Sister Lamb's West Maple Dream



Dear Family!

Hello from Omaha! Haha Love yoU!

This last week has been a dream. I still don't feel like I know what is going on completely in West Maple, but I feel like I am starting to get a grip on who everyone is and what is going on. The biggest problem is that there are a bunch of people that the sisters have met and taught a little in the recent past, but who we have not been able to contact in the last while, so I keep seeing and thinking about these names that still don't have any faces to go with them.

It’s so funny how the Spirit works. I think that I am just starting to recognize that feelings that I have felt many times in the past but wasn't sure exactly what it was that I was feelings were actually the Spirit trying to tell me something. Yesterday, we were at our church building eating lunch after church when I started to feel really strongly that we needed to go to an apartment complex where some of our investigators live. It’s hard to describe, but it was like feeling really excited, but also a little nervous at the same time. We headed to where we thought we should be going, but the lady we were looking for was not home. We talked to some other people and knocked a couple of doors. We also talked to a Muslim man outside, which was really interesting to me because he wanted to give us a copy of the Koran and talked about it the same way that we would talk about the Book of Mormon. He said that if we would read it, that we would know that it is true and that we could pray about it to know the truth from God. We had an interesting conversation and decided to respectfully not agree with each other.

One of those names that I mentioned earlier (a name without a face) was a lady named Faith who we have tried several times, but have not been able to catch home. After we talked to the Muslim man, we went to try her and she was home! She was so funny. She is African American and talks at a million miles an hour, but somehow we were still able to teach her the restoration and about the Book of Mormon. I shared with her Helaman 5:12, where it talks about building our foundation in Christ and she immediately asked if she could have a copy. Turns out, her fiancée also has a copy of "the blue book" and she has really wanted to read it because he has been reading it. In the end, I don't really know what it was that Heavenly Father wanted to accomplish or if there was even one specific thing that we needed to do, but it always feels good to be able to receive and then follow the promptings of the Spirit and know that you are doing God's will.

We also met with another investigator, Tatiana, a few times this week. She is a single mother of one and has a second son on the way. It’s hard to know how to explain her. She is very depressed and a lot disappointed in herself because she has had both of her kids out of wedlock.

Another neat thing that happened this week is that someone chased us down to talk with us. We were in an apartment building, going to knock on the door of Andy, a girl that they met a couple of weeks ago. As we walked to the door, her mom came in, talking in the phone. We tried to talk to her, but she ignored us and went inside. We continued down the hall and upstairs, knocking on doors and began talking to a man named Doug. As we were talking, Andy's mom poked her head out of the stairwell from downstairs and yelled to us "Hey! Were you trying to talk to me?" we said yes and she said to come knock on her door when we were done. We did, of course and went to knock on her door. She let us right in and we got to know her and taught her the Restoration. She liked everything we said. Her name is Lynette and she is so funny! She told us that she had seen us while she was talking on the phone and something had told her to finish her call and go talk to us, so she did! She had gone up and down the hallways and outside looking for us before she found us upstairs. She is so in tune with the Spirit! It is awesome. She is an older black lady and so sassy. We are going back to teach her and Andy this Friday.

Another great thing that we did this week was that we got to go do service at a medical clinic. One of Elders Watson’s friends from Kiwanis is a doctor and holds a free medical clinic for the uninsured once a week in downtown Omaha. They have enlisted our help, so each week four sisters go and help by counting pills to fill prescriptions for the people that come into the clinic after they have seen a doctor. It was a lot of fun. It was in a school of some sort and we were just using some of the extra rooms. We were in an office counting pills and when the prescription was filled, someone else would call the patients in one at a time to give them their medications. I didn't pay much attention most of them time, but there was one little, older man, medium height and skinny with glasses who came in with his wife. They had to explain to him that the medications that he needed for seizures were too expensive for the clinic to have, so they could not give them to him. Right then, I just felt a huge surge of love for this man and his wife imagining them in a small, worn down house and trying to courageously deal with his medical issues. I had a hard time keeping myself from crying for a minute. But it made me grateful for the good we were able to help do, even if we couldn't do it all.
So yeah! It’s been a pretty neat week.

I don’t' have a picture of Sister Brown because my camera ran out of batteries, but you can probably pick her out of a picture. She is the one with really short hair.

Could that be Sister Brown in the lead arriving in Omaha?

Love yoU!

Sister Melly

 

Sister Lamb answers a few questions:

We just started volunteering again at the Catholic retirement home- Seven Oaks. I have not been yet, but I think I will be going in the next week. with so many sisters, we only do it once every couple of weeks. it seems like it was more often in the fall last year, but that is probably not really true.

We do still do mormon.org chat. I have seen two baptisms so far come from the people that we have chatted with- one named Eric who lives in London and one in California named Brent.

We ate a lot with the members in Millard, but not so much in West Maple. it all depends on how willing the members are to help out. The members in Millard were also a lot more willing to help with things like team-ups. I think it mostly has to do with the demographics of the ward. Millard was a lot younger with husbands that have recently been on missions, etc.

The quilt show just started this last weekend. There are all kinds of quilts from all backgrounds and sewing capablilitles. There are some that were loaned to us that are from the late 1800's and early 1900's. I really haven't had much time to look at all of them yet.

We haven't started working on the Christmas fireside, or at least I haven't heard much yet but I do know that they have set up many performances in November and December. I think that they are going to be keeping us very busy. It will be good to keep all of us that are nearing the end of our missions excited and focused. We are going to the Walking Bridge and a museum downtowm next week for Watson Wagon and the temple next Friday! Love yoU!