Happy 4th!

July 8, 2013

This week was incredible. When we first got to the area (beginning of May) we we averaging about 5 or 6 lessons taught to investigators with a member present a week. We are now at 18 a week. The work is crazy! That isn't including all the other lessons we teach to recent converts or less actives either. We saw tons of miracles this week. One of our investigators was hesitant to get baptized for the longest time, and she told us last week she wants to get baptized as soon as possible! So it might happen this weekend. She had the hardest time believing there could be a modern day prophet, but we watched President Monson's talk "Be of Good Cheer" and she fell in love. Of course. The spirit was incredibly strong and she said she had a good feeling as he was talking and loved his stories. I went on a couple exchanges this week- one was with a sister who speaks very little English (She is Sister Burrup's companion) and we had a blast! We just laughed the whole time and she taught me how to say some key phrases in Spanish because so often we meet Hispanics and can't say much to them. We had a fun 4th of July- the Bishop fed us kabobs and we were able to see some of the fireworks at the strip from a distant. We also had flash flood warnings for a good part of the week- I was freaking out a tiny bit. I guess they can get pretty bad here. But we never got caught in one, thank goodness. I went on an exchange with one of the sisters we live with, Sister Schenk, and it was incredible. We prayerfully set some goals for the next day, including 3 new investigators (which means we have to meet them, have a lesson, then set up a return appointment). They had only had 1 new investigator that entire week so it was a huge leap of faith. We decided to ride our bikes around so we could talk to more people and we got 3 new investigators! Each person had been prepared to hear our message and after we prayed with one of them, she commented on how she felt different- her whole body felt peace. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the spirit working its magic. We met every single one of our goals that day because we heeded every single prompting we received.

We also had an amazing experience with someone named Matt. He was visiting his friend Kenny (a recent convert of about 3 months) from Florida and decided to join in on a new member lesson we taught Kenny. So naturally we decided to teach him the Restoration. Before we began, he told us he didn't believe in God- he only believes in what he can see and feel- so we told him to pay attention to how he feels while we teach. The lesson was amazing. Kenny bore a powerful testimony of the atonement and Matt asked a lot of good questions. We invited Matt to pray at the end of the lesson, and it must have been the most powerful prayer i have ever heard. He said "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for sending me these girls. I now know that you are there and believe what they have told me. I am excited to strengthen my relationship with you." I just about started to cry. He went from not believing he had a Father in Heaven who cares about him to knowing that he is there and that His church is on the earth today. He is very logical and had a bad experience with religion when he was younger, so he has been studying science and started to believe the Big Bang Theory and evolution.  During the lesson though, he just kept telling us that everything we said made sense. We met with him 2 more times that week and by the end of our last lesson, we were getting his contact information so we could send it to the missionaries in Florida and let them know he wants to get baptized. Miracle. 

Also, I just realized that when i told you about the Refiner's Fire (Book of Mormon challenge) i definitely lied to you. We are just supposed to be done by the end of the summer, not the end of the transfer, which will be over in a couple weeks. But reading it every morning has been a huge strength to my testimony. 

Oh, remember that one time when Sister Lake and I made 4th of July cupcakes to bring to all the veterans in our ward then left them in the car for only like 20 minutes and they all melted into nasty looking things? Yeah. Huge fail. 

Well hope all is going well in Kennewick! Thanks for the prayers- I know I am being blessed because of them. 

Love you all!

Sister Stoker