Hey everyone!
First of all, and most importantly: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! I LOVE YOU! Also, Happy Mother's Day to all of you wonderful women! I hope it was a great one! Special Mother's Day Shout out to Grandma, Oma, Danyel, Mom, and my beautiful aunts!
Well, Sunday was the first day it rained. Can you believe it? Yep, me either. Quite frankly, I'm not even sure I'm even in Oregon at all. I think I'm just in Northern California. Who knows. Ha.
I love it here. It was nothing like I thought it would be - but is everything I need it to be. Our ward is amazing, and I LOVE the members. They do so much for us. We have three progressing investigators and quite a few potentials and other investigators that we are working on. We spend a lot of our time with less-actives and part member families.
Right now, we have amazing investigators. They are amazing! I love them so much. One investigator could be a member tomorrow if he wanted to, but he wants to read more of the Book of Mormon first, so that will take time. Another is extremely religious, and he is taking some time too. I'm glad they are both taking this seriously. They each have family members, who know very little about the doctrines - they were each baptized before they were ready, which is only making it more difficult for them now. But all of our investigators are so sweet, and I love them so much. We also have an investigator who is a widow, and part native-american. She is very funny! Her granddaughter recently joined the church, thus she is getting interested. I'm pretty sure she considers herself part of the RLDS faith. Hmmmm. But, good news is that she is going to come to church next Sunday. (She would have come yesterday, but it was Mother's Day and her kids took her out for the day) We had another investigator who dropped us this week- that was sad, but we hope she will change her mind someday. And our last investigator is really sick so we have a hard time working with his schedule between all of the doctor's appointments. I haven't even met him yet.
We meet with the a fun family every Monday night- they are recent converts, and I believe I mentioned them in my last email. I LOVE this family. Their girls are adorable. All other lessons/ meetings are with less actives, or families that need a friend.
My companionship is wonderful- we work really well together and we all love each other- at least, I hope they love me because I sure love them! ha! Though we are obviously far from perfect, I feel we do very well at showing our investigators how much we love them. We really do love them! It is such an amazing thing to watch people want to change their lives because of Jesus Christ. If I'm being honest, up until Saturday night, I cried in every lesson we gave. Yep. I'll never admit that again - but it's the truth! I love teaching, because it reminds me why I'm here. When we taught the Plan of Salvation- twice this last week, I was overwhelmed by the idea that we are so blessed to know God's plan! It is a perfect plan. I love watching my investigators while we teach them because they want to be with their families forever, and that is exactly what God is offering them! I know that the gospel is true - for a lot of reasons, really, but especially because NOTHING else makes sense. Think about it! Also, our investigators always bring up how wicked the world is, and how devastating it is to see so much tragedy today. The only thing I knew to do was bear testimony that because our world is so wicked, it would not make sense to be left without revelation from Heavenly Father. We need a prophet, now, today, more than ever before! And I know that Thomas S. Monson is that prophet! God speaks to us today. We are so blessed.
Well, right now I am reading the Doctrine and Covenants. I love reading it as a missionary, because I never realized how focused it was on missionary work! Otimo!
Speaking of Portuguese... it is really hard to study a different language on my own - especially without my Rosetta Stone. Nevertheless, I'm doing my best. Last night we ate at a member's house. The father served in Salvador, Brazil and he told me a lot about Brazil. It was really cool. Also, there is a young man in my ward who recently returned home from Brasilia. He had some pretty cool culture books that he let me see when I was at his house the other day- that was cool too. I love talking to people here who have some connection with Brazil - it makes me so excited to go there someday. But, don't worry folks, I love Oregon too! I feel so lucky to have an opportunity to serve it both missions.
Yesterday, being Mother's day, was hard to find people who wanted us to come over. So, we got creative. We heart- attacked our investigators and some women in our ward for Mother's Day. It was really fun, and I will send home pics soon (whenever Sis. Omer sends them to me) The only problem was that somehow everyone still knew it was us! How?? Hahaha
Well, I hope you have a wondeful week, as always! I love you all.
Love,
Sister Seal
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