June 20, 2011

Dear family,

I hope that you've all had a great week! Ours here was pretty good! We picked up two new investigators and set 3 new baptismal dates! It was a good week, filled with some pretty cool stories, so strap in!

The week started kind of slow... On Tuesday night we got to go to the relief society activity for the month. They had a Summer Salad Social, and there were a ton of the ward and less actives and non-members there. It was really cool to go and meet everyone. I felt a little bit like a politician as I circulated through everyone, like I was "working the room" hahaha. But it was great because we got to meet a bunch of the less actives and some of the sister's non member friends. No real interest in taking the lessons yet, but we'll work on them. :)

Wednesday was a REALLY hard day. We had no scheduled lessons, so we basically just knocked on doors ALL day. We had no success and it was VERY discouraging. I was having a really hard day that day, so at about 4:00, I decided that we were going to do something else. So we found some shade (have I mentioned that it's in the 90's most days now, and this week it will get over 100?) and started "randomly" calling less actives and former investigators to see if we might be able to set up any appointments for either that night or later in the week. We got a few takers. One of them being a former investigator named Erica. The Elders stopped meeting with her over a year ago because Erica and her family were always too busy to meet or to come to church. We set up an appointment for the next day. Thursday we met with her and one of the first things she told us was that she's been having a really hard time lately and yesterday she had told her mom, who is living with her, that she missed the missionaries, and if they would come back, she would listen better. And we called two hours after that!!! How cool is that!!! We talked about adversity and why life has to be so hard. We talked about the Book of Mormon and told her we'd come back on Saturday. When we did, we talked about the Doctrine of Christ from 3 Nephi 11, and talked a lot about baptism. She and her 9 year old daughter were both very into it, and we committed them both to be baptized on July 17th, and they said YES!!! It was so cool. The spirit was definately there, and I'm so excited to be able to continue teaching them. :)

We've also been able to get into several of the less active's homes this week. It's been fun to teach new people. When I was first transferred here, I missed the people of Colusa a lot, but as I've started to embrace the ward, they've opened up and embraced us. Yesterday, when they passed the dinner calendar around, we found out that the entire months of June and July have already been filled. The ward is excited to have us here, and they're excited to help us do the work! It's a different feeling from before, and I'm glad to be here.

This upcoming week should be pretty cool. We have a bunch of appointments scheduled already and two baptisms on Sunday. YAY!!! Chris, who I told you about already, and Ken, who we met for the first time last night. He's a single dad who's son was baptized in December. He's a super cool guy, and has a very strong testimony of the gospel! It's so cool that he gets to get baptized. Also, I get to go to the temple on Friday!!! I'm so excited. I haven't been since December, and I never realized how much strength I drew from temple attendance before my mission. It's been eye opening to find out exactly how fast I've lost sight of the eternal perspective, which we gain from going to the temple. So I'm really excited to go, and plus, I found out that Sister Barfuss is going on the same day, in the same session, so I'll get to see her again, which i can hardly wait for! I love that girl!!! Then, on Friday afternoon and night, we'll be working in Colusa, teaching some of the investigators and less actives there, which will be really good! This week is going to be really good. :)

I love you all and I love my mission. I can't wait to hear how you're all doing!

Love, Sister Reid