natalie ann: week 53: H A P P Y H A L L O W E E N 🎃

Monday, October 31st, 2016

Hiiii friends.

This week has been good! It flew by and I can't even really remember what we have done. Oh I hit my year mark on Friday! That was weird, I feel like I just came out. I have learned so much, ah. I can't imagine my life without my mission.

Monday we saw Zach and taught the plan of salvation. Holy cow it was such a struggle cause he was asking so many deep doctrine questions and when we answered them he would ask more so we barely got through our lesson haha. Jehovah witnesses have similar but very different beliefs. But we asked him at the trunk or treat on Wednesday and asked him if he was going to get married to channa and he said yes and we asked him when and he said probably this winter!! Yayayaa!! We need to focus on the Book of Mormon with him and feeling the Spirit.

Tuesday we had a lesson with Keith who just hit his year mark. He asks some really good questions, we talked about the atonement with him. We had lunch with Brother Duncan. He takes us and the YSA Elders every Tuesday to taco Tuesday. We then had a mini missionary with us for about 5 hours, her name is Loa, so that was fun. We had a lesson with Sister Bliss who is less-active. She is old and stubborn. She just needs a lot of love. We then had a good lesson with the Cuiriz family. We taught them the restoration. They don't know much about religion, only the mom does and she doesn't speak English super well. I mean she understands well but it's hard cause we can't communicate. It was cute cause before we left