On Tuesday, we started teaching a new family that we found-that I told you about before in the previous letters. There are tantas personas in their house, so it's hard to teach all of them at once the same lesson, so we're still on the first lesson even though we've been there 3 or 4 times. But it's still good. The last lesson we had, Brother and Sister May, members from the branch came with us and it was so great. Hermana May is from Argentina and she was able to share her testimony of her conversion when she was 18. She told this story because my companion had asked her a question. We were talking about it afterwards and she said that she thought it was a weird question to ask at the time it was asked, but she did it anyway because she felt that she needed to. Then I told her that I felt the spirit telling me to ask the exact same question at the exact same time, she just beat me to it! That lesson was a great spiritual experience. The 3 we were teaching at the time I think could really feel the spirit. Then we talked about the restoration and testified of Joseph Smith and the spirit was so strong.
That day we also found out that one of our former investigators passed away on Sunday. I had never actually met her, but we called them up on Sunday to see if we could drop by this week and visit. Her husband called us back and told us the news. So we went to her funeral on Thursday. It was in a Catholic Church, so we had to get special permission from our mission president to go to it. We were allowed to go, but we were not to preach or proselyte under any circumstances in the church, which we weren't planning on doing anyway, but it was good to know. So we went and brought a card to her husband and we were able to talk to him for a minute. I think it was a nice gesture to show that we still cared about him and his family.
On Friday, most of our day was taken up because of the weather.
We woke up and we were able to get personal study done, but at around 9am our weather radio went off with a tornado warning, so we all had to get into a room without any windows in the most central part of the apartment, which for us is the laundry room inside the bathroom.
So we had all of our backpacks and 72 hour kits in the bathroom and we all piled into the laundry room.
We didn't stay there for long though because we in a second floor apartment and our district leader told us to go down to ground floor. So we went down to get to know our neighbors, but nobody was home.
So we went over to the office and we found all of the management in a nearby apartment and they let us in to ride out the storm. There are also tornado sirens outside that sound very loud when there is a confirmed tornado, so that was going off like crazy.
Around 11, all was clear and we were planning on going to Athens to work with some members and investigators. But, we prayed about it and decided not to go. That night the weather got bad again and we heard warning after warning about Athens and there were confirmed tornadoes there--it was definitely a blessing that we didn't go there.
The weather was clear for a while, so we packed up and left our apartment to go study and plan in the chapel-a much more sturdy and safe building than our apartments! And we have some investigators right near the chapel. When we got there, the tornado sirens went off agian, so we stayed inside for a while. Then we went out quickly after the warnings were over and had some great lessons with 2 investigators down the road. The second lesson we had was with someone who was really progressing. She is really great and has great faith.
So there was damage from the tornadoes, but all of us were very safe. It hardly even rained where we were. We get weather alert texts to our phone and one of them said that a prison was hit hard and thousands of feet of fence were down. So Hna Schroeppel said, "think of all the prisoners that could've escaped!" Then I said, "Look on the bright side, think of all the ones who didn't escape." Then Hna Simpson said, "Is the prison half empty, or is it half full?!" We all died laughing.
We found another great area FILLED with Spanish speaking people this week. It was great. We've had problems being able to tract in apartment complexes because they all have no soliciting policies, but we talked to the manager of this new place we found and he is completely willing to allow us to come in. We found 2 new investigators there and we will definitely be spending a lot of time there this week.
We have 2 investigators with solid baptismal dates. The first one is progressing so so well and I'm really excited about it. We taught him and his family for only about 20 minutes on Saturday night with our branch president and his wife. Our investigator and his wife were both there. It was an accident that she was there that night and it was actually the first time I met her. I don't know what happened in that lesson or what touched her heart, but the next day was amazing. Our investigator called us Sunday morning and we thought he was going to say that he wouldn't be coming to church, but he was asking us if we could find rides for his whole family to come! There are 7 of them and they don't have a car. We were so excited. They all came and in sacrament meeting, his wife got up and bore her testimony! She said how grateful she was to the members and bore her testimony of Christ. It was amazing.
That wasn't the end of the miracles on Sunday though. There was a CES Fireside last night and we were inviting everyone and it looked like nobody was coming. But at the last minute we found out that one of our new investigators was coming-someone we hadn't even taught yet; we had only contacted him once. But he came and really liked it. It was in English and we tried translating it for him for a while. Whether or not we helped, he was really happy to be there and said that he would definitely be back next Sunday. We are definitely going to be teaching him this week.
Another miracle that happened occured on Friday. We have an investigator trying to quit smoking. So one of our elders and our branch president went to give him a blessing. They also set a more solid baptismal date for him. I really think he and our other investigator are going to be baptized. It is very exciting!
The work here is going so well. Heavenly Father is directing our every thought and footstep.
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