Okay so....another week has gone by. Usually they fly by but to be quite honest, this one feels like it has dragged. It's been mostly good though!
On Monday night, we taught the usual group at FHE. It's so neat to have a group of recent converts that just really love and support each other. I LOVE it! It's always a good day when we can go and teach them.
On Tuesday, we went to Kirtland! I love that sacred place. My heart swells just thinking about it, honest. It's great! For training meeting this last week, we went to a little hidden grove back behind the ashery and we held a testimony meeting. It was so powerful. Sister Mayer got up and bore her testimony. I really love her! She has come so far since she was a little greenie.
It's so hard to believe that at the end of this transfer, she's been out for 9 months! Halfway. WOW. I feel like I was just out for 9 months. Sick. Tuesday night I came home with Sister Spring and Sister Scott stayed up in Kirtland with Sister Hansen. Sister Spring is such a little sweetie. She's from the DALLAS area too...she lives closer to Flower Mound in Highland Village (I think).
So, I was companions with Sister Spring all day on Wednesday. We decided that we need to become companions for real and have a companionship motto of: TEXAS, TAYLOR (SWIFT), & TRUTH. :) We didn't get to proselyte much because we had Zone Development Meeting in Youngstown. So we traveled out that general direction in the morning. The plan was to meet at Denny's at 11:30 and eat lunch and then go to ZDM. We got there like way early and since Sister Spring is so diligent & purpose driven, she was like "Do you want to go contacting?" And I said, yes, in fact, I do. So we contacted people in Youngstown for about 20 minutes before lunch. It was good stuff.
She is really good at relating to people.
ZDM was good....sometimes the Youngstown Zone is frustrating because they don't always go into meetings with the purpose of receiving revelation. So, it's more like a social gathering rather than an opportunity to be spiritually recharged and ready to go out and baptize the world. We NEED that refreshment.
When we finally got back from Youngstown at 5, we stopped by the Littles. Brother Little was like "I have a meeting I was supposed to be at at 5:30 but I called them and told them it'd be closer to 6 and then I wondered why I was just waiting around and then your car pulled up!" Ha. So he recognizes the spirit and is acting on promptings he receives! Fantastic! :) We briefly introduced him to lesson 3 and told him we'd call to set up an appointment with them.
Then, we had dinner and correlation with the Ebies. They really are wonderful, wonderful people. I love them! It was so good to be on exchanges. It's easy to just get into a routine when you're with the same person all day every day all the time doing pretty much the same thing each day. It's becomes routine instead of revelatory and spiritual experiences.
Thursday was great! The Edmans treated us to breakfast at Mike's Place, which was just delicious. Then, we had lots to do! We saw the Bowlands. They are still hung up on the "no man can see God" thing. We aren't really sure how much they are progressing...boo. So we didn't set a baptismal date with them.
We went from them to John Adelman. John was baptized a couple years ago and leaves for BYU today!! His mom actually came to a church service for the first time EVER yesterday to hear John sing!!! It was pretty neat. She's really a sweet lady. Hopefully her heart will continue to soften and we can do service for her and help her out.
But after that, we had lunch at the Barnes with ALLIE!!! She's AMAZING! By the time we saw her on Wednesday, she'd read ALL of 1st Nephi. We taught her the 1st lesson using cups and she LOVED it. She teared up when Sister Scott told her about the First Vision and said, "Can I just give you a hug?" Oh my word. We invited her to be baptized when she came to know it was true and she said she would. Seriously, it was an incredible lesson.
Then we went and saw darling Brother Fortson. He's so wonderful. From there, we stopped by Sister Horning's work and got information for the 2 referrals she had for us, and we headed towards the Marlers for dinner. The Marlers are so great! They had Sister Manning and Grams over and we taught about obedience and the blessings that come from keeping the commandments. It was a pretty quick lesson but it was really good. Grams was quiet again so that was good...Sister Manning IS kicking her boyfriend out!!!! I guess her daughter, Dee (the one who's a member), gave her an ultimatum...either he's gone by Christmas or I'm not coming home. Yeah....kind of intense but it will be so good for Sister Manning to have him OUT.
