August announced its arrival by raining pretty much every day this week! :) Thankfully, it only rained once while we were out on our bikes. It's been another awesome week! We started teaching Janelle, who is Melissa's granddaughter and Nicola's daughter. Janelle just graduated from high school and is starting college soon to study nursing and plans to become a pediatrician. She's awesome! At our first lesson with her, she said, "So my whole life, I've had feelings about people that tell me if someone's a good person or if they're a bad person and I should stay away from them. And it's always been right. Right now, I have really good feelings, like I'm all warm inside, and that's because you guys are here. So I've asked a lot of people about these feelings I get, but what do you guys think it is?" We taught her about the Holy Ghost and that one of his roles is to help us discern right from wrong and to testify of truth. We showed her Galatians 5:23 that teaches us how the Spirit feels, and she loved that! She said what we were teaching her felt true, and that she's never felt the way she was feeling before. It was such a sweet lesson and the spirit was so strong there!
Our second lesson with her was the Restoration, which answered her question of what makes The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints different from all other Christian churches. She said it made so much sense, and she said that she feels like what we teach fits how she thinks. We asked her what she was going to do about what she had just learned, and she said, "Well I guess I have to go to church, huh?" :) Yes, Janelle! She's so awesome! Another person we've started teaching because of Roy!
Sarah our new investigator from two weeks ago said that her son Sammy had pneumonia, :( so we cancelled our lesson for that. The next day he was doing better, but she understandably cancelled again so she could focus on helping him. Sister Stephens and I had the thought that we should take them cupcakes, which are Sammy's favorite dessert. Also, Tess Nystrom was having a rough week, and so was Jake Green. So during our dinner hour, we made funfetti cupcakes for Sammy and chocolate chip cookies for Tess and Jake. On our way to an appointment, we took the cupcakes to Sarah and Sammy. They were so happy! Sammy's face lit up when he saw them and said, "birthday cakes!" :) Sarah said we didn't understand how much that meant to her. It made me so happy to see how something so simple like making cupcakes made their night.
On Friday, all the Fort Walton missionaries- us, the 1st ward sisters, the English elders, and the Spanish elders- raked up leaves at the Stevens' home. Whenever we do service for others, my love for them increases so much. It's awesome!
On Saturday, the English elders had a baptismal service planned for two of their investigators, which was awesome! But when we went into the church, we were told that a water pipe had broken and water to the church had been shut off, and would probably take two weeks to fix. The poor elders had to cancel their baptism! Elder Simpson looked absolutely crestfallen- he was set to go home on Wednesday as it's the end of his mission. They talked about doing the baptism in someone's pool, or maybe in Niceville on Sunday. But- miracles happen! We got a text the next morning that said the pipe had already been fixed and that the baptism was to take place at 5! Yayayayyyyy! Prayers are answered! Both baptisms took place and everything went super well!
This week I've learned about the importance of having a positive attitude and finding joy in recognizing how much God blesses us, even when things don't always work out. Sister Stephens and I had lot of appointments fall through this week, and we made some mistakes, like losing track of our apartment keys and not always feeling like we said the right things. But despite all that, we've tried to do our best and stay positive. And I've experienced a lot of joy this week! As long as we repent and strive to do better every day, God will make up for where we are lacking.
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