Sister Lamb Slips into Iowa and the Cornfield Gets Golden

Hello Family!

Love you!

This has been a great week :) So many good things are happening!

Today, we had a Watson Wagon and went to the Joslyn Museum and the Walking Bridge in downtown Omaha, which connects Nebraska and Iowa. It was fun. I don't know what else to say other than that.

 

Now to the really exciting stuff. Last Tuesday, we had a mission tour with Elder Nash of the 70. The Omaha and Papillion zones met together to hear from him. (President has been packing a lot of missionaries into these zones lately, so there were a lot of us there- probably around 60 missionaries covering 2 stakes. That might be a little low). We were in the chapel. The first thing that we did was Elder Nash, his wife, and the Westons stood at the back of the room and one row at a time, we went to greet them. I shook Elder Nash's hand and he complimented me on my strong handshake, ha-ha, and then looked at me for a second and said "You have a beautiful spirit." I thought that was pretty nice compliment from a General Authority. After we all greeted them, the meeting started. Previous to the meeting, President had all the missionaries prepare 3-five minute talks on subjects that he had assigned. Then, 3 missionaries (one for each subject) were asked to present their talks. I was called up to give the first talk, on working with members. When the assistants announced my name, my heart didn't skip a beat and I calmly walked up to the stand, gave my talk like there was nothing to it, and then went to sit back down. For me, it was just a neat reminder of how much I had changed. Giving a talk in front of a group of fellow missionaries and a member of the 70 was no big deal, even if I didn't think that I knew very much on the subject. The rest of the meeting was great. Elder Nash spoke about the atonement and gave us a couple of hours at the end to ask him questions.

The little girl is Julie’s granddaughter, Madison. I mentioned her a couple of weeks ago. We still haven’t been able to see her again.

 

Let’s see, other really awesome thing that happened this week was that Madison was baptized on Saturday! Sister Belka and I left our companions at the TC and headed out together, just like old times :) The baptism was good. A priest in the ward was able to baptize her, which I am sure her family thought was really weird. Our bishop boldly invited all of Madison's extended family members to come to church next Sunday for her confirmation and to look more into the church. Madison was excited to see us and we were really glad to be able to go. What was really amazing was all of the miracles that happened surrounding the baptism. Madison's mom, Kate was there. I talked to her afterwards and she talked about how much Madison has changed in the last few months since she has been coming to church (Madison struggled with depression and bipolar disorder) now, she is no longer taking any medication or having any therapy. I reminded Kate that those same blessings are available to her as well and she said that she and Madison have been talking about that. I think that Kate will get baptized within the next few years, at least. But Kate wasn't the only one who has noticed the difference in Madison. One of her grandmas was there and slipped in to the chapel after the service, where she sat in the dark for half an hour. When she came out, she was crying and overcome with emotion. She is not religious, but Sister Belka and I talked to her and shared scriptures from the Book of Mormon and she gave sister Belka her phone number so that she can stay in contact with her. Another set of Madison’s grandparents were also there and it turns out that they know the bishop, who is a patient in the medical clinic where she works. They talked to both Bishop Applegarth and Brother Jensen for quite a while. Madison's best friend and her dad were also there as well as some other grandparents and an aunt and uncle. It was a good turn out.

We had stake conference on Sunday. Sister Brown and I sang in the choir. We sang a song called "Refuge and Rest" that someone in the stake wrote a few years ago for the Bicentennial. It was good. Elder Deschler of the Seventy was the speaker. He had all the full time missionaries in the stake come up to the front and had us all sing the first verse of Called to Serve. Then, he talked about the power of missionaries. He said that the power of missionaries is great, but it is greater when they have the support of the members. He then had everyone stand up and sing the second verse of Called to Serve. It was really powerful.

Ah! I need more time! I haven't even said anything about our investigators yet but they are doing great! We have a lot that are progressing and 2 set for baptism in October, with more to come! Great things are happening!

Love you! Have a great week!

 

Love, Sister Melly