Like I said last week, we had to drop Dotty. She was one of three of our investigators, but we had already baptized the other two so once we dropped her we had no more. Completely investigator-less. So, we decided to step up our game and try to get THREE new investigators in one week! In New England, that's nearly impossible. People in the mission celebrate if you even find one investigator throughout the week. We decided to stop and talk to absolutely everybody we come across on the street and invite them to learn..no exceptions. (There are some intimidating people on the street sometimes so this was no easy task). Ready for this miracle?........We got FIVE NEW INVESTIGATORS this week!
One is Maurice who is an older man that was sitting on his porch when we walked by. We invited him to learn when we saw him, then set up a return appointment after he agreed to hear the lessons. Few days later, we go to his house and teach him the restoration. He is such a funny man! He also told us that the day we talked to him on his porch, he saw us walking toward him and said he felt a "shiver up his spine" and he knew we were good people even though he'd never talked to us before. So cool! During his lesson, he straight up said "I want to go to your church this Sunday." We didn't even have to invite him! He is so ready :)
Next is Steven and Yulia. They are a couple living together about my age. I have a weird fear of teenagers and people my age because I feel like they're judging me or something so I just walked past them while they were playing cards together on their porch. Sister Crook, thank goodness, was brave enough to stop and talk about the Book of Mormon with them. Yulia was amazed at it all and asked where she could get her own and how much they would cost. She then wanted to meet that week again to talk more about our church! Few days later, we go to their house and talked about the restoration and they loved it. They now want to meet TWICE a week because they both love learning about the gospel. YES.
Kent Talmage..oh dear. Haha he's a minister at some other church but he loves missionaries coming over. He's a middle aged man and he's very very open about his love life and just his life in general. He let sister crook and I relax on this comfortable futon bed/couch thing in the shade on this patio while we drank ice cold water bottles while we talked to him about our church. We felt like queens! He asked a lot of questions and we were able to answer a lot of them. We hope he finds the truth soon through his reading in the Book of Mormon.
Kristen is a young mom of 4 or 5 that we saw a week or two ago trying to carry a big freezer through her front door. We ran over to help her lift it inside then, of course, we invited her to learn. She was very open and we set up a return appointment. Later that week, we went and taught her the restoration and she was very receptive and took the challenge to read and pray. This past week we went to teach her again but she told us that she read about 40 pages without any luck. She was having a difficult time understanding what she was reading and she said she wasn't ready to take that step into religion and commitment and what-not. We were NOT going to back down. We told her to not give up, but to continue to read and that she needs to pray as she reads so that she will have that desire to learn and that she will have the knowledge to understand what she's reading. She changed completely and she told us she would keep trying. She even wants us to come back and check up on her which was definitely not what she wanted at the beginning of that conversation!
Enough about investigators...I WORKED AT A FARM. Keep in mind that I've never been to a real barn in my life. Meanwhile, my companion grew up on a dairy farm in a small town of Wyoming.
In the ward, I'm known as the "city slicker" because of how different I am than my companion..she's a true farm girl and I'm just.....absolutely not.
But I actually had some fun bailing hay! The farmer guy (who we eventually handed out a Book of Mormon to) would send big bails up on an escalator thing to sister crook and I who were at the top of the barn. I would then pick them up and throw them across the barn to sister crook who would stack them. It was quite the experience!! He had a 4 year old grandson named Ben who absolutely loved me. He gave me tours of the barn and always followed me around, it was the cutest thing! When we left, sister crook wouldn't stop talking about how cute I was with him and how she couldn't stop picturing me being a mom and how good I'll be at it. Ummmm okay. It freaked me out for a little while because I realized how soon that was all coming! After my mission, I'm supposed to start a family. Marriage and family has always seemed so far away until now....thanks sister crook -.-
I had my first dreadful experience with a "basher". It all started a few weeks ago when we talked to a girl on the street. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she was interested in us coming back to her house down the street another day. A few days ago, we found her house and talked to her a little bit. Eventually her dad came out with the Book of Mormon we gave her a while ago and asked if it had been us that gave it to her. We said yes and he gave it back to us telling us that he read the first few pages and marked everything he thought was incorrect. (Basically everything was underlined and he made plenty of notes).
He went on and on and on about how wrong we were about everything and he brought up a lot of bible verses that apparently contradicted what we believed and it was all around just horrible. Sister Crook and I just stood there in shock, nodding our heads at the things he said and being as respectful as possible. I absolutely hated hearing things I held dear to my heart being warped and thrown at me like this. We tried bearing our testimonies through all of his harsh words but he wouldn't let us. We told him to have a good day and we turned around and walked off their porch. He went inside, got a piece of paper, and ran after us yelling at us to come back. I whispered to sister crook to ignore him and keep walking but she didn't want to be rude. He told us that "the Holy Spirit wanted us to take the paper" or something but we told him we really weren't interested and left. He kept yelling horrible things at us as we walked away. SUCH a scary experience! As threatening as it was, sister crook and I agreed that we came out stronger. Nothing that he could have said could've shaken our testimonies of this gospel.
Here's a funny/embarrassing story...haha so the other day we were walking past a house and we decided to take a selfie for some reason..I really don't know why but we stopped and raised our camera to take it and the guy that lived in the house we stopped by came out and asked us "if we needed anything" because it looked like we had taken a picture of him or his house. We had to awkwardly tell him that we were taking a picture of ourselves and he was truly judging us.
I went to Popham (pop-um) Beach today with a darling old lady in our ward! Her name is Sister Alexander and she's the sweetest lady I've ever known. I've talked about her and her husband before but they just get better and better. We ate at a small diner right on the beach :) I have such a love for the ocean..I'm so lucky to be serving on the coast!!
A personal miracle this week came to me about testimonies. I've always had a fear of testimonies and bearing my testimony especially being out on a mission. I always thought it had to be long and powerful and eloquent to be a good testimony. NO. I happened to read a story this week about Brigham Young and his conversion this week. For those that don't know, he investigated the church for a long time before accepting the gospel. It took a man with no talent of public speaking and no eloquence to bear his simple testimony and convert one of the greatest prophets. Sharing a simple, basic testimony can bring the spirit to somebody's heart just as easy as a big eloquent one can. Never be ashamed of your testimony!!
The leaves are changing and the air is getting colder and I'm so excited about it yayayayay :)
I love you all!! Have a great week ❤️
Before the farm :D
At the beach Monday :)
On our 10 mile walk the other day....
Popham Beach ❤️
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