Sister Lamb's Gladys Knight Fireside and Sunday Tours

Dear Family,

Love you!

It’s good to hear that everyone is doing well, including baby. We walked through the baby isle at Walmart today and I said "baby baby baby". Ha-ha.

Ok. Let's see. It was transfers this week. Yes. We have been noticing that President Weston tends to move people around a lot more than President Kunz did. Ever since President Weston came, I have had a new companion every transfer. Belka-Bergeson-Brown-Davis,. I guess they ran out of "b" names for me to be companions with.

There hasn't been a whole lot going on in West Maple, but there has been some exciting things happening.

On Friday, Gladys Knight and the Saints United Voices Choir came to Omaha and did two firesides in our stake center. That was exciting. There has been a lot of hype going on about it, getting members to invite their friends. We hadn't gotten tickets (it was a ticket, although free event), but really wanted to find a way for Holly to go. Some of the people in our ward had invited her, but didn't actually have tickets to go, so she kept getting let down by people inviting her and then not being able to follow through. The night before, I was talking to one of the sisters at the TC and she said they had some extra tickets that we could have, but didn't know where they were. Holly was also sick, so it didn't look like she would be able to go. The next day, they still couldn't find the tickets. Someone else gave us one, but that didn't get us very far. We were just leaving to go to our area when we got a call from the sisters saying they had found the tickets and had them at the Trail Center. Holly was also feeling better, so she was able to go and loved it! (This sounds a lot less dramatic of a day than it actually was. It was pretty crazy). We went to the fireside as well. It was awesome. They sang and Gladys and her husband and another man spoke- they were very funny, but tied it all to gospel subjects. They basically taught all of the first three lessons that we teach to people. It reminded me that although there is one true gospel, there are many ways to share it!

On Saturday, we went to Kate Loftus's funeral (mom of Madison, who was baptized a couple of weeks ago- the only member in her family). It was sad, but also neat because the whole thing was done by church members.. One of the bishopric conducted and talked about the plan of salvation, the woman who brought Madison into the church talked about Kate’s life, and a YW leader gave the closing prayer. Then the YW leaders provided lunch. Madison was doing well. She was acting like her normal self, which is good. I just hope she is really doing as well as she was acting. I thing she was enjoying the attention.

It was a good week at the Trail Center too. It started out pretty slow, but Sunday was an awesome night. I had three really good tours. The first was a couple from Utah on their way to their mission in Michigan. I love taking tours of missionaries on their way to or from their mission because it is so easy to relate to them. I have found a lot of strength as a missionary from learning about the pioneers, so I love being able to share those personal insights and motivations that have helped me. It is easy to relate the story of the pioneers to missionary work and easy to relate those connections to people who are so excited to go and do missionary work. It was fun. At the end of the tour, they told me that they were very glad that they had stopped because this was exactly the pick-me-up they needed between leaving the MTC and making it to their mission.

The second tour I took was a young woman from Utah who was here visiting her family who has moved to Omaha recently. She actually knows Sister Hawkes who served here, so that was fun! There was something so awesome about that tour. She was just very real and open about herself and the gospel, so we were able to have a really great conversation. That tour was a lot of fun as well.

The third tour was my favorite though. It was a young family who lives in Omaha and had been here many times before, but the husband's brother was visiting them so they brought him to show him the Trail Center. He was 19 years old, looked like he thought himself a tough kid. I knew that he was here for more of a purpose than just to see the Trail Center, so I immediately focused the tour on him. Somehow, we got onto the topic of missions. He started telling me about how when he graduated from high school, he was very excited to serve a mission and was working on his papers, but his mom started pushing him so much that he decided not to go. (By this time, the rest of the family was off playing with the handcart or something). He was making the excuse that the timing wasn't right for him. Eventually he admitted that the desire that he had felt to go was gone now and that he hadn’t been to church in 2 months, but had gone for the first time this week. He said it felt good to go back. We kept talking and he just kept cracking open little by little. I asked him if he had prayed to ask Heavenly Father if He wanted him to go, to which he said yes. I asked "when?" . . "Well, back when I first wanted to serve a mission". He promised that he would ask again that night. As we continued to talk, he stopped me and said, "A lot of those things are exactly what my friend has been telling me lately." I reminded him that it’s because it is true. When he left, he told me that he could already feel the desire to serve coming back. It was a neat experience because not only was I able to help him, but because I helped him, he will be able to help many other people. It’s like giving a man a fish vs. teaching a man to fish.

Love you!

Have a good week :)

Sister Melly