November 17, 2014
Cheyenne, WY
Forgot to tell you my favorite line from the Primary Program last week!
Carter, a 5 year old little boy, got up to the microphone and said loud and
clear, "Jesus Christ was crucified and I will be too!" Oh my! Who knew that
was part of the deal? After the gasps of his primary teachers he corrected
himself, "Jesus Christ was resurrected and I will be too!" Phew! That was a
close one ;)
We got to stop by and visit a family in the ward who we haven't met before
and they are instant favorites! They have two little kids, Walter and Alice,
who are almost 4 and almost 2, respectively. Walter is a little sweetheart.
His mom asked him, what you do at the castle (temple) and he responded
enthusiastically, "You take your princess there!" then he turned and looked at
me and said, "You're a princess!" Oh the cuteness ;) He knows he is a prince
too ;)
You know, as missionaries we normally only tell the really good stories,
but we had a lesson this week that went horribly. About 10 minutes into it I
just wanted to leave. The Spirit wasn't really there, he just wanted to contend
every point that we brought up, nicely of course, but there was so much
confusion going on that it almost hurt. There was no way we were going to have
another appointment with him. After praying desperately for something to say,
there was one little pinprick of inspiration, "What are you hoping to get out of
reading the Book of Mormon?" (he is reading it, almost through the first two
books of it actually). Well he wants to know if it aligns with the Bible,
though if it does then he sees no purpose for it, and if it doesn't then why
should he trust it? These are things we have heard before. But then there was
another little spot of light. He said, "If it is the same, I would be very
curious as to why our churches are so different." There it was. That one
inspired question allowed the Spirit back in to chase away the darkness in the
room and illuminate the tiny change of heart which is taking place. It is small
for now, but he is beginning to have real intent to know for himself. We
will go back again and do what we can to help that tiny seed of faith to
grow.
See? Missionaries only tell the good stories, I only told you about it
because it ended up being a really good one! But it was hard. Not only that
day, but in previous days there has been a lot of things going in to that tiny
little ray of sunshine. We tell the cool stories, but there is always such a
long preface that hardly ever do we bother to read it ;)
Lots of driving this week. We had MLC down in Fort Collins at the Trilby
building which is right across from the temple! So great! Another one of those
times when I am glad traffic wasn't bad, because when I saw the spire appear
over the houses I was so excited that it was kind of distracting ;) We had
dinner before the meeting, since it was in the evening this time, and Elder
Baxter sat right next to me! You know, he and his wife are really wonderful
people, with fun accents, but they are also very normal. I like that about
them. We received phenomenal training on Christlike leadership, from each
other, President Brown, and Elder Baxter. Another cool thing, Elder Baxter
isn't worried about having other people pipe in or learning even from 20ish year
old Elders and Sisters. He said the closing prayer and that was an experience
to remember.
The next day, we have a mission tour conference with Elder Baxter up here
in Cheyenne. Before the meeting began he asked to shake hands with everyone,
and asked that we all tell him our name, where we are from, and how long we have
been out. None of this sill 'a little over/under a year' stuff he said. I have
been using that, so I actually had to count months ;) Turns out, that was the
day of my 15 month mark! Good reminder though, that means it is time to write
to Sister Clark again, seems like I just did that....
Directly after the conference we began an exchange with the Wheatland
sisters (last one of the transfer, yay!). I went up there with Sister Cardon
and we had a really wonderful evening. Actually, I got to meet the mom of a
sister in our ward who (the mom) has recently started taking the lessons! The
next morning someone told us that the freeway down to Cheyenne was
closed....luckily it opened again by the afternoon when we exchanged back!
Apparently they sometimes have to close the freeway for wind. Yeah,
crazy.
Because of exchanges, I missed the lesson with P____, but he didn't miss
it! Sounds like it went super duper well. He told the sisters that the night
we met him, he and his friends had just been talking about religion and God and
stuff, and then up walk these two Mormon missionaries out of the dark :) Gotta
love that!
Have a superb week, and some blue TMFWD
love, Sister Emily DeFord
p.s. Our Christmas devotional will be December 9,10, or 11 and we will be
able to get packages there which have been received at the office before then,
or they will forward things on as quickly as they can. Note: only USPS packages
can be forwarded. Also, mom remember transfers are this coming week and I may
be moving, and mail seems to take longer than expected sometimes.
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