always sends me updates and pictures on the Gilbert temple and I love it.
Thank you so much for the package! It was perfect. The blanket is so warm and the food is so yummy! AND, that's the best kind of lotion, so I'm very grateful :) thank you for thinking of me. Please send my thanks to Brother Moss for picking up my paintings and my box of things!! That was so kind of him.
We were invited to a dinner appointment with the elders this past week, and the members said they were just going to do a little barbeque. They're Filipino, by the way. We show up and there's baby shower decorations everywhere. We're like, this is weird. Eventually almost the entire ward shows up, and then Bro. Ballesteros brings out a full-size, cooked pig. I always heard about those things, but this was a first. They cooked authentic Filipino food (some was good some was weird) and then were going to have a baby shower! We left before all of those fun festivities... The elders said that was the first baby shower they'd been too haha. We also got chased by a big dog this week. That's always fun and exhilarating, especially in the dark.
I've had a few chances to use my Spanish in some contacts this week :) pretty sweet!
We're carving pumpkins and playing wiffle ball for district activity today, should be fun!
What's everyone going to be for halloween? What are the fun plans? Jesse gets to go hunting?! He'll love that. You guys are the best and I love you so much! Have a fun, safe week!
Love,
Hermana Inman
