Tuesday, November 19, 2013

New Experiences!!

Hello, Hello!
  Yesterday we were indeed under a tornado watch/warning.  Cool beans huh?  As we were walking out of church Brother Belliston asked if either of us had ever been in a warning for a tornado to which we both responded no, and he said "Well now we're under one!"  It was pretty funny.  So we were a tinsy bit apprehensive about what was going to happen, because we went to visit a potential on Saturday and she was the first person to tell us about there being a tornado watch.  She actually told us not to leave our apartment.  She said make up some excuse, don't go anywhere tomorrow!  I don't care if you have to tell them you have an aching toe! (not going to lie, I couldn't hold back my laughter at that excuse she made up for us).  Against her advice we surely did leave the house on Sunday, but church is important ya know!?! :)  Besides I have it on good authority the Lord protects the Montogomery Church (there was a tornado that took out a part of the neighborhood surrounding our building, but the church wasn't harmed at all, a few years ago.)  We had dinner with the Keiffers and then we went and visited the Bryants.  While we had been at the Keiffers the sirens had gone off, but we didn't really know if it was the watch or warning, so we decided better to be safe than sorry right? and off we went to the Bryants.  They are such a fun family, and their daughter Emily is the one who text you yesterday Mom.  So all in all my first experience under a tornado watch ended up just fine, because we didn't have one.
  Alright on to the rest of the week!
Tuesday we had dinner with the cutest family ever!!!!! The Farnsworth's had us over and they have four of the cutest little girls I have ever seen! Also they live on one of the coolest streets......ever, so that was a definite plus.  I took a picture and you know that I will be sending it to you, because it was to great of a thing to pass up!  We also had to head off to the Little Miami Sisters place for our exchange.  We made a slight detour to the Church because Sister Ashby had left her BoM there on accident when we had been there that morning.  We weren't sure if it was going to be open or not, so we had the Montgomery Sisters meet us there, and we got in, but we couldn't find it, sad day!!  Off we went to Little Miami to be with our other Sisters. 
  Wednesday.  I was supposed to be on exchange with Sister Lee, but I ended up with Sister Summers!  Sister Summers and Sister Ashby were going to go do service but they hadn't told us that, so Sister Ashby did not have a pair of jeans to do service in, and since Sister Summers and I are the same size she loaned me a pair of her jeans and we were going to do the service project and then switch later, but Sis. Summers and I did all our studying together and had this awesome lesson planned for two of their investigators, and we had a little bit of inspiration regarding another one, and since we had role-played and all that together Sister Lee decided that we could be together for the day.  It was a good day.  I love being with Sister Summers!! She is so fun and we are similar in many, many ways so it was great to be with her all day long.  I went with her to their ward correlation meeting and I have an awesome quote to share.  "Prayer is not a trival matter, rather it is a sacred privilege."  I love that, because I know that sometimes I forget that myself, and I want to be better at making sure that I treat prayer as the special thing it is, instead of looking at it as something that I have to do before I do something else. 
  Later we found out that Sister Mandigo, one of the Montgomery Sisters who had been here on a trial mission had to go home with health problems on Wednesday, so that was sad.  I am glad that we got to see her on Tuesday and tell her I loved her.  Things happen quickly and that was a reminder to me of that.
  Thursday we were back in our Milford area.  We had our lesson with Derrick.  He is really awesome.  Last time we met with him we were not able to answer all of his questions, and the best way to truly answer them was with the Restoration.  He believes in the Trinity and he does not see how we can say that God has a body of flesh and bones, we explained that it really comes down to if Joseph Smith is a true Prophet.  He is also a little concerned about that as well.  The good news is we haven't been able to answer all of his questions both times that we have gone and had a lesson with him, so it gives us a good chance to come back with answers to his questions.  He is really an awesome guy, and I am so glad that I have had a chance to meet him.  I really enjoy teaching him, because even though he knows the Bible much better than I, he is willing to listen to what I have to say about the different verses he pulls out to discuss.  We were able to leave two copies of the Book of Mormon with him, and he said that he would read it.  We told him that is how he will find his answer. 
