"If you have faith you have hope and if you have hope you have everything."

Dear Family,

Love you!

This past week has been, as usual, an interesting one. I have decided that I am just not destined to have a normal mission, even compared to other Trail Center sisters. On Saturday morning, when we were doing our big long weekly planning, we looked back on our week, and realized that we had only taught 2 lessons so far in the week- both to the same less-active family. We looked back through our schedule and realized that all of our proselytizing time had been eaten up by serving in the Trail Center, p-day, district meeting, and Sister Askren's sinus infection symptoms returning. We had only had a few hours to be out in the area between Monday and Saturday. After having a great week last week, we were a little worried that our numbers had dropped so quickly. It was amazing to see, though, that Heavenly Father blessed us so much to be able to make up for the lessons that we had not been able to teach in the last week. On Saturday night, we were able to go out for about three hours and in that time, taught 3 lessons.

We went to visit a less-active family, the Medranos. The youngest daughter and her cousin, who is not a member, were both there. It was amazing because Heavenly Father needed us to be there right then so that we were able to talk to just these two girls and get them to open up to us in a way that would not have happen if their mom was at home. They are really great girls who sincerely want some guidance in their lives. Then, we were able to meet some of their neighbors and help them set up a speaker that they had purchased for their TV (we got it mostly set up, but we are going to try to find some ward members who are a little more knowledgeable to help them out :). We were also able to meet another less-active member of the ward, and she accepted an invitation to have us over once a week to help her rebuild her testimony and get ready to start coming back to church. Then, on Sunday, we were again able to teach several more lessons in only a few hours, even though our only appointment fell through. Heavenly Father has been blessing us so much lately to be able to find people to teach, even when we do not have a lot of time.

On Monday, again we were so blessed. We needed to see a couple that has not been to church in a while. The problem is that they live with their parents, who are very active and love us, so whenever we go over, we end up spending our time with the parents and not the kids. We prayed about when would be a good time to try them, and when we went, the son answered the door, let us right in, and his wife was right inside the door. We were able to talk to just them for a while and really get to know them and understand their concerns and goals and everything. We invited them to start meeting with us once a week (once they come back from Mexico. jealous). And they seemed really excited about it. After that, we were also able to teach a couple different lessons before we headed for the Trail Center for the evening shift.

I think what has changed to help us be so productive lately is just my attitude towards the work. In the scriptures, it says that we need to act and not be acted upon (by the Spirit). Instead of waiting for Heavenly Father to put people in our path and just assuming that good things will happen when good things are supposed to happen, I expect to see great things happen, then go out and make great things happen. I don't know that I would even say that we have been physically doing anything differently, other than way that we pray (with more faith), but I know that faith does amazing things. There is a quote that one of the sisters has that says "If you have faith you have hope and if you have hope you have everything." Having faith created a feeling of hope with in you, which hope feels like confidence. When we have confidence that what we are doing is good, and that Heavenly Father will bless us, we can do great things. That goes back again to acting and not being acted upon by the Spirit. We are to go and do until the Spirit tells us to stop, not sit around and wait until the Spirit tells us to do. We should not have to be commanded in all things- such is a slothful and unwise servant.

The only sad thing that happened this last week was that one of the sisters, Sister Ashby, went home because of medical issues. I only got to say goodbye to her because I was at the Trail Center right before she left. It was just so crazy because although she may have known/suspected that this was coming for a while now, no one else even knew that anything was going on. It is just a bit on a shock to see a sister that seems perfectly fine and still has half of her mission left and then the next day, they are at home. Many of the sisters did not eve know that she was leaving until she was already gone.

Love you!

Sister Lamb