Monday, September 22, 2014

September 15, 2014

Dear Family and Friends :)
      I love all of you so much, just want you to know that :) 
      This week has been great! Every week is great though. To start off I will tell you all about zone conference, and well it was amazing! We went to Helena for it and I learned so much. We were in break out groups pretty much the whole time. We walked into the group we were assigned (Sister Harwood and I), I walked in and guess who was in that group! Elder Gordy! (Randy) from my last area. It was so cool to hear his comments and just the way he was as a missionary, he is doing good work. He had 2 baptisms last week in Great Falls where he is. He is really dedicated to the Lords work and doing everything he can. It was a tender mercy to see how he was doing because I was kinda struggling with Bozeman, like it seems like everyone we teach is not in our ward, or is moving to another ward and we have been having a hard time finding people who want to learn and progress in the gospel, there are a lot of less actives but they just want us to come over an hang out and they don't want missionaries they want friends who will not push them. So I just was struggling, but seeing Elder Gordy, just reminded me of Billings and that miracles happened there and they will happen here too. Plus Zone conference was just amazing. The first break out group we were in was all about finding and how we can find and it just really motivated me to find people, cause that is like the hardest part of missionary work, but without it missionary work could not happen. The other break out groups were awesome also. I was able to see a lot of missionaries that I used to work around so that was awesome!
      So last week I think I wrote about the Pino's, well they are still awesome! We had a stake potluck this week, and we could not get a hold of them so we wrote them a note on a flyer and left it on their door. We totally did not think that they would come, but they did! Lisa is so cute she brought some banana bread for it. I walked with her to get a knife so she could cut it up. She gave me one of the sweetest compliments of my life. She stopped me while we were walking and said "I want to tell you that after you left on Sunday, Roy and I were talking and we both feel the spirit so strong with you, not with the man (our member present) and not with the other sister, but with you. (I know they felt it with them too) Roy is very sensitive to the spirit and I am too and you had it, very strong." Oh my goodness how sweet of them. I am happy they could feel that I have the spirit through me, it just gave me some hope that I am doing a good job, even though I have been struggling a little just hoping that I am doing a good job and It was so sweet to have them say that it was another tender mercy :) We had them meet so many people at the potluck, there is no way they did not feel loved haha. Roy knew a lot of people actually and it was really awesome! Lisa was talking about her church but she said "our church was...is" bahahaha so she is considering the gospel which is so cool.
      Yesterday we had our 2nd official meeting with Roy and Lisa and we were able to teach the restoration to them. The restoration is so powerful I love teaching it because the spirit that comes with it. Especially when Sister Harwood shared the first vision! So powerful, and they felt it, we asked them how they felt and Lisa did not know what to say, but Roy just started expressing this peace. It was so amazing. I was able to invite Lisa to be baptized, and she has to really think about things so we invited her to pray about it. It was really neat because after the lesson instead of having a ton of questions which she usually does, she just talked about how she loves this gospel because we believe God loves all of his children, that he came to the Americas as well because he was not going to leave anyone out. This is also one of my favorite aspects of the gospel. That we have the Book of Mormon, that is evidence that God loves all of his children and he is doing everything he can to make sure we return to him. I know that this is true, that God understands us completely and that he can and will help us, no matter where or what has happened in out lives ,or what choices we make. He will and does help us, we have to let him though. God loves us. I just love Lisa and Roy :)
        Zack is just awesome also! We taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ and he loved it.  It made sense to him. We invited him to be baptized and to set a goal date. He went home to Billings this weekend and while there he met with the missionaries in that ward and went to the temple grounds! How awesome is that! He is so awesome! I am so happy for him and for his wife, in a little over a year they can and will be sealed in the temple :)
         Ok now to the funny story. So we met this guy named John, I wrote about him last week. Well we went back over this week and brought Amber, a young women in our ward. Well we are at his house talking to him and his mom and it was awesome, then he says "I am going in to the game room" So we follow him and while in the game room he tells us "let's play pool" and then he turns on Ed Sheeran..I think that is his name. So like good music from back at home. So we are trying to not focus on the music and how are we supposed to have a serious lesson with pool and music. So we start half playing..not really though.  Sister Harwood and I just start trying to turn it to the gospel right away. And luckily it works and we end up just standing and talking about the gospel, however he then pulls out his phone and starts reading off all this anti stuff he found and asking these questions and saying stuff like "The Book of Mormon doesn't even talk about what you believe, it doesn't teach the doctrine you believe, your own bible doesn't teach what you teach." He has all these crazy comments and questions and did not really want to hear what we had to say. We tried our best to listen and to help him understand and not to argue. But we just felt so bad for Amber, like what a weird lesson, he has music and tries to get us to play pool and then argues with us. I just felt so bad for her. We were so concerned this whole week and yesterday her mom said "She loved it and wants to go again" and we were like "huh?" haha but apparently she loved how we talked with him and how it was. Thank heavens she loved it haha cause we were so worried.
        Well anyways I love all of you I hope you have a wonderful week :)
             -Love Andrea
 ps. keep Austin in your prayers, (the phone investigator), he is struggling and doesn't know if he wants to keep learning. I don't know what happened. He is awesome. Pray that he receive answers to his prayers.

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