On Thursday night, we took some time to write happy thoughts in one another's planners. I am working with my companion on being positive. It's a struggle for her and the other sisters in our house but all four of us are making it a goal to work on. Oh, another cool experience we had on Thursday night was that we prayed to know exactly when to stop by Tiesha (one of the referrals from Sister Horning) the next day. We asked that each of us would get the same answer so that we'd know without a shadow of a doubt when we needed to be there. The answer was 4:00.
On Friday, we ate with the Carey's. Then we taught Sister Alexander and her niece, Chelsea. Chelsea doesn't understand why God would love her. So, thankfully, I had my handy-dandy YOU ARE SPECIAL book on me, and that's what we taught her! It was perfect. We invited her to church and told her she's always welcome to sit in on any of our lessons. She said she'd been looking for happiness all her life and I promised her that we could help her find it, that as she took certain steps in her life she would be happy and would start to understand why God loves her so much.
At 4:00, we stopped by Tiesha but she wasn't there (boooooo!) so we contacted her neighbor Denzel. He is a minister but said that we could come back on Sunday and teach him more. I feel so good about him and his family because I KNOW that we were meant to be in that neighborhood at 4:00.
It was Sister Mars' birthday so we ate dinner with them and their family that night and then did some weekly planning. Oh, AND Sister Golightly...Maggie as she's known in the real world...was driving by Ravenna on her way back to UTAH for school and she totally stopped in to see us for a few minutes. Love love love her! She's wonderful.
Saturday we were at the Johnson Home. We took a super cute family on tour! Also, the Barnes called us that morning and invited us to dinner with them soooo we went! Allie had just gotten there about 45 minutes before us and we could tell she was upset. Apparently she got into an argument with her dad, who she says is close-minded. He kicked her and her 2 sons (Derrik, who's 2 and Zander, who's 2 months) out of the house. THE POOR THING! But she loves the scriptures and the gospel and is excited to come to church next week. (She had to work yesterday).
But guess who did come to church, BRIANNE BARNES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sister McAlister and I started working with the Barnes family my first transfer....so it's been a little while! It was SO good to see her there! And, she not only brought Hailey and Kelly, but she brought Allie's boys too. And Allie is temporarily moving in with them so she techincally now lives in our area so we are good to teach her! I know she's going to get baptized. She's incredible.
Yesterday was great! We had 3 investigators at church!!!!! Hoorayyyyyy. That was the first time anyone's come to church since Sister Scott got here. Oh my gosh, and Brother Fortson passed the sacrament for the first time!!!!! It was precious! I felt like such a proud mother! After church, we went by to see Denzel but we met his wife Octavia who said they were just leaving for a baptism but they would give us a call. I hope they really do and that wasn't just a "sure....we'll call you....." type of thing. They seem really nice, and again, I'm positive that we met them for a reason.
Then we saw the Kainrads (who were at church!) and we ate with Sister Morgan and Paul. At 5:30, we carpooled up to Kirtland for the fireside with Brother & Sister VanDyne, Haja, Brother Fortson, Brother Sherbaugh & Sister Morgan and Paul. The fireside was PACKED! They had to pull in chairs to the theater and there was still a bunch of men standing along the side. It was really good though.
I got to see Sister McAlister because she sang at it...that was wonderful! I just love her so much!!! I also saw the Gervasi girls and the Kerrs, from the Mayfield ward! That was way fun! :) Time in Kirtland = always a good time. Then we came home and were invited by our district leader to have companionship inventory with the Kent sisters to clear all contention...well, contention came up between me and my companion during our planning session before then so that was lovely. I have never met anyone like Sister Scott. Needless to say, I'm learning alot about communication and I know that I need to open up more when I'm feeling frustration. Our inventory with the other sisters was very positive and we've set goals to become more united and to have our home a place where we want to be.
Oh my loves, the joys of learning and growing and being stretched. It's difficult, it really is. But this morning as I was studying I had a really good thought. Allow me to share it with you? :) In the end of Matthew 14, Jesus walks on the water and Peter gets out of the ship to walk to Jesus. As long as he's focused on Christ, he's able to walk and to get closer to Him. When he starts focusing on the storm going on around him, he begins to sink. My life right now is kind of like a stormy sea. Sometimes it's calm and then it's crazy and the waves are high and turbulent and mean but as long as I keep my focus and my vision centered on Jesus Christ, I will be able to make it through the storm. He will guide you through your storms too. Make Him the CENTER of all that you do and you can't go wrong.
I love you so much!
Sister Webb
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