So. Tuesday. We started off by bussing to some members and we ended up getting there about an hour late. Classic Sister Moran and Sister Mahan. We really determined that we just need to go waaayyy earlier to get there on the bus and we are still learning that haha. BUT while we were on the bus we met this super cool lady named Tonya! She was super about our message and she told us that she only lived right down the road so we were so pumped! Afterward, Sister Mahan was like "I think we should invite her to get baptized when we go see her on Saturday" and I was like "okay yeah for sure why not". More on that later. We get to the members and we do a little visit and they give us s'mores girl scout cookies as we are leaving which was exciting. I honestly don't know how I feel about them, I think I just prefer Samoas. But it was still super nice of them! Members are very generous. The rest of the day we had a few more lessons planned but we needed a third female and the lady that usually takes us bailed and I was QUITE worried because I didn't want to cancel this lesson with this progressing person, ya know? So, we prayed and started calling some people. This awesome lady Sister Frazier ended up coming to the rescue and taking us and we will be forever grateful. The lesson was with our pal Jordan. He has had some negative experiences with God and church in the past and even has a hard time praying, so, we focused on that. We gave him some tips on prayer and told him that reading the scriptures is a great way to receive answers. We also taught about Joseph Smith and his experience in the sacred grove and we KNOW that he felt that one and how God answered his prayer. Cool stuff. That night we bussed out to these girls that we are teaching that have come to church a few times. It had been a while since we could go out and formally teach them so it was really good to go. We had made a visual restoration to help keep them engaged earlier in the week during comp study so we used that to teach and then drew pictures of Jesus together and said a prayer. It was a nice little activity! On the bus home, we got lost (go figure) but the bus driver was super cool and helped us out. She told us "Sisters, I always want you on my bus, you put off such a positive vibe and you both are so kind" and we were like aw thanks! This was after we shared some scriptures from the Book of Mormon with ladies that were there on the bus with us. One of them ended up being a solid new person and had met with missionaries before! What a miracle! We then met this guy named Tom from Nigeria. He is a born again Christian. You know what that means..... we told him about the apostasy and the priesthood and we even invited him right there on the bus to be baptized by someone that has priesthood authority. And he didn't even say no! We called him later in the week for an over the phone lesson and that was cool. He wants to preach to us though so we think we might need to drop him. So yeah, Tuesday was a solid day and it was great!
Wednesday we started off the day with scrambling to find a ride to district council but lo and behold we found one! Yay! Honestly, we had a bunch of lessons set up for that day and all but one of them canceled on us. That was okay though because it took way longer to ride the bus than we thought it did so we would have been late for a bunch of them anyways. We did have a lesson with Crystal though! We have been teaching her for a while but it has been hard to get in contact with her because her grandma was in the hospital all last transfer. Well, her grandma passed away right around last week and now Crystal has a lot of time to meet with us. When we went over last week we just served her and cleaned her house and did everything for her in that way. This week, we went over and taught her about the Plan of Salvation and she loved it. Of course, she loved it, it's such a dope plan! We invited her to be baptized and she said that she needed to think about it more. We tried to put her on date, you know to set a goal to work toward, and it's okay if it changes and she was very opposed to that. She said that basically she just needs time to read the Book of Mormon and to know if it is true and to see what we believe before she decides on a day which is fair I guess. She did commit to coming to church in the next few weeks though so we are really excited to see her there!
Thursday was kind of a crazy day. We have our weekly Zumba and Yoga (but has now transitioned to just yoga) activity at the church every Thursday. We actually asked Latisha to pick us up and it was super sweet of her that she did! So, we go. We had made muffins the night before to give to all of the people that went to yoga and some of the other people that we are teaching so that was a hit. We had yoga and some of the other missionaries in our district brought people that they were teaching which was awesome. We ended up having right around seven people there which is an all-time high so whooohoooo! Hopefully, next week can be even better! After yoga, we did our weekly study with Latisha. Man, I always love doing those. We watched the Ask of God video that talks about Joseph Smith's first vision and of course she loved it. Basically, Latisha believes that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and believes that the first vision happened and understands why we get baptized but doesn't understand why her baptism was different. Don't worry though, we are going to hit that next time if the spirit is telling us to. We found this awesome video that talks about Wilford Woodruff and his search for the truth and for a church with prophets and apostles like in the bible and the correct authority. We all know how that search ended so we are pumped to see what goes on with that. After the lesson, we went and visited with Adrina and taught her one of the recent member lessons, the restoration. She is just chilling and she is so happy about her decision to be baptized and we are super happy for her. Kind of crazy that everything with her went down in just a six week period. Mindblowing honestly. Then, we took the bus (crazy, I know) and it took us literally SO LONG TO GET HOME. Over an hour. That drive is usually 15 minutes. It was ridiculous. But we met some cool people so we can't complain. The thing that I hate the most about the bus is that we have to walk so far to get to places still so it just takes forever to get from point a to point b. It is great for talking to people and we find so many people there, but it just is also a huge time sucker so we can't schedule as many things in a day because of that. We were supposed to see Reesie and Aaleah after that but they couldn't meet. They are quickly falling off and not progressing which is super sad. Pray for them and for us to know what to do with them!
