Yo ho!

May 19, 2008

Hey hey family and friends,
This past week was a little rough, mostly because of the work. We set a baptismal date with our friend Donna (very exciting!) on tues., and then when we went back to teach her the third lesson on wed., we got note-ed. There was a note on her door--she didn't want to continue lessons. That was the beginning of our bummer couple days. We were really discouraged about it because she was doing so well and seemed to love it all so far and loved the BOM, and we think she knows it's true, but we still feel hopeful that it's not the end with her. We wrote and mailed her letters the other day, and we are hoping to go over tomorrow to see her and see how she's doing, and see if we can clear up some concerns. Something will work out, she will be a member eventually, if not this transfer (remember our transfer of perfection thing, every companionship in the mission is shooting for 2 baptisms...).
Our teaching pool has been very small, but we've been praying and trying to do everything we can to show Heavenly Father that we are willing to work hard to obtain this mission goal. We've had some great success finding new investigators the past few days. Some just from going through our area book and contacting (calling or going over to their house) past potential investigators. It's been really great. In fact, I called this one woman, Linda, who met with missionaries months ago, but then her husband didn't want them coming over anymore, so she respected his wishes and stopped having them. But she has this friend who is a member, who introduced her to the BOM, and taught her some about it, and she's read some of it, and so I was discussing this with her on the phone, and she was really friendly, and I asked her about the promise in the back and if she had put it to the test. She basically said she didn't want to pray about it (the BOM) because then if she got that answer, she'd have to do something about it. I joked with her and said, "you're afraid to pray about it cuz you're afraid that it's true!" She basically agreed, and we laughed. It was pretty funny. Her main concern though is her husband. She doesn't want to know it's true cuz then she'll have to act on that knowledge (and get baptized, naturally), and she wants to stay on the same page as her husband, she wants to be equally yoked, which is totally understandable; i can tell they have a great relationship and great respect for each other. So I talked to her for a while, and tried to ease her concerns, and told her that we would now pray for her husband's heart to be softened and for something to happen in his life that causes him to need a change or to come to her so she can share her testimony, basically, with him, and he can be interested. But I told her that Heavenly Father wants her husband to be in the gospel too, and He wants them to be able to progress in the gospel together, so He will help her and her husband be able to do that, she just needs to have faith. So long story short (well, I already killed that option), we are her secret missionaries, who only contact her by phone, cuz she doesn't want her husband to know about this. :) We found the whole thing pretty incredible. After she told me about all the ways she'd basically been prepared for the gospel (she's so golden!), I asked her if she thought it was a coincidence that I called her, and she said nothing is a coincidence. I agree (Cheryl, I totally thought of you!:) with her. Anyway, that was a great uplift from our rough few days.
Another great thing this week was that we finally got to teach the Campbells! They're the member-referral family that I mentioned a few weeks ago. We taught them over at a family in our ward's house, and it was great! They are so golden and so ready. Get this: they want to move out more to the countryside so they can be more self-sufficient and prepared for disaster, they love our food storage thing, they already do family time on monday evenings...they're great. They have 4 kids 6 and under, and one on the way, a beautiful family. Everything we taught them they liked and agreed with, and she WANTED to read the whole BOM (she had already heard a little about it). We stopped by their house last night and she was already like 20 pages into it, which is good for an investigator after just the first lesson. The great thing was that in the lesson--it was kindof scattered cuz it just started with them asking questions, so we just went with it--and I felt like I kindof butchered the first vision part, which is a very important part of that lesson, but the spirit was still there and it didn't ruin their interest and they are wanting to learn more anyway! Aren't we all so glad that the spirit can make up the difference for our many inadequacies? I am! :)
So last week was a lot of finding, finding, finding, contacting, contacting, a little tracting, contacting, but this week we are (as of now) going to be teaching a lot more, so we are excited for that.
One fun experience also, was right after we taught the Cambells on mon. night, we headed to the Waffle House (Merkleys, totally thought of you:) to see/teach these two guys we met in the Kroger parking lot a few nights before, and they said they hang out at the Waffle House every night, so we could come teach them there. So we did! :) Only one of them was there, but then a bunch of his buddies were too (apparently there's like 40 people that are all friends cuz they all hang out at the Waffle House all the time), and so we're sitting in this booth at this (basically) truck stop diner looking restaurant, teaching Payton about the BOM, and these other guys come over one by one, and harass us a little at first, and one was kind of crazy, but then they were generally interested in having a religious conversation. We sat there for a while, talking to all these guys (well, like 2 or 3 really), and Payton even left, and we ended up setting a return appointment with one of them, Wade. We since haven't been able to meet with him cuz his daughter got sick, and then he did, but hopefully soon because he says he really is interested in learning more (more for educational purposes, not so much to be converted, but we'll let the spirit work with him:). Another one, Andrew, has apparently been really let down by missionaries in the past, when they get transferred and don't keep in touch with him, so we got his address and promised we would write him. Hopefully we can regain his trust in missionaries so he can be taught eventually (he's not in our area). But it was so great, we have waffle house friends now. :)
Anyway, I love you all and hope everyone is doing great!
Love, Melissa
PS--Tisah and Alysha, and Camilley (and Mom of course:), thank you for your letters this last week!! (I forgot to mention them last monday)
Alysha--how was the temple?! I've been thinking about you so much, with the temple, and you getting ready to go into the MTC next week; your farewell is next sunday right? I love you! I'll try to write you before the MTC, but if I don't, you'll get mail from me while you're there, believe me you. ;)
Jason Woolsey--where are you? Have you abandoned me? Where are you living? Krisitina tells me you are living with SeaBass and Andrew--where at? How are you? how's life? how are fugde and Chad and Chris, etc?