Aug. 23, 2010

Hello everyone! how's life going for all of you? Life here is really going great! We've had a tough week again, but with some changes that recently took place in the ward, I know that the coming weeks will be so great!

This week started off with us teaching a young man named Danny, who'se had a tough time lately. He has a 3 year old son, and the mom, his girlfriend, just left them. So he's had to quit his job to take of his son. We met him because his parents are less actives in our ward. And they said we should talk to him, so we did! And he's so ready for the things we have to teach him. I know that if we had come into his life earlier, he wouldn't have been ready. He needed some humbling experiences so he'd be ready for the gospel in his life. Anyway, we taught him about the Book of Mormon, and how he can know for himself that it's true. The spirit was felt so strong there, and I know that he will read and pray. We set up another appointment for Friday, but he had to cancel. The good news is that he called us first, and let us know he wouldn't be able to make it, and then asked us when we could come back later this week. So I know that he's interested and wanting to talk to us, otherwise, he simply would have just blown us off, which seems to happen so much... :)

We also started teaching a woman named Alisha. I'm not sure if I told you about her before, but in case not, she's an older African American single mom, who has a great testimony about keeping the sabbath day holy. We met her because we offered to help her carry her laundry upstairs to her apartment, and we were able to teach her something about the gospel, and then we set up an appointment, which she missed. So at first we thought she wasn't interested. But we caught her home again earlier this week, and asked if we come help her in some way. She mentioned that she needed some help doing heavy lifting, so we went on Saturday ready to help. We helped her with some other chores, and then we sat down and talked about the gospel. We taught her about the Book of Mormon, and committed her to read and pray about it. She talked about how she's been very religious her whole life, but nothing ever seemed to fit, especially once her mother died (about 15 years ago). She said she's been praying for which church to join, but the only answer she ever seemed to get was to wait, and then she told God she would wait, and promised that when he sent someone to invite her to church, she would take that as a sign... Well... That us!!! We taught her about the Book of Mormon, and she was so into it! The spirit was so strong, and I know that it witnessed to her the truth of the things we have to teach her. She's seriously reading the Book, and we have an appointment with her on Tuesday to teach her the Restoration. YAY!!!

Otherwise, most of the rest of our appointments canceled this week too. But, since there were two missionaries that just came home form their missions in our ward, it seems that the whole ward has been galvanized. The Bishop especially has recommitted and is more motivated to doing more work!! We also got a new ward mission leader, so things are going to be great.

The Church has just re-designed the focus of the Preach My Gospel Curriculum. So they're having to do a whole of training of us missionaries, so that when the greenies come out of the MTC in November, we're already doing what they've been taught. I don't really know what the changes are yet. Our mission is having a huge 4 day training conference this week to teach all the mission leaders what the changes are, so they can teach us. All Zone Leaders, District Leaders, and Trainers are going, which means that my companion is going. So I get to be in a threesome this week with two other sisters whose companions are also going. It's going to be an interesting week, since we're still supposed to cover all three areas.... But it'll be fun, and I'm looking forward to all the things that Sister Silva will have to teach me, and the inspiration and motivation that will come from it! Yay!

That's about it this week. I hope you're all doing well, and I look forward to every email and snail mail that I get. Thanks for all your prayers and support. So... keep up the good work, and do more work!

Love, Sister Reid