  I really, really love Derrick.  It makes me so happy to actually teach someone who is sorta looking for an answer.  He is a little wary of our religion, but there is such potential there I know that the Spirit can work wonders on him.  We met this awesome guy named Damien and we haven't been able to get incontact with him since, but I had a good feeling about him, so we shall see.  There is this one super cute lady that we have talked with a few times, she hasn't been interested in our church yet, but she does ask us some questions.  We just dropped by randomly and talked with her for a while on Thurs, but she wants to have us over for lunch and then we told her we could help her with some of the projects she is looking to get done.  Service opportunities are the best!!
  All in all, I loved Thursday
  Friday this really sweet lady had us over to breakfast, and we were able to answer some of her questions.  I think that the Lord is slowly working on her.  I don't think I will ever be able to make too much progress with her, but who knows the Spirit works miracles so maybe it can happen!  But we told her we could come back later in the day to help her with some service, and as we were driving there she told us not to come because it was too windy.  We had already driven over there and so we decided to go do service for someone in the general area.  We prayed about it and orginally we had 6 names of everyone in the general area, and then we narrowed in down to 2.  Sister Ashby suggested this one family, and I was hesitant to go there, because we had just been there on Tuesday, but we prayed again and I got the name too.  I was still not sure that is where I wanted to go, but the Spirit said to go, so we did.  We actually ended up cleaning their garage. I know that when they woke up cleaning their garage was not even on the agenda, but then we showed up and we gave it a good go.  Lesson learned follow the spirit, even if you don't want to.  I also think we won't be showing up at their house, at least until it is actually scheduled.
  Saturday Happy 29th Anniversary Parental Units!!!! :)  We went and visited this sweet older lady from the Eastgate ward who is in a care center just a few minutes from us.  She was so sweet.  Sister Ashby and I sang "I am a child of God" to her, and oh boy we messed up the second verse.  We had a bit of a hiccup remembering the words, lesson learned, carry your hymn book all the time, so as not to mess up easy songs!! When we got back in the car I just laughed, I don't even know how many times I have sang that song, and then to mess up when you are singing to someone else....my bad :)  We had our correlation meeting, and afterwards the Creers fed us Hawaiian Haystacks, which were fabulous!  Neither of us had had them in a while, so it was fun.  We went and visited a few people and overall it was a pretty good day. 
  Sunday is always a lovely day, I mean, I get to take the Sacrament, so what wouldn't be great about that?  In Ward Council Brother Beck said this awesome thing about prayer, I actually can't remember what it was exactly, but just know that it was cool, and again reminded me of how important prayer really is.  In RS we had this awesome lesson on Charity and I was reminded of how much better I need to be at having charity for everyone, and always put others in front of myself. 
  Today, I was reading in Alma and I read Pahoran's epistle back to Moroni, after he had kinda been harsh to him, and the thing that stuck out to me was how much charity Pahoran had.  He was not mad at Moroni at all, he just said I'm sorry you are upset you have a right to be upset, but you don't really know the whole situation.  I thought that was an awesome way to handle that, because if it had been me, it wouldn't have been handled in that sort of way, I think I would have been all worked up and who knows what would have happened.  Kind of cool to see the lesson we had yesterday come into play in my studies today. 
  Sister Garcia and Jessica came and picked us up and we went down to Jungle Jim's which was pretty fun.  Sister Garcia is so nice!! She said to tell you Hi Mom.  So Hi from Sister Garcia!!
 
I think this week is going to be a normal schedule..........as far as I know.  We are going to be focused on finding, because we really need to have a teaching pool.  I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a missionary.  Today in our Zone call I just was able to have this awesome reminder of how this truly is such a short time, and how I need to completely immerse myself in the work!!  I love you all and I hope that you have a great week. 
 
I would also suggest that you all go thru and reread the talk from this last conference by Elder Richard G. Scott.  We read it this week and it is just fabulous!!!
 
I Love you lots and lots!!!!
Love,
         Sister Julie Ann

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