May 19, 2014

This week I passed my 16 month mark. I cannot even believe that 16 months have gone by! It seriously feels like I just got here. Gracious. We had a lot of ups and downs this week. It seems like everything went by in one giant blur.

We went strawberry picking on Monday! That was really fun. A member of our ward came with us. I've never picked fresh berries before, but it was just as fun as it sounds. We're actually going again today, that's how much we loved it. The strawberries were pretty cheap, and they also had fresh potatoes, like they had literally just dug them out of the ground. We made sweet potato pancakes this week, and that was delicious.

On Tuesday, most of our appointments cancelled. I get so frustrated when people won't make time for the gospel! If only they understood what truly incredible blessings they are letting pass them by. I wish I could help them understand! It's so hard to stand on the doorstep and know someone is inside, but they won't come to the door. I think a lot of the scripture where Christ says that He stands at the door and knocks, but you can't have the blessings unless you open the door and let Him in.

We did some service for Rose, this little less active lady we visit with. We got stuck in traffic because of construction for 45 minutes, so we didn't have a lot of time by the time we finally got there, but we did what we could to help her in her yard. She had this gardenia bush that was completely overtaken by ivy. We made some corny gospel analogies comparing the ivy to sin and the bush to our investigators as we worked really hard to take the ivy off. We couldn't get very much off, so she'll probably have to kill the bush. We laughed, grateful that people have agency and can choose to change, while bushes cannot.

We had a great lesson with Paris, this new investigator we found on Sunday. Her brother was a member and she met with missionaries when they were trying to reactivate him. He recently passed away, and she moved to our city last week. Sister Landon came with us to the lesson, and she shared her conversion story. It was perfect. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and Paris agreed to read it and pray about it. We're pretty sure she already has a testimony, she just doesn't know it yet.

We had an awesome lesson with the Rich family. I love these kids a lot. I don't think I've written about them in a while because we haven't seen them in like a month. They're the ones where we got the car stuck in their front yard. Anyways, they want us to teach their 7 year old son the lessons before he gets baptized in October. So this week we taught him the Restoration. It was really amazing to watch the Spirit work on the parents while we taught the kids. You could see it on their faces - they were remembering the testimonies they used to have.

More appointments cancelled on Thursday, and I was starting to feel a little discouraged. Then we went contacting in a trailer park that's pretty far north of town and we found this new family! We made an appointment with them for Saturday. We had a lesson with Cynthia that evening. She told us that she had really felt the Spirit at church and she would definitely be coming again. She had been reading the Book of Mormon every day which is just amazing! She also told us that she couldn't stop thinking about the Restoration DVD. We told her that maybe God was trying to tell her something. She decided to watch it again and in the closing prayer she asked Heavenly Father to tell her whether or not the Church was true because she really needed to know, she couldn't wonder anymore. That was amazing!

On Friday, Elder and Sister Steffler went with us to lunch in Fountain, which is really far away. On the way home we stopped to see Jane, this less active we've been working with for a while. She's been trying to go to the temple for three years, but she is struggling to pay her tithing and to stop smoking. We had planned to be really bold about obedience, but the Spirit guided us to change our lesson and we talked about how much God loved her. We promised her that she could live the commandments and she agreed to meet with the Bishop to start making changes in her life. YES! I love, LOVE watching the Spirit touch people's hearts and seeing the gospel change them. That's probably what I'm going to miss the most.

So on Saturday we went back to teach that family. The mom's name is Shanae. She just moved in with her sister, so there are two single moms, who each have 5 kids....making 10 kids, 2 adults, living in a double wide trailer. They were incredible. 6 of the kids sat and listened to the entire Restoration lesson. They all agreed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was really strong. I was really impressed with their faith and hope they will keep meeting with us! I want them to have an eternal family. At the end of the lesson, the kids taught us how to shout, something they do in Baptist churches to praise the Lord. That was an interesting experience.

Anyways, there's a little bit from Greenville! Have a great week!

With love,

Sister Jasperson