Missionary Maren: 4/13-4/19

Hello Hello!

What a week!!!!

Monday-- We had interviews with President Wilson and it went really well! I have a feeling I might be getting transferred... :( We shall see this weekend what the calls are!

We then had a lesson at the Bragdon's! The new family we found! The mom is already a member and her kids were all busy besides Michael, so we taught him the Restoration and it went so well! We just love their family! Hopefully this week we will be able to teach all of them.

Tuesday-- We contacted Sylvia, a referral from the Rawlins! She works at Ben Franklin and we didn't hear back from her when we left her a message on her phone, so we just went in there and talked to her and she was great! We set up an appointment for later that week.

Then for lunch Robert Miller and his brother Gari took us to lunch at Schat's Roadhouse BBQ! :) It was so awesome to see him and talk to him more about his conversion story. His brother isn't a member so it was an awesome missionary opportunity for Robert to share how he felt and what he knows! :) It was probably the funniest thing to see us two blondies sitting across from those two big gruff men. Haha loved it!

Then we painted the fiesty old ladies' nails at the care center for service! It is always so entertaining going there. We then had dinner with the Smith's and we shared a message from the Book of Mormon about Enos, and it was totally led by the spirit! We then asked Paige (their 15 year old daughter) if we could start teaching her the lessons! She was super excited actually and said yes! She basically doesn't know any of the doctrine, so she was way curious. Brother and Sister Smith then began to relay all of the things that they didn't believe and that they had heard or read (lots and lots of anti material...) and it became super intense.. but all in all, we are still going over this week for dinner and a lesson again! Pray for us!

Wednesday-- We volunteered at City Hall and then helped Bob Shay write his first talk for Sunday!!! He is so hilarious I just love him to death hahaha.

Then we had a lesson with Chris.. he is struggling, but by the end of the lesson we had gotten it through to him that the Book of Mormon was the most important book that he would ever read in his life and that he really needed to read it seriously to find out if it was true and how it could bless his life. He committed to do that and when we checked with him the following day, he had read like 20 chapters in it! Woohoo! :) Go Chris!

Then we had the best dinner ever at Sister Huntley's! She is literally the best cook ever! The Daniels were there! Oh how I love Brother Daniels, he just cracks me up and just needs to join the church. He has such a strong testimony but just is holding himself back. Miracles will happen!

Then we helped with mutual night! It was good, but there was lots of miscommunication with everything so it was kind frustrating.

Thursday-- We helped Bob with his talk a little bit more and then went up to visit Bob Lujan and he was home but sick, so we didn't talk too much. He is just struggling with finding a balance with work and life so if you could also pray for him that would be amazing and super helpful.

We had dinner with Sister McLaughlin, and I just love her :)

Then we went to Farley's baptism! It is a man who the elders in Mammoth have been teaching. He just showed up at church one day and now he is getting baptized! He is the cutest little man, it was the best! We sang "Lord, I Would Follow Thee" at it and it went well... I definitely need more practice haha.

Friday-- We had a weird afternoon with lots of cancellations but we were trying our best to follow the Spirit. We were in this neighborhood that we knew a less active family lived in but couldn't find their house, so we prayed to find it and be able to talk to them and then set off to find their address! We had heard from previous missionaries and ward members that this family wasn't interested at all.. but we felt like we needed to go see them. We walked down this private drive where there are lots of beautiful houses and really amazing yards and finally found the house! We knocked on the door and the kids got their mom and then the mom was like "Oh geez, you have bird poop on your shirt Jen!" (to the little daughter) and then we started talking about the bird they have and they totally invited us in to see the bird. We then proceeded to talk to this AWESOME mom and kids about their amazing family and how they joined the church for the next hour! So super cool---- this family was the Schat family!!! :) The mom is a member and her in law's own the Schat's Bakkery here, and then they own the Schat's Roadhouse! We had seen the daughter working their just days before, so it was a really good visit and not weird at all! They have 11 kids together and like 7 of them are at home right now. We invited them to come to our Meet the Mormons movie night we are having at the church this coming Friday and they said that they would want to come! So hopefully we can for sure get them to come :) MIRACLES!

That evening we had a lesson planned with Andrew and his mom, but Andrew's dad had taken him to play baseball so he wasn't there. :( Please, please, please say some prayers for the Steedle family. The dad is kind of keeping Andrew from being excited about baptism.. and things aren't looking as great as they were. We fasted yesterday for their family, and we have faith that Andrew will continue to have a desire to be baptized!

Saturday-- We helped the Bragdon's make treats for a fundraiser thing and that was good! They are so great! :)

Then we contacted a referral from the elders. Her name is Perla and she is a single mom with three young girls! Her daughter wanted a Bible and so they requested a Bible from off of Mormon.org when they got a card from the elders! It was awesome! We shared the Restoration with them and invited them to be baptized if they knew this was the true and living gospel of Jesus Christ! They accepted! So we are shooting for the end of June. Happy Day!

Then we went to Sister Spencer's to help finish a poster for the Meet the Mormon's night. She ended up finishing it on Sunday and it looks AWESOME! She's amazing! We went to Sylvia's for our appointment.. but she wasn't there.. we were super sad and disappointed and confused because she was so solid. We decided we would just go back the next day sometime to check and make sure everything was alright with her.

That night we went to a lesson at the Romero's that went so well! Liea did their FHE lesson and it was on scriptures and we watched this awesome cool video about it! Then we went and played volleyball with everyone and 50 people came!! It was so crazy! But so awesome! so many families were there! Mostly families that the elders are working with, but it was awesome! I'll attach some pictures. Some boys who came, came in big sombreros so it was hilarious haha! Don't worry we got some great pictures of them with the Romero's. :)

Sunday-- No one came to church, but all of the meetings went well! After church Sister Luddington really felt like we needed to see Sylvia before going home, so we did and the Lord has the perfect timing! She wasn't home the day before because she had taken her dog to go get cremated... Her dog had died and she lives alone so it was so devastating for her. We comforted her and told her that all dogs go to heaven. I felt kind of silly testifying of that at the beginning, but as we followed the Spirit, it is exactly what she needed to hear! She had told us that other church's don't believe that we will see our dogs after this life and she didn't think that was true. Anyways, we shared the Book of Mormon with her and it was an awesome first lesson! We are going back this week :) She is so great!

That night we went over to Mitch and Angie's for a lesson and we weren't sure what they needed for the lesson so we just went by the spirit and we were able to talk more about Meet the Mormons night and then they started calling all of their friends when we were sitting there with them to invite them to the movie! It was the best thing ever! They are so excited about sharing this gospel! It was seriously the coolest experience ever. Now we have some appointments tonight with Angie to go visit her friends! :) So great!

This gospel is amazing! I love it so much and so grateful I'm able to share it with everyone I meet!

I love you all and so grateful for all of your prayers and support!

Hope everyone has an amazing week!

Love always,

Sister Loar

xoxo