It's been an awesome week full of lots of cool experiences and miracles!!!!
The highlight of my week was Zone Conference!! We had a two say zone conference on Thursday and Friday and it was incredible!!! I love being able to see President and Sister Wall! The focus of the conference was using the Book of Mormon and pamphlets more effectively. There was also a huge focus on the talks by Elder Kopischke and Elder Holland from this past General Conference. On Friday we also had the privilege of having Elder Parker, our area Seventy, with us. He spoke to us for a bit and it was amazing! He focused on not giving up on people! He shared with us Alma 31:34 O Lord, wilt thou grant unto us that we may have success in bringing them again unto thee in Christ. 35 Behold, O Lord their souls are precious, and many of them are our brethren; therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee. As missionaries it's sometimes hard to want to try to visit someone if they have ignored you time after time after time. But we should never give up, for every soul is precious!!!
We also have a new emphasis on teaching 15-30 minute lessons 2-3 times a week to each investigator. What we've usually been doing is a once a week lesson for 1-1.5 hours. But it's been shown that it's more effective to have shorter lessons but more frequently. Investigators will learn more, remember more and progress more. It will be interesting to see what happens as we make this switch in how we do lessons, but I'm excited.
Anther awesome highlight from the week was a Musical Fireside!!!! When Hermana Walker was in Baton Rouge they had a big stake musical fireside and it was awesome so a few weeks ago she had the idea to do one here. It's been a few weeks of a lot of planning, preparing, worrying and a lot of phone calls. But it went beautifully!! We were a little worried that we wouldn't have enough performers or no one would show up but it was perfect. The missionaries from West Bank actually all came and helped out too. Hermana Burns saved us with her amazing musical talents. One of the performers was Daisy a young woman that we've been teaching to play the piano and she performed at the musical fireside! It was so cute. It totally reminded me of all my recitals growing up! A ton of members showed up as well as several of our investigators!! The biggest and best surprise was that EDY AND AURA CAME!!!!!!!!!!!! (my old neighbors) I have invited Edy and Aura to so many things and to church most weeks and they've never even slightly agreed to come. But we invited them to the musical fireside anyway and they came!!!!!! I was so excited and it was wonderful!
This week was a little different than every other week I've had in my mission thus far. We taught 14 lessons to investigators and had 3 less active lessons! In past weeks it's always been about the exact opposite. Most of my mission has been in the effort of rescuing but this week I've felt a shift in focus and I'm not entirely sure why. There is still a lot of work needed in helping those strayed sheep come back but there is also so much potential with a lot of our investigators. Our pool of investigators has dramatically increased lately and most of that is not because we did anything. We've been receiving a lot of referrals from the Elders lately and that has been awesome!. Also, several people have showed up at our English Class and we are now teaching them! It's awesome!!!
As for lessons this week, I'll tell you about my favorite lessons. IT was with our investigator Caroline. We've been teaching her since the week before Christmas and it hasn't always been easy with her but I've always felt such a strong love and connection with her. She goes through phases of coming to church, reading, and letting us in. The past few weeks has been a phase of not talking to us or letting us in. We hadn't seen or heard from her in about 3 weeks but we decided to go knock on her door anyway for our regular Wednesday 4 pm lesson. Turns out she was about to leave and didn't have time for us but we were able to talk to her for just a minute and to set up an appointment for Saturday. We went back on Saturday and had an awesome lesson with her. She told us about her prayers and how she has been very diligent in praying and has felt such a change in her life since she started praying. When we first started visiting her she wouldn't even say a prayer by herself, now she volunteers to say the prayer for us! She also shared several experiences where she prayed and received an answer or something happened that answered her prayers! Her testimony of prayer has increased tremendously! It's amazing to watch! The best part was at the end of the lesson she thanked us for being persistent and not giving up on her. She told us about how she often gets depressed and shuts the world out. When this happens most people give up on her and stop trying but we haven't (nor will we). She thanked us for not giving up on her like everyone else has in the past!! It was so wonderful to hear this because we've definitely gotten a little discouraged and unsure of what to do about her the past few weeks. I am so glad we never have up on her and I know our Savior never will either!
Update on our visa waiters.... Hermana Murray got her visa!!!! She leaves this afternoon for Argentina!!! :) I'm sure excited for her but she will be missed here!
I love and miss you all!!!
Con amor,
Kim
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