The One Where We Finally Have A Progressing Investigator!

January 16, 2017

Time lapse of our district playing spoons!

We had a really fun day last Monday. We drove down to new Brighton and hung out with our district and played games. We played indoor soccer which was really fun and then we played ultimate spoons. It was super fun.

Then we had dinner with Cheryl Jones. I love that woman so much. She had us over and when it came time to share a message we showed her the video shower of heavenly blessings and she got really quite and then shared with us some really personal struggles she's been having. I have to admit I was a little nervous because I knew that how we responded meant a great deal and so I said a quick prayer that we would be guided by the spirit. Sister Ching was amazing and bore a strong testimony about the importance of continuing to do the basics when it feels like you have nothing to hold on too. When all else fails Christ and his gospel won't. I am so grateful she had us over and trusted us enough to share with us. 

When you look out the window and it's snowing, AGAIN!

Tuesday it snowed A LOT. We were told that the roads were VERY slick and to not use our cars if we weren't comfortable driving out in the snow. As I've said before I've graduated from a not very good to average driver in the snow but the wind was blowing super hard picking up all the snow and blowing it around it was still coming down so we decided not to die in the snow and stay in our apartment until it calmed down. We found the board game clue in our apartment so we played a couple rounds of that and went through a bunch of the papers and things I've collected over my mission. I realized I've been carrying a lot of junk around with me for no reason We ended up with 6-8 inches of snow!

Feed my starving children was fun again this week. We had an entire 6th grade class from a middle school volunteering that day. It was so funny they were playing Katy Perry over the speakers and all the kids were yelling and signing along to it. It was funny to watch hahaha. 

On Thursday we finally got to teach. We've had a really difficult time with finding people who will actually take a second and talk to us before rejecting us so it was like a breath of fresh air to actually get to teach. We met a guy named Adebauyo who pose from Nigeria and he let us in and we taught a quick restoration and invited him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Then we went over and saw Vison again. He was a media referral who wanted a bible but when we met him all we had was a Book of Mormon. We went over again to give him a bible and he let us in and he said he had read a little of the restoration pamphlet that we'd given him. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and testified of it. The spirit was so strong and Vison just shines with the light of Christ he's so amazing. He said he wanted to come to church with his wife Massa, and we committed him to read the restoration pamphlet and the Book of Mormon. We set up an appointment with him for this week so cross your fingers that things go as great as they seem!

Friday we had Interviews with our mission president at the institute building by the university of Minnesota campus. That was fun I always love getting to talk with president Forbes and being round other missionaries. We were all together for a couple of hours and during our lunch hour I played Sister Brett at ping pong . It was super fun. At one point as Sister Brett and I were dueling it out I looked over and elder Nelson was playing the piano, elder Chen/ Sister Ching/ Sister Woo were all speaking Chinese together and Sister Forbes was walking around face timing with missionaries that had already gone home. I don't know why but it was just one of those moments that your hearts full, everyone's happy, and you just feel like a family where everyone knows their place. 

Later that day we had another cool miracle. We went and stopped by Hallie Xiong. The teenage girl we were able to teach last week because she hadn't been responding to her texts. Her mom Pang answered and she said Hallie was sleeping but we talked with her for a few minutes and gave her our card and invited her and her family to come to church and she asked a few questions about it and then said "we'll definitely talk about it, we've actually been looking for a church". Internally I was thinking... WHAT!? AND YOU DIDN'T TELL US THIS EARLIER PANG! WE CAN HELP YOU WITH THAT! It was one of those moments when you walk out and think did that really just happen? 

Apparently you guys are getting the miracle highlight reel hahaha. I would say that the definite tender mercy of this area so far is that although it been tough finding people who want to listen or who won't reject us we are able to see God working in giving these people the chance to make the choice to listen or not. Whether it's being able to get inside a lock out apartment or someone coming home right when we are knocking on the door. This Miracle happened while Sister Ching and I were apartment tracting. We hadn't planned to be tracting that night but we weren't doing too hot on miles B/c we had to drive to Minneapolis for our interviews so Sister Ching suggested we tract out the apartment to save miles. We prayed about it and both felt the prompting to go ahead and start knocking on doors so that's what we did. We were knocking the last door on the second floor and a lady answered. We launched into our usual schpeal of who we are and what we were doing and the lady goes "I have heard of your church before, I'm actually a member". We tracted into a less active lady and she said that we could come back another time for hot chocolate and a Book of Mormon study! MIRACLES

Sundays miracle... VISON AND MASSA CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhh!!!!!! We now have a legit progressing investigator!!!! We are so excited for him!

Love you all!

Spiritual Thought of the Week:

"To me the greatest miracles in life are not the parting of the Red Sea, the moving of mountains, or even the healing of the body. The greatest miracle happens when we humbly approach our father in Heaven in prayer, fervently plead to be forgiven, and then are cleansed of those sins through the atoning sacrifice of our savior". (The great plan of redemption, Linda S. Reeves, Oct. 2016, General Conference). I came across his quote this week while studying. I have recently been reading the Old Testament where very large miracles like the ones she mentions happens quite often, but I love that while those miracles are very impressive the more important ones are the ones that happen within us. Which reminds me of a quote President Utchdorf used in his last conference talk..."Anything essential is invisible to the eye". 

Sister Richardson