Ooh you thought last week had miracles!!

Ok I'm not exactly sure what the Lord is trying to pull here in Daytona Beach but I have never been more busy in MY LIFE. We don't have time to like breath, think, or sleep... much less to weekly plan! Everyone keeps saying it's a good problem to have... but people... I'm tired. But I've also never been more happy in my life? It's quite the interesting cunumdrum.. conundrum? I don't know I can't think right now. Oh goodness where do I start?..

Ok this is gonna be a long one but it's worth it. Hold on folks. So you always hear those stories about Golden people who are super prepared and ready to learn and they just know this gospel is true? I've always wanted one. But maybe haven't had the faith or the experience until we met Amanda. Ok so our stake is doing this cool referral thing where you share a name of a person who may not exactly be ready for missionaries to go over and meet them right now, but just someone that you want to have the gospel in their life at some point. The coolest part is that members are realizing that they have a lot more prepared people than they thought they'd just been thinking about it with the wrong perspective. So last week our ward gave 22 "referrals". PEOPLE. I've only gotten like 5 the entire past year I've been a missionary. 

 

Anyways we got the number of this lady who does a member's nails. She told us to call her so we did and we were able to set up an appointment for this week. We got over and meet with her and she shares her life story with us and she's definitely in some need of peace and healing that the Savior brings. So we share with her a little bit about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and it just made so much sense to her. Everything clicked and you could see she started getting excited. She shared more of her experiences and I felt prompted to share a scripture but I couldn't find the one that I was thinking of so I was lead to 3 Nephi 9: 13-14 and she just starts crying as we have her read it. I've seen people cry but never in response to a scripture I've shared. She said it was exactly what she needed and she felt a huge burden lifted off of her. We asked her if she came to know this was true if she would be baptized and she said yes. 

 

2 days later she came to church and she was so excited. She said that she had stayed up all night reading the Book of Mormon and she shows us all her sticky notes with questions and marked pages that she liked and she's read a good chunk of it in 2 days. You only hear about this in stories!! I was ecstatic! She sat with the member who referred her who is an amazing member missionary and showed her the ropes. She loved church a ton and everyone made her feel so welcome and you could tell she just felt home. In one of the sacrament talks a member talked about how he had to give up smoking to be baptized and usually that's like a missionary red flag especially when you have non-members in the audience. But she told us "yeah after the speaker I realized that I need to give up smoking. If baptism is my motivation it won't be too hard" Then she told us that she wants to get baptized as soon as possible. Ahhhhh. So we told her we could hopefully do it in 3 weeks. I've never done this before. This is craziness.. I'm so excited though. Ahhhh this is a dream!! This missionary thing is crazy! I know I'm not behind any of this though! God is a miracle worker and it is the coolest thing to have a front row seat to the Atonement working in people's lives.

Well.... that seems sufficiently long for a weekly.. but there's more miracles! And I'm mostly writing this for my posterity (Mom you better put this email somewhere)

Highlights:

~ We met with H- and put her on date for baptism as well! But we're going to pass her off to the Elders because she's technically in their area and we're getting super busy... Even though we love her a lot.. ugh..

~A Former Investigator randomly called us out of the blue to say hello. She's like 14 but super mature apparently and she said that we could come by again and meet with her and her mom. I've never met her but I've heard good things.

~There was this lady sitting on the curb outside the church building while we were weekly planning and we went out and talked to her. She was walking home the 6 miles from work and she lived just down the street a little bit but decided she needed to sit down... right in front of our church.. while we were there.. coincidence? I think not. She acknowledged it as well. And although she wasn't ready to accept it yet, She really just needed to know that God loved her and that He was looking out for her and we gave her a hug and told her how special she was.

~We taught a lesson on the beach!! We met up with a less-active YSA member at Ocean Walk and got ice cream and set goals with her. It was the best listening to the waves, looking at the moon, eating ice cream. Living the dream. And she brought a friend along with her who was interested in learning more!! 

~ Shayla our YSA girl finally got in contact with us again and she's still super pumped to get baptized and she wants to commit. And we got her to church on Sunday!

~We showed Joan and Vince a video about the temple and they liked it so much they wanted to watch it again. It was so cute! But they still didn't come to church.... :(

~So.... we also got flashed this week.... ahhhh... We got another referral for this member's daughter and she was expecting us but she like just got out of the shower... she told us to come in and while she was walking down the hallway... her towel dropped.... ahhhh... That's a first for me. Yikes. She was cool though and super solid! 

Ok.. I think that about wraps it up. But needless to say, God is good and miracles are real. And they happen to ANYONE. I mean who am I? I'm a nobody! But God wants to show his power to anyone and everyone we just have to believe it's possible! And all things are possible with God. In D&C 35:8 it says "8 For I am God, and mine arm is not shortened; and I will show miracles, signs, and wonders, unto all those who believe on my name." Not just some people, not just his favorites, ALL people. Pray for your miracle this week.