Hello, Hello

I hope you all had a blessed week. We had a really wonderful week. I am going to tell you about our Saturday. It was the best day ever and it's those days that I will miss about being a missionary when I come home and those days that I hopefully think of when I think of my mission. On Tuesday we received a text to our phone stating that Margaret Harker requested a missionary visit. We called her and left a message and then Thursday morning she called us back and we scheduled a lesson for Saturday. She had a mature sounding voice, so we thought she was probably 40-50 years old or so. We arranged for Sis. Flanigan to come with us and this was her first time ever coming out with the missionaries, so we were really excited for her. She's a cute mom with lots of personality, so she is a great member to have come to lessons! Margaret lives in a locked apt complex, so she said she'd meet us outside. When we walk up we see this young college girl who is cute and blond and she walks up and says she is Margaret. We definitely called her age wrong! Haha. She was really nice and bubbly and it was really easy to get to know her. We asked about her knowledge of the church and she had a friend gowing up that was a member and would always answer her questions. She is here in Richmond for Law School and has a friend in school that goes to the singles ward and he answers her questions too. She grew up Methodist, but went to 11 years of Catholic School and the area she grew up was mostly Jewish. This winter she went skiing in SLC and toured Temple Square and learned a lot there. She said over the last month since being home from SLC she has really felt something push her to figure out where she belonged and what church she should go to. Hmmm...what could that be I wonder? So she got on Mormon.org and that's where we came in the picture. We had an amazing lesson, possibly the best of my mission. She was eating everything up and she understood everything we taught her. Before we started teaching she mentioned that she wanted to feel God's presence everyday. How wonderful when we committed her to read and pray everyday! She is going to become a member and I hope before I leave. After the lesson comes the sad but happy part. Because she is a young single adult we had to pass her to be taught by the elders in the singles ward. So happy that she will fit right in in the Singles Ward, but sad because we can't teach her anymore. But I am so grateful the Lord let us teach her first lesson and to hear her story and be a part of it. It's going to be so cool in 15 years when she is RS Pres somewhere and telling her conversion story and testifying of the power of the Spirit in pushing her to learn more about the church. She went to the Singles Ward yesterday and we heard she fit right in and had great friendship right away. Oh Margaret! We were on Cloud 9 all day! After the lesson Sis. Flanigan asked if lessons were normally like that. No, nope. We would have way more members if so!

After her lesson we went and role played with Sis. Lyons. She is about to hit her year mark in March. The YW pres. asked her to teach the lesson on Sunday and we've been working with her for a few lessons on it and the result of the last one was she was quitting and not doing it anymore. So we went and acted like teenagers while she taught us. It went well and it is such a neat opportunity for her. She has never really been in a church before and she has definitely never taught before. She has bad self esteem, so it was wonderful on Sunday when she taught and it went well. We have a unique group of YW and they were just perfect in volunteering to help and I think Sis. Lyons felt good about it too! The Chuch really provides so many opportunities for us to grow and to become like Jesus Christ and in this case He is the Master Teacher.

Next was visiting the Bauserman's. They are an older couple who live in an old folks high rise type of building. Their tradition is to take the missionaries to the dining hall for dinner. This was at 4pm and we had a scheduled dinner at 6:30pm, so we look at each other with fear in our eyes when she heads to the dining hall. I've had a few double dinners on my mission and the best thing to do is pray. This was Sis. Stoehr's first double dinner. Haha, it was awesome. She we were sickly full falling asleep Saturday night. When we got to our scheduled dinner she dished it up and brought lots of food out for us. Lima bean and ham soup, coleslaw, 3 big biscuits and 3 big brownies. Luckily we were able to take the brownies home. Haha. Sis. Stoehr was really full, so when Sis. Sanders went to get our brownies, I had Sis. Stoehr pour some of her soup into my bowl. We both survived. We watched the Testaments and had a chance to lounge for an hour and not move. Oh it felt good. We were super full. Haha. Saturday was awesome!

I hope you enjoyed the play by play version of my Saturday. It is fun to be a missionary and to have days like this one. I wouldn't be having these experiences were it not for my mission!