Nearly 8 Months! 11/19/12

Hey there!

 Thank you so much for the emails! It's crazy that I've been out so long and yet I still miss you all so much!  But this week has been really good.  We got 3 more new investigators so that is 6 within the past two weeks!  Woot woot!  Some have more potential than others, but I am still excited all the same.  I am most excited about a girl named Zoe Hart.  She became an investigator last week, but on Tuesday we went to her house and taught her and her partner about the restoration.  Richard had to go talk to someone at the door part way through so he missed the Joseph Smith story and Book of Mormon, but hopefully Zoe will have talked to him and we can teach him more later.  Zoe still says that she will never convert, but is just open to ideas.  But when we taught her on Tues. I could tell that she was really listening and that the Spirit was touching her.  She didn't set up a specific return appointment, but we are welcome any time.  And she just lives down the road from us, which is even better. And they have a car (:

Yeah, nearly all of the investigators I have taught thus far on the mission only are interested for 1 or 2 lessons.  We'll teach them and sometimes they are really excited and other times they just think it was a nice visit.  But then they typically cancel the next visit or they stop answering our calls and are never in when we go by.  It is tough to help them to progress. Sometimes I really don't like that other people have agency, but they do so we must respect that and do our best.   I think Satan must know how special our message is and he gets to them and other people get to them as well.  I've only taught a 4th lesson twice, to be honest.  One was to Aled, who came to church this Sunday!  He is so logically and intelluctually minded that church looses his interest because he's been taught nearly everything already.  He's a different kind of guy, but still good and I still feel that it was right to baptize him despite his Asbergers and lack of ability to feel the Spirit.  We're really working to get him to start coming to institiute now.  And a few returned missionaries in the ward are really good to help us with him - sit with him in church and talk to him and such.

 We contacted one of the referrals - Zoe Fitzgibbon.  She's an 18 yr old who knows a member girl from school and she had some questions.  Her mum is a hard core vegan and we had a fun time talking to them.  We shared a BOM with Zoe and even though she is really busy with work and school, we'll keep trying by her house some more to see what she feels.   The other referral we tried calling and some lady answered the phone and said she didn't know the person we were trying to contact.  There wasn't a full address either in the text we received, but we will go do some finding this week around the postcode.   But we did receive a 3rd referral from Head Quarters!  She was actually referred back in June, but we could never contact her.  And the text we got still doesn't give us much info to contact her by, but we'll try our best and hopefully we'll be able to meet up with her soon.

 Thanksgiving is not a big deal here at all.  Imagine that! Ha ha!  But I was able to get the ward to sing a Thanksgiving song on Sunday.  Most people didn't know it (For the Beauty of the Earth), but I did and I was thankful. Ha ha! I really love Thanksgiving because it makes me think of all the blessings in my life.  I have been really trying the past few weeks to think of things I am grateful for and to show gratitude.  I have been keeping a gratitude journal, which has been fun.  The Hutchinsons are going to feed us on Thursday and I have no clue what they are planning to do.  I wrote on the dinner Calendar that it is Thanksgiving, so we'll see.  But either way, I'll be grateful for all of the fun Thanksgivings I have spent in Kanab or Page and all the good food you will be eating.  Ha ha!  They don't even sell canned pumpkin here!  I found a recipe in the flat for pumpkin pie filling so I think one of the previous missionaries attempted to make a pie once.  I'll just wait till next to year to have one (:

 On this past Saturday I went to my first party where alcohol was served and people got drunk! Ha ha!  A less-active and her partner, Marc, invited us over for Marc's 60th B-day party.  He's really good on the guitar and can play all sorts of instruments, so I'm always talking to him about music.  They had a little stage set up where people could go play.  Marc teaches guitar so some of his students were there and played songs.  One fellow tried to get me to go up, but I didn't want to embarrass myself with the 4 chords I know. Ha ha!   But it turned out to be really good because there about 30 or so people there and we were able to just mingle and talk to people.  I met some really cool people and we got a return appointment with a couple.  So that's great!  It was a momentous event that I shall never forget. Ha ha!

Anyways, I love you and hope that you all have a most wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!