Friday was crazy but also not. Our mission had the opportunity to have a zoom call with President Ballard! President Ballard was President Stratford's mission president years and years ago and it was awesome to get to hear from him. Some of my big takeaways were that we need to become better teachers. Second, we need to be constantly purifying ourselves so our countenances glow with the light of Christ. When people meet with the missionaries, they don't necessarily understand what they are learning, but they do remember how they feel when the missionaries are speaking with them. We need to be able to have the spirit with us and we need to be able to radiate that positive light of Christ so people can remember that and have a desire to talk with us more. Also, the morning routine is so important! We must get up on time and exercise and start our day off right to have a good day. Parents, I am super good at the morning routine and I always wake up and exercise and get ready and get a full hour of personal study in there. Sister Richardson, our trio sister, sucks at the morning routine and never gets up and never exercises and writes letters home during her personal study. Sister Mahan and I already talked though and we are going to have an intervention because she is dragging the companionship down. Honestly, I love Siser Mahan a lot and she is a miracle and the best person ever. Sister Richardson, I have a hard time with. She is just super frazzled and she leaves everything everywhere and forgets things all the time and isn't very obedient with getting up or going to bed or studies or technology. I don't want to correct her on 20 million things though so I am in the process of choosing my battles. Pray for me to have charity and patience toward her, please.
After President Ballard, we went home and then got on the bus to go out to visit this lady that the Elders found earlier in the week and referred to us. Her name is Cassandra. She is CRAZY. We started to teach her the restoration and she went off about how she had evil spirits living in her house and how one was standing right in front of me and "don't you see it?" and that these spirits tried to kill her multiple times and we were like uhhhhh what? And then we come to find out that she had been taught by the missionaries before! She was actually an online Bible request at comeuntochrist.org (go figure) and missionaries had tried with her for a little while. Kinda funny to see a real-life example of the crazies that I get on the phone that want a copy of the Bible. Long story short, she was wild and we are going to get the Elders to dedicate her house because she was trippin. I love the priesthood. Her house was straight in the hood and Sister Mahan wasn't feeling too good there, especially because we had to wait at a bus stop forever in the dark in the middle of the hood and there were some questionable people around. Honestly, it isn't safe in a lot of the places we work, that is the truth. I don't know why they made us in a car share because the bus isn't always safe either! I don't know what the thought process was but I don't super love it. But yeah, we got home safe and sound so it was fine, but just a little too sketch for my companion's nerves.
Saturday was absolute madness. Here goes nothing. Sister Richardson is usually never with us during the day, but, the senior couple that she is usually with said that there was no Nepali work that she was needed for so she could just stay with us. Then there was the question of "well we are taking the bus and she doesn't have a pass" so we had to buy her a bus pass. We had some lessons set up for that morning and honestly I was terrified because we had been taking turns reciting the points to the lessons in Preach My Gospel a few nights previous and Sister Richardson literally knew none of them and there is no excuse for that. So, I was terrified to teach specifically with her in a trio because she doesn't even know what the doctrine in the lessons are. She has been out for almost six months mind you. Anyways, we are heading out of the apartment to take the bus and we need to book it to the stop to make it there on time to make it to the appointment on time and Sister Richardson forgot her nametag so we had to go back and then we missed our bus literally by a minute. It seriously drove past us as we were running up to make it. I was mad, I won't lie to you. So, we do some contacting while we wait for the next bus to come in 20 minutes. It ended up being okay (even though we were an HOUR LATE FOR EVERYTHING THE REST OF THE DAY) because we met this guy named Armani at the stop. Sister Richardson had met him when she was serving in Dublin for a little while and the Dublin sisters sent the referral over for him because he moved and his phone got shut off so we were never really able to teach him so we dropped him a few weeks ago. It was crazy because out of all the bus stops in all of Ohio we were at the same one at the same time and we ended up being able to talk for right around 30 minutes and have a good lesson with him and set up a time to meet that he is solid for. What's more? HE LIVES IN OUR APARTMENT COMPLEX. Like what? It was madness and it really goes to show that God knows we don't have a car and He is preparing people that live close by. We have found two other people this week that live in our complex while we have been riding the bus so that has been some major tender mercies. Anyways, it ended up being a good thing that we missed our initial bus but it was still a little frustrating because we had to move all of our appointments back an hour or more because of it.
Our first lesson was with Tonya, who was the super elect lady that we had met on the bus earlier that week. We thought that she lived in our area but she actually lives wayyyyyy outside of it. We got permission to go this one time though and we went and it was miraculous. It took us 1.5 hours to get there and we got to stop in the city and take some awesome pics (tender mercy) and then we finally made it to her and taught her about the restoration. She ate it all up. When we told her about the Book of Mormon we were showing her a copy and she said "what do I have to do to get a copy of that book" and were like "oh this one is for you" and she got up and gave us all hugs and it was so tender. She had just moved into her place so she didn't have any furniture, so we sat on her bed up in her room and taught her. We all marked our favorite verses and then we invited her to be baptized and she said yes!!! She is on date for March 21st and we could not be more excited for her. She looked up the bus route to make it to church tomorrow and she actually came! She traveled over an hour on the bus to come to church. What an example to us all! The problem is, is that she lives way out of our area. We found the sisters that are in her area and we told them the situation and we told them that she came to church with us today but that we explained that there was a church closer to her and more missionaries there that would sit with her! Honestly, she wasn't too thrilled about that, but we are going to do a pass off lesson with them later this week so that she is comfortable with them. And then, we are going to go to her baptism! We will text her still and make sure she is doing okay. It is really kind of sad that she doesn't live in our area but I guess it's whatever. Sister Mahan is more devastated than me because we found her and invited her to baptism. But, we talked about how it's okay because what matters is that she does get baptized eventually. We had another appointment with a lady that we had met on the bus earlier that week and it went well! She didn't have a lot of time (because we were almost two hours late, come on) but we were able to give her the Book of Mormon and tell her our testimonies and she was excited for us to come back next week! She was seriously so cool and I'm excited to start teaching her more. We texted her a scripture yesterday and she said thank you so we are already off to a positive start!
After that, we dropped Sister Richardson off with the Nepali senior couple and we needed to be on our way for another appt. At this point, it was three and we hadn't had lunch. We didn't feel like going all the way out if they weren't actually going to be there, so we decided to give this girl a call. She did not answer the phone.... lol. BUT it was cool because the person on the phone is a 19-year-old minister and he lives in our complex and we set up a time to go and meet him so that was super cool! A new person found and we didn't even have to leave our home! We did weekly planning and companion study and lunch after that because we really needed to get ourselves together and organized. Honestly, we have been super go go go! This entire week. I think that it is the bussing. Before, we would drive places and relax. On the bus, we can't relax and we are constantly talking to people and there is no time to slow down because once we leave the apartment we are on and ready to go and smiling the whole day. It reminds me of Temple Square honestly! I'm grateful for Sister Mahan, she is honestly a really good missionary that is here to work and not to mess around and I appreciate that. We were going around and sharing different miracles that had happened during our lives during Family Home Evening on Monday and Sister Mahan seriously stood up and talked about how it was a miracle that she had a good trainer and how she had heard all of these stories about how other people's trainers were the worst and they didn't work and they hated the mission and she was so nervous and she really wanted someone that was going to love the work and would actually work and that she was sooo grateful that she could have me and that I was everything she wanted in a trainer. It was so tender you guys. And she said it in front of everyone!! Aw so sweet. She is the best and I am grateful that I was able to be companions with her. Kind of funny how it had to happen at this specific time and how I had to come all the way here to Ohio to do it! President Stratford said when we were getting our trainees, that this was a moment we had talked about in the premortal existence. I believe it to be honest. This companionship is Godly. The trio? Not so much. Thank goodness we hardly ever do work with Sister Richardson or I might hurt her lol.
Sunday was good. We had a lesson with Cynthia Poole and we basically just did our priesthood plan that we had for Latisha with her. She loved it! We have talked with her about the priesthood before and she said that today she felt like she finally understood it! She has been taught this soooo many times but it clicked with her today and we are so grateful for that. She hasn't been reading her Book of Mormon and praying about it but she said that she knows that she really needs to and that it is the key to her answer. We set up some times to call her during the week and read with her over the phone to help her get into the scriptures. We invited her to get baptized by someone with priesthood authority once she came to know that the Book of Mormon was true and the things we have been teaching her were true and she said yes!! Yay! Also, she gave us a ride home which was super nice of her. It has been cool to see how over the past 7 weeks she has gone from not being to taught to talking about baptism and her being open to it. That is a miracle for sure.
Honestly, every single day, Sister Mahan and I just talk about all of the miracles that we are experiencing. We don't know why God is just deciding to bless us with so much because we really don't deserve all of the wonderful amazing blessings that we are being given. Ugh. Being a missionary is just so good, ya know? I love it out here and I love the people and I love to just live my life around them 24/7. Seriously, all day every day we live and breathe and plan for our people and it is SO FUN!!!!
Anyways, I love you guys and I think you are super cool. I am praying for you every day! Talk to you soon!
Love,
Em
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