April 7, 2014

Here's this week's email!

I have talked to Sister Bynum since she left. She emailed me quickly last week and let me know that she was home and talked a little of the things she is doing, doctors visits, etc. She is from Oregon; the younger one from Arizona was Sister Wagher.

Conference was absolutely amazing!! I loved Elder Bednar's talk and I loved how he talked about the Atonement  and all of the loads we carry! I love when he talked about the Atonement. For some reason he seems to put it into words that helps me to personalize and understand it better. All of the talks were so amazing! And I loved the emphasis on obedience! It was all so great!  We watched it at members' houses. Sadly the investigator and one of the less-actives (Michelle) we were planning on watching it with ended up not being able to watch it with us. But I know that our less-active, Michelle (there are a ton of Michelles in Red Oak, but this one is a less-active) is planning on going over to another member's to watch it later this week! It has been so amazing to see what fellowship can do! Michelle had surgery last week and one of the members offered to take her and her family dinner, and we talked to the Relief Society and got them to do dinners for her the rest of the week. We went over a couple times last week to see how she was doing and one of the times she called her husband, Shane, over and told us how much it meant that people were bringing them dinner. They were both almost in tears as they told us how much it meant to them that people were willing to do this for them, not knowing them well, and that it had helped Shane change a lot of his views about people in the Church (he has had a lot of REALLY bad experiences with family in the Church). It was so cool to see how something we as members would generally take for granted meant so much to them and to their family. They even said they did a shout out to the Church, the members that brought meals and to us. They kept telling us how they and their family would never forget what the ward did. It was amazing to see and to hear them talk about it.

This week we also had a great lesson with our investigator, Becky. She is taking the lessons but we are going really slowly. Missionaries in the past have really pushed her like to the point of her having a baptism date and her not even knowing it. But anyway we got done with the plan of salvation and all she could say and all she kept saying is that "everything we are saying just makes sense" that "she had never thought of it that way but of course that's how it would be because that makes sense!" I also told her how dad was a convert and she kept asking questions about how he found the Church, what it was that made him join, and how the family acted when he was baptized. You could tell that they were all concerns that she had but needed to voice. It was amazing!

Good luck with school. Love you!