1- Our Title of Liberty! (for some reason my camera is being weird and somehow the better pictures were deleted... so we may have to recreate the moment and send some pictures next week. :) )
2 - Sister Maughan and me on exchanges
Hey y'all!
This week has been... I don't even know the appropriate adjective to
use to finish that sentence... crazy, amazing, SO busy, full of miracles,
etc. What a way to end the transfer.
We went on exchanges earlier in the week with the sisters from
Bridgeland. I was kind of disappointed, because our STL had to change the
exchange last minute so instead of staying and taking over Fairfield for a day,
I left and Sister Funk stayed. That has made 3 exchanges in a row where
I've left my area... And we had an AWESOME day planned... oh well. The
miracles still happened here, and I was able to see some in Bridgeland.
One of which was I got to see one of the families that I knew from Memorial
Springs! They recently moved to Bridgeland, so we got to go welcome them
to the ward here. It was good to see them again.
Alice is still progressing well - we're working hard to fit
everything in before her baptism on Friday! The ward is excited, and
she's excited, and we're excited - it's going to be great. :D
We were also able to meet with Jamie again! She's had a busy
schedule recently so we haven't seen her in a few weeks, but we marked a copy
of the Book of Mormon for her and texted her on Tuesday to see if we could drop
it by and she said sure - not only did we get to give her the Book of Mormon
that we marked for her, but she invited us in, and we were able to share a
lesson. AND we were able to go back on Friday with a member of our
ward. We invited her to be baptized, and she said she'd have to KNOW that
it's true first. She wouldn't agree to a date, but she still has an open
mind and heart about it all so we're confident she'll get her answer soon. :)
We've also been able to see Andrew, Chris, and Melody a few times
this week - they're doing well. And while Chris won't be able to be
baptized until next year because they won't be able to be married until then,
we decided to work towards December 20th as Andrew's baptismal date.
Little did we know while we were praying about a date for him that December
20th is his birthday! So he will be spiritually re-born on the day of his
birth - how fitting. :) He's super excited, and we're excited
too.
The most exciting day of the week was Saturday, which is actually
quite odd because we didn't have anything major planned. We were just going
to bike along, trying to visit people... all drop-ins, no appointments kind of
day. Little did we know the Lord had something more in mind for us.
I wish I could send y'all a copy of my journal entry for that day, but I guess
some stories will have to wait until I get home. :) I think it all
started during our lunch hour, when Sister Funk and I decided to make our own
title of liberty. So we literally "rent" one of her old
t-shirts and tied it to a PVC pipe and wrote our mission statement on it: "Our
discipleship is settled. We are faithfully prepared, exactly obedient,
and lovingly bold. We will see miracles and fulfill our missionary
purpose as we unite with the Lord in hastening His work. We are the Texas
Houston Mission." And then of course we had to go outside and take
some pictures. It was great. :)
It only got crazier from there. We went to visit Mayra and
Jacob because they have been avoiding us as of late... they've been going
through a rough patch in life and instead of embracing the gospel so it can
help them they've been pushing it away... :( So, since the marked copy of
the Book of Mormon worked so well with Jamie we decided to do the same thing
for them. So during companionship study we skimmed through our marked up
scriptures and looked for passages and stories that would help them and then
marked those in a copy for them. And then we went (after lunch) to drop
it off. Mayra was home, and she let us in, and we had an awesome
discussion with her - we were able to kind of figure out where she
stands. She said she has kind of lost interest because her member husband
Jacob isn't being the great example for her right now. :( But she did
appreciate the time that we had put into it, and said they would read it.
We invited her to church, and to meet with us on a weekly basis, and she said
she would talk to Jacob about it. And the whole time we were testifying,
and the spirit was so strong, and it was an awesome lesson.
Right after the prayer, as we were about to leave there came a knock
at the door. Mayra answered, and IMMEDIATELY the spirit left - it was the
creepiest feeling EVER. The two people standing there introduced
themselves as neighbors down the street, and told Mayra that while "the
sisters are great and all" she needed to have ALL the information before
she made the decision to get baptized. They told her that if she had any
questions to contact them, and then left. Mayra shut the door and said
something about that being weird, and we were able to tell her not to pay any
attention to them. She told us that she wouldn't. ... the whole
encounter was just strange... I've never met someone that was THAT against the
church, that they would come by WHILE we were still in the house (they knew we
were there because our bikes were outside)... but, at the same time, I am SO
glad that they did come while we were there, so we had the chance to tell Mayra
kind of who they were and to not listen to them. But yeah, it was
freaky. So that was our experience with the "friendly neighborhood
anti-mormons." Weird...
After several other random, strange encounters that I can't tell now
because I don't have enough time, sorry, we biked on our way home. We
decided to try a less active family, because we still had some time before we had
to be home. While on our way through the neighborhood to their house we
hear someone yell, "Sisters, STOP!" We pull over to the side of
the road to find one of the members of our ward, Brother Savage, talking with
one of his friends in the driveway. He proceeds to introduce us to his friend
Larry by saying, "These Sisters here have been called by a prophet of God
and set apart to preach the gospel." We had a great conversation
that lasted about 30-40 minutes with both of them, and in the end Larry agreed
to let us teach him the message of the Restoration. So we're meeting with him
next Thursday! Basically the best member referral ever.
And then church on Sunday was great. While none of our
investigators came to sacrament meeting (which was a HUGE bummer... they missed
out - it was the Primary program!) Chris, Melody, and Andrew came for the
2nd and 3rd hours even though Melody wasn't feeling well at all. And
while we were outside talking to her for a bit, Mayra and Jacob walked in!
So, by the end of church we had 3 of our investigators there, AND two different
members introduced us to their friends. So it was a pretty good Sunday,
if you ask me.
Yep, that was our week... pretty crazy. And awesome, and busy,
and (as always) full of miracles. And after all that, Sister Funk is
being transferred... :( I will miss her! Hopefully my new companion will
be able to keep up with everything that is happening here... ;) I'm sure
she'll be great. :) I love y'all and hope you have a great week!
Sister Ririe
Alma 46:12
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