July 7, 2014

Hello!

How are things in Sunny STG? Super good I hope! Well this week has been a pretty good one. Richard is doing really well and has accepted a baptismal date for this month WOHOOO! I am way excited for him. We talked a lot about baptism last time we were there with him and he basically said that nothing could be holding him back from being baptized, so that is so great! He really is so humble and just want's to learn as much as he can. He really loves the gospel! We also have been working with a lot of less actives in the ward, some of them have started coming back to church, which is so good. I guess there are changes being made to Preach My Gospel as far as the Recent Converts are concerned and that lesson five in PMG is to be taught before baptism (only missionaries will understand what that means) and that missionaries are responsible for teaching the new members the discussions over again because they just are getting done the way they should with the wards. So that is going to be a big responsibility to take care of. But it will be ok, the goal is to get these people to the temple and if that is what it takes then that is what we must do! We are also supposed to visit them a whole lot more and really keep record of how their whole first year as a member along with the help of the ward council is going. So all that really results in is wayyyy longer weekly planning which already kills me, but hey what do ya do? Sister Petersen and I were also able to do service for a member in our ward who is getting remarried soon. He was packing up something’s and no one in the ward would help him and so we offered and goodness I can see why. This poor brother is basically a junkie hoarder and has more stuff than any human being should ever have.  We spent a good chunk of time packing up a collection of "Precious Moments" sculptures (look that up on Google if you don't know what that is- they are hideous) and he had whole display cases of them, so anyways as we were packing them up he came over with a pen and pad and said "Sisters I need to know everything Precious Moments that I have so I want you to write the names of them all down for my inventory, and here is a dry paint brush you can use to dust them of before you pack them."  ok...... That took forever Then after that he had us go through and pack and write the names down of his beanie baby collection, which I can't tell you how many display cases he had of those, and everything had a special pile that it had to go in and certain ones couldn't be packed with other ones. If it were me I'd throw them all in a big tub and called it good. Oh well........... It was nice to be able to do service, so for that I'm grateful. We also have sort of a potential that we could be teaching here in the next few weeks that sounds way legit. His name is Brandon and he is a truck driver that is out of town a lot and about 4 weeks he requested a Book of Mormon from mormon.org and so the elders went by to give it to him only to figure out that Brandon lives on our side and he wasn't home when the elders stopped by. So they told us about it and I guess the elders had called him and asked when he would be home and he said not for a few weeks, and to try back later-which usually means- don't come back- but any who last week I remember about this Brandon guy and that he should have been back by now and so I looked for him on Facebook and I messaged him and he wrote me and said that he downloaded the Book of Mormon and has been listening to it as he drives and that he was praying one day that God would make it possible for him to obtain a physical copy of it on the road, and then he pulled up to a truck stop and some member of the church happened to see him and start talking to him and GAVE HIM A BOOK OF MORMON and said something like "I think this will be very important for you and will help you come closer to God." Or something like that and so he has been reading that and he said that he is almost all the way through it and that when he is home in a couple of weeks that he would love to meet with us and talk about what he has read and our church! So I am pretty excited about him. I told him that we could do online lessons if he would like, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. But I will let you all know if that goes anywhere because that is pretty darn cool if you ask me! See miracles! Member missionary work is work is seriously the best and so important, you just never know what impact it will have on the people you meet. All of you should get a Book of Mormon and give it to someone; the Lord will bless you and guide you as you try to do His work.  Love you all!

Sister Jamison