Sister Lamb's Exchange Miracle and Cornfield Wildlife

Dear Family,

I love you!

I have noticed that when I write in my journal, I always start with the phrase “today was . . . ". I don’t know if I do the same thing with my emails, but I slightly suspect that I do.

This last week went very quickly. On Thursday we had exchanges with the Cold Spring sisters, so Sister Brown spent the day with me in Oakview. We spent a lot of the day tracting, without a whole lot of success, but we still had fun, which was good. Exchanges are always fun because you get to see the way that other missionaries teach and get a fresh view on what is going on with investigators, less-actives, or whoever you are teaching or whatever you are doing that day. Towards the end of the afternoon, we were heading down a street to a referral we had gotten that morning and stopped to  try some houses on our way. The woman who answered the door was a little short with us, saying that she was about to leave to go pick up her kids from school and did not have time to talk to us. So, we continued on and finished up what we were doing on the street. We headed back for the car and started driving to a different area for an appointment, but decided to stop and use the restroom at a gas station. While we were there, we decided to buy gas because we only had about 1/4 tank left. Then, we ran in to the Batins, members from the ward, and talked to them for a minute. I decided to wash all the windows of the car because it was looking a little dirty. We went inside, used the restroom, and were looking for a drink, when guess who shows up? The woman who we had knocked on her door. She walked right over to us, apologized for being rude, and told us to stop by any afternoon next week. It was crazy. And by crazy I mean such a miracle. First of all, that we were both at the same gas station, that we were still at the gas station when she got there and that she came over to talk to us. I would not even had recognized her if she had not said something and I surely wouldn't have said anything to her. So amazing. So that as our exchange miracle. They say that miracles always happen on exchange days.

That evening we also saw Michaela, the niece of the less-active family in our ward that we have been teaching. She is so great! Both she and her cousin, Aavyn sincerely want to do good things and be good people, but their lives right now are not headed in the best direction. I am so excited to see the changes that happen in their lives as their testimonies develop and they come to understand the Savior and what He has done for them. They are such sweet girls. We talked to them about all kinds of things, from feeling comfortable at church to goals and dreams and desires and the Plan of Salvation. It was a great lesson. It is interesting to see how different people need different things in lessons and need to be taught with different teaching styles and the Spirit is able to direct us how to be able to teach them to their needs. The lesson that we taught to Michaela and Aavyn was very different that how we would teach a lesson to other investigators and different than the other lesson we taught that night, a lesson about prophets and Joseph Smith to a family with two little kids. And it is not just age that makes the difference. Sometimes we are very bold in lessons and other times we are not, sometimes we use lots of analogies and examples, other times we use lots of scriptures. It just depends on what that person needs and what the spirit directs us to say.

Sunday was another awesome night. After working at the Trail Center in the morning, church at 1-4 and dinner with a member (yummy!), we had three appointments to go to and three hours left in the evening. However, not everything went as planned. First, we had an appointment with Tom, the son of a less-active member of the ward. Tom is not a member of the church, but we met him a couple of weeks ago and he was interested in learning from us. Unfortunately, he was not home when we got there, but his mom was home. We have never met her before and no one in the ward seems to know anything about her either. It was perfect, especially because she said that she is hardly ever home, so we were so blessed that Tom set up an appointment for that time and even though he wasn't home, we were able to meet his mom. Then, we saw Sister Sanders, another less- active that we have been working with for a while. Bip Gill, one of the YW in the ward came with us and it was perfect because Sister Sanders used to teach in the YW, so Bip was happy to see her and was able to remind her what a good influence she was on them. After that, we had another appointment with a man named Jeremy who we had met earlier in the week, but Bip also told us that if we had time, Carol, Bip's friend who we were teaching, would really like to see us. It may be bad, but I don’t thing I have ever prayed so hard that someone (Jeremy) would not be home. Turns out, he wasn't, and we were able to go see Carol. When we got to Carol's house, we invited her little sister to come in with us. Miriam was not too excited about it, but came in when Carol demanded that she come. She was skeptical of everything we said at first, but after hearing Carol talk about how much this has helped her and feeling the Spirit as we talked about baptism and the Holy Ghost, she was super interested by the end of the lesson. We left her with her own copy of the Book of Mormon and she told us that she was very excited to read it. I am excited to see what happens. Carol is set for baptism on March 16. The only thing that will stop her from making that date is if her mom prevents her, but we will keep praying for her. We are turning her over to the YSA elders tonight. I know that she can be ready by the 16th, but it is going to take some work so I hope that they are ready for it.

Something I have noticed about Nebraska is that there are a lot of animals here and very different animals that we have in Utah. The other day, we saw a group of 6 or 7 wild turkeys running around by the side of the road. I don’t think I have ever seen a wild turkey before. There are also lots of wild bunnies and squirrels as well as deer.

Well, that was about all for my week! It was a pretty good one! Can’t wait to hear from you!

Love you!

Sister Melly