This summer is flying by so much faster than last summer, and I don't know how on earth it got to be the end of July. The good news is that it is finally MONSOON SEASON! There's nothing quite like an Arizona Monsoon.
Story time: Last summer, my first Sister Training Leader was a sister named Sister Haymond (let's see how many times I can fit sister into one sentence). She had been out for fourteen months, and I thought she was so old and looked forward to the day I would be that old. Well, I did it. I reached my greenie goal of being as old as Sister Haymond. I still feel like I should be out maybe a month or two because I'm just learning things about how to be a missionary that I wish I had learned 14 months ago.
We've continued to try to invite people to be baptized. This week, we got to talk to Craig and Chad, who didn't give us a solid answer, but they both have their own copy of the Book of Mormon and gave us their number. They don't live in our area, so we are hoping to be able to send missionaries over there. We also invited Kaden, a rambunctious nine-year-old. His mom is a member, and his dad is anti-Mormon. Kaden said ye and even said that his dad mentioned that he might let him be baptized when Kaden is 10.
I also got to go on exchanges with Sister Sprouse! She is a Sister Training Leader now, as I might have mentioned before. This is her very last transfer, and literally, my entire mission has been me hoping that I got to go on exchanges with Sister Sprouse. It was a lot of fun to laugh over all the funny moments from a year ago, but also to see how we have both grown as missionaries. While we were out working, we met a young man named Abbos. He has lots of Mormon friends. While he still leans toward his Muslim upbringing, he also likes to learn what other people believe. He told us that he had gone to a lot of LDS functions, except going to church, which he really wanted to do. The day previous, our district had had a training on inviting people to church using the information about church in the back of our pamphlets. It was so cool to see the training we received be exactly what we needed that day. Abbos said he couldn't come that Sunday (yesterday), but he would like to at some point.
We also went to the baptisms for the eight-year-olds in our area. The bishop in one of our wards had asked us to come. It was really fun, and I think the Frosts and the Redfords, the two families that had kids being baptized, really appreciated it. The service was incredible and the Spirit was so strong. We were trying to figure out how to be helpful and effective, and I remembered that President Wheeler had talked about using the time when the people are waiting for the person being baptized to change out of their wet jumpsuit at convert baptisms to share a testimony of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So we did that. We had asked Bishop if we could, but turns out that he wasn't the presiding authority because a member of the Seventy was there--his granddaughter was one of the people being baptized. He said yes, so we got to share our testimonies in front of a Seventy, and we invited anyone in the congregation who had felt the spirit to come and learn more so they could also be baptized like the Frost and Redford kids had been. It was pretty cool. I'm not sure if anything will come out of it, but you never know.
The biggest miracle of the week was with Fuzzy. He is back from Europe, so we invited him to come to a new member fireside to listen to the testimonies of other recent converts. Firesides are a more casual church meeting where people are asked to share experiences--I'm still not sure why it is called a fireside. Maybe they were actually held around fires once upon a time. Anyway, it's the day of, and last minute, we get a text from our Zone Leaders: "The assistants need one more recent convert to speak at the new member fireside. Can you ask someone?" Sister Rogers says, "Let's call Fuzzy!" I was thinking "Are you kidding? He's never been to one! He'll say no! We can't ask him last minute". But we did, and he said yes, even when we said, "wait, really?" in surprise.
The new member fireside was amazing, and one of the stories was perfect for Fuzzy to listen to, and Fuzzy did an incredible job. He has such a sincere testimony, and I'm really excited to see where life takes him. I'm glad that I get to be part seeing his testimony grow. It is such a privilege to get to see that. I wish everyone could have been there to hear the strength of the testimonies of the amazing people accepting the fullness of the Gospel in the Arizona Gilbert Mission. That's all for this week. I love you, Family!
Sister Emily
1001 N Burk Street
Gilbert, AZ
85234
The Petersons--they are in charge of Family Home Afternoon for Queen Creek Zone
Exchanges with Sister Sprouse
Once a Highlander, Always a Highlander
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