Friday, February 21, 2014

1/21/14

To My Dearest Family,
     Well another week has gone by.  This week was pretty interesting and lots of things happened.  My days keep getting jumbled together so I am sorry but it is so much easier to go day by day.  But first things first sorry to scare you for not writing you yesterday but it was the holiday so we didn't have the library to email in... but anyway 
     Tuesday- I was starting to get frustrated with the work a little bit here because I feel like the people we are teaching just need like EXTRA help and so I was praying so hard Monday night that the Lord would be able to help them and that other people and angels on the other side would be able to help me and them.  That night Matt came to me in my dream.  We were so happy to see each other and we hugged and laughed and just talked for a long time.  We talked about missionary work and the work that I was doing in Iowa.  I said Matt, "I need your help too."  He then told me "Mindy, I am helping you I know who your investigators are and I am working with you."  He went on to name personally all the people that we are working with.  I was woken up after the dream and it was still pretty early in the morning but I knew I needed to write it in my journal.  I am truly amazed how much the Lord and those on the other side are aware of us and our situations.  They are there to help us.  I know that Matt is helping me in my missionary work. He has told me and I feel his spirit and his love.  
      Friday- We decided to go knocking at these apartments called Bentley.  They are pretty sketchy not gonna lie.  We are banned from knocking on certain buildings there but we went to the safe ones.  We were freezing our butts off and no one was answering their doors so we were kind of just walking around in the parking lot trying to decide what we were going to do and this black guy kept seeing us because he had come and gone twice.  He got out of his car and asked us what we were doing in the cold outside and what our nametags were for and so we talked to him for probably 5 minutes.  He said he was too cold and needed to go inside but we asked if we could come back tomorrow.  He said Yes!  So happy....I guess that is what happens when you endure the freezing cold weather!
     Saturday- We met with Ben, the guy from the apartments.   He is from Liberia and is so awesome.   He read the pamphlet that we gave him the day before about Joseph Smith and he had lots of questions about him and about the Book of Mormon.  We had an awesome lesson with him and we answered his questions and we invited him to go to church with us the next day.  He promised he would!  YAY!!!  
    Sunday- Ben came to church!  To our surprise he stayed all 3 hours!  We were so happy!  Everything was started to click in his mind.  He grew up Christian and I think that he is realizing that the church is not so different than other churches and that it isn't taking away from his knowledge right now but just adding to it which is sooo nice!   We are excited about it and we also received some good referrals this week that we are anxious about and really excited for!
    Monday- MLK day!  We had a huge tri-zone activity.  This was the most adventurous day of my whole mission.  We had planned to pick up 2 sisters in our district from Mt. Vernon...it is about half hour away so we are about 5 miles away from their apartment and we are driving on the highway and as we come around this curve on the highway we see this rippling HUGE LONG silver "snake".  We had NO idea what it was!  We could tell we wanted to avoid it but it was windy and it was moving all across the highway and so we look ahead and this HUGE semi barrel rolled and broke the guard railing off the side of the highway and it is now in the middle of the road.  It was so long and so scary.  So because we were driving like 60 we couldn't stop fast enough not to hit it so we ran over the guard rail.  Then we paused and stopped and just stared and the semi was destroyed.  I would be very surprised if the driver made it out alive.  It was so scary.  Then we noticed that running over the rail caused the biggest hole in our tire ever so we had to change the tire.  2 sister missionaries and it being freezing outside, for our own sake someone was bound to help us....within 2 minutes of pulling over someone stopped and changed the tire for us.  Then we finally got to Mt. Vernon and the other sisters had to drive us.  But then we got to the acitivty and we played so many games and it was a blast and guess who was there???  SID PRATT!!!  IT was so much fun to see her!  Then to end the night the cars got grounded because there was so much snow and ice so the member we live with had to pick us up and our car still is in Mt. Vernon with a little donut as a tire!! MAN what a day!
      My companion SIster Roberts is the best!  I love her so much.  The members we live with are the best they are our second parents right now and we love spending time with them!!  My district is 4 sisters, 2 elders and 1 senior couple.  We see them once a week, but we see the elders more because we split the same ward because our area is MASSIVE.  It is super fun....elders are fun to work with but I do miss all the sisters from Temple Square but I am sooo happy to be here and to be given the opportunity to work with ward members and meet different missionaries.  Missionary work is honestly the best!  Tracting is hard because of how cold it is no one even wants to open the door because it lets in the cold air but it is good!  We are still somehow finding people to teach!  Thank you for the packages of warmer clothing!   I love them!  Thank you for your support!  I love you all so much!  

The church is true.
Sister Marsh

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