We have had some great experiences this week. For starters, we visited a single sister who has severe anxiety. She has trouble leaving her home. She was having a very bad day, and the ladies she lives with had taken her outside on the front patio to help her calm down. It wasn't working. Just then, we arrived and asked to see her. One lady said, with a big smile, "You've come to see Pamela?" Like it was astonishing. We went inside and talked to her, assuring her that God knows her and loves her. She started to feel better. We had a great visit. When we were leaving, the other lady said, "That's what I call a God kiss." Neat, huh?
Then on Saturday we went to the first baptism that we have a connection to. As part of the single adult outreach that we organized, some missionaries went to a home looking for a particular sister. She didn't live there anymore, but the lady they found had been inactive for 15 years, and the day before had prayed about how to get back to church. She told God that if He would send the missionaries to her, she would know that was a sign to start. The next day, they showed up! As a result, her 3 teenage children were taught the lessons, and were baptized on Saturday. The entire service was in Spanish, but it was great, anyway. The Spirit was very strong. Here they are
The Duran family, with the goofy missionaries that taught them! Fun, fun, fun!!!!
On Friday we went to the Municipal Rose Garden, which is beautiful, and released a helium balloon for David. Here are some pictures from there.
It was a nice day.
On Sunday, we had been asked to be part of a special presentation on depression. A counselor had come to talk about it from a medical perspective, and we had a chance at the end to add what we had learned as a family in dealing with mental health challenges. We had quite a few people talk to us after who suffer themselves, or know someone who does. They are all glad it is being talked about more openly now, and happy to have someone "safe" they can talk to. We know this issue will be a large part of our mission. We will be doing a Stake Fireside later in the year. (yikes!)
Last night we went to the mid single Family Home Evening. There was a guy there from India who is investigating the Church. We took him back to his hotel, as he is here on business, and had a chance to talk to him. He had never heard of Jesus Christ, and when the sister missionaries approached him in a park, he listened to their message with awe. He kept saying how blessed he was to have found such friendly, kind people, and he is taking some lessons this week before he goes back home. He is thinking about finding more missionaries in India. He was amazing, and it is so fun to see how peoples lives start to change almost from the minute they start to hear the message of the Restoration.
We also played "Mafia" at FHE, which was very fun. Brought back a lot of memories. Dad was chosen as a Mafia on the first round, but didn't realize it, so messed it up! It was pretty funny.
We love you all and miss you!
Hi all. Hope everyone is still alive! Love you....
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ReplyDeleteWe are!! Just busy beavers :) Sounds like you guys are doing exactly what you're supposed to be. Katie and I laughed really hard about the story about Dad and the mafia game! That is SO DAD! Ahhhh…love and miss you guys :)
DeleteI love these stories! And I love seeing pictures of all the good work and fun stuff that you are doing. The mafia game made me laugh too...I miss you guys too.
ReplyDeleteI'm still alive, but barely! Just kidding...sort of. I am in survival mode, so my mood dips down a bit, but I'm doing good. Now that camp is over, I can focus on school. I am a little, well ok, more than a little nervous about being able to handle the stress of school this fall. But I have a lot of support from Shawn and all of you so I think I will be ok. I'm studying to take a placement test for math and english and I am amazed at how little I remember about math! I guess it's one of those things that if you don't use it, you lose it. Hopefully I will get it back because when I move on to a university, a lot of the courses will be math related. Am I crazy for doing this? I feel like it's way bigger than me. I don't even know for sure if I am going to like this field. What if I hate it? Then what? Ahhhh...well I guess there's only one way to find out, right?
In other news, Shawn is working his butt off, Alex is doing better and trying to find a job, Nate is bored out of his mind and Seth and Abby are just being their usual selves. Summer is upon us and we all love the sunshine!
so, they should not have the sign out button where it is. I just wrote a thing and went to publish but pressed sign out. So, now I don't have time to write it again. But, we are still alive and we love and miss you!!
ReplyDeleteEvery time I write a big response, it errors out or just erases it without saying why. So I am learning to copy a post before trying to publish it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I loved reading about your week again Mom and Dad, and also Meg's great post on her blog about Girls Camp adventure.
We are just the same old thing here. Trying to grow stuff and replant things that have died from the last few hard years we have had here climate-wise. The lawn is doing great finally (we had to resod a huge piece of the front yard...some kind of bug infestation), but now the second tree in front we have planted in this one spot is dead. And the other one out front is not doing so great either. I wish Mom and Dad could come out and assess what we are doing wrong. The first was a cottonwood...they are very thirsty and it probably didn't get enough water. But these other two are Ash and they are supposed to do fine here. We probably aren't watering them enough, either, and I've also never fed them, so...I guess we should just put aspen everywhere, the ones in back are doing wonderful. Gardening here is frustrating to say the least! If I was a mosquito farmer, though, I'd be doing just great. Ha!
Okay, so I just wrote a long comment, and it erased it! What is going on??? Sorry this program is such a pain. Maybe I should have signed in first?? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I said that dad is the expert on trees. He feeds them with a deep root fertilizer twice a year. I do the flower beds, but have struggled with the clay soil in Riverton. It's a lot of work, huh?
Love hearing all your comments. Hope you will not give up on the program, but continue to let us hear from you. It helps us out a lot!
I have been messing around with it and it seems that you definitely need to be signed in before posting. If you aren't signed into your blogger or google account, it won't post your message. I'm not sure why, but there ya go. I tried it without signing in and it erased my post too, so now I am trying this post signed in to see what happens. As far as the error message, I am curious to know exactly what it says when it errors out. It might be something we can fix or work around.
ReplyDeleteUmmm. Megan, based on your last comment about the error message, I'm thinking you're going in to the right field. haha! And you can do this!!! The math will come. You'll be surprised.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the vote of confidence. I do like computers, but hopefully I like them enough to make a career out of it. We'll see! Right now my math is TERRIBLE. I can barely do arithmetic. It's so sad when I have to ask Seth how to do a problem. I'm thinking I am just going to go take the test and if I am in the bottom math class, then so be it. I will just have to relearn everything, which is probably what I need to do anyway. The only thing that makes me feel better about it is that when I ask Alex or Nate how to do a basic problem, they can't remember either! Ha ha!
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