This week flew by! I am really loving serving in the Kensington area. The ward is incredible and so willing to work with us. There are a TON of young families...actually there are 20 babies that have been born recently/are about to be born haha. Sacrament meetings are pretty entertaining by the end of the hour. This week we were going to a lesson to teach Diamond with sister Longenecker, but it fell through. So we went with her to a less active in the ward. Sister Longenecker was nervous because in the past she hasn't been open to missionaries coming by or sharing thoughts with her. We went anyways, and she opened up to us about a lot of things going on in her life. We shared a video with her and she started crying and said at she needed to come back to church. We invited her to come on Sunday and she said that she would think about it. Then on Sunday she actually came! We have been visiting a lot of members in the ward lately and teaching the lessons. When Elder Ballard and Elder Rasband were here they challenged us to teach the full discussions to families in the ward. He promised that they would have more trust and confidence in us, then in return they would be more willing to invite their friends to learn more. So this week we have been doing that and five families gave us someone that they think would be ready to hear about the gospel! It was the coolest thing. Yesterday was an unforgettable day. We had a great day at church and then later that night we had Why I Believe at the visitor center. It's an event every third Sunday night of the month where a couple of recent converts bear their testimonies and there is a main speaker that talks about why they believe the things they do. This time Thurl Bailey and his wife came to speak. He played for the Utah Jazz and is 6'11"!!!! His testimony is just as big as he is tall haha. He told of his conversion story which is by far the BEST experience I've ever heard. His wife was a member her whole life and eventually after they were married for a long time he joined. He talked a lot about basketball and made many connections to how those same principles can apply to our lives. Also Sister Webster and I sang together. When we first decided we were going to sing a month ago, we had no idea who the speaker would be. Usually the auditorium is half full for a why I believe, but for this night ever seat was filled with overflow upstairs (550 people...). I was really nervous but once we got up there I was calm. Today we had district activity which was kind of far away so that's why I'm a little rushed writing my email today. We played basketball and had an intense ping pong tournament. Our district includes a lot of the missionaries in the Chinese program, so they made some good Chinese food. Also this week we got to have a big youth conference from Virginia come to the visitors center. We got to have about 20 of the youth per companionship for 3 hours. I missed a lot of the youth tours that came in this summer while I wasn't in the visitors center so I was happy to be able to do one. At the end, an older man in the group came up to me and asked what part of Washington I was from. I said, tri cities and he said he and his wife were missionaries at Bing canyon for treks. I told him I got to go on trek twice and I started telling him about trek and some of the things that we did while we were there and before I even could finish the story he put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. his eyes filled with tears and said, Sister, were you a part of the rescue?". I was surprised and said yeah, that was my stake, the Pasco stake. He said he had gotten there right after and wanted to meet someone really bad from the rescue that he heard all about. It was so sweet. I also met a family who lived in Pasco all of their life, the Hughes I think was their name. The dad told me he was Stan Stinson's step son if I remember right. It was funny because just that day I had gotten an email from brother Stinson about Pasco stake Conference. I also met a girl from Connell, whose brother was getting married this weekend. We knew a lot of the same people. I asked her if she knew any Henry's in her stake and she said, "oh Julia and Jackson???". It was really neat to talk to her. I feel bad I have her name written down but I can't think of it right now. Also, one of the craziest things happened to me this week. At the visitors center we teach people online and send them to missionaries. Well this week I was online and trying to send missionaries to a man in Italy who had just moved there from Pakistan to try and join the church. He was trying to tell me where he lived but didn't have an address. Usually we will just call the missionaries in the area to give them the persons contact info. So I saw that this guy was in Italy and thought of Roman, but there were so many different meetinghouses and areas, I thought there was no way. Well I dial the first random number of missionaries who are supposed to be in this mans area, no answer. Then there is a different number so I try that one. A voice picks up that sounds very familiar and starts speaking Italian. I said it was Sister Haertling from the referral center and the missionary starts speaking English. Then I reallyyyyy recognize the voice and ask, "wait is this elder Ruiz??" And he just says, "Sarah!?" Haha. It was so crazy. I told him this mans information and he said he would try contacting him. It was pretty weird hearing someone's voice that is so familiar so unexpected. But a really cool experience. Something that I really loved that I studied about this week was really short and simple, but a good reminder. It says, "Love precedes the miracle. Love is a process; it is not a program. The love of Christ can overcome any of the worries of our lives and heal any human affliction". I hope you all have a great week!!
Love, Sister Haertling
No comments:
Post a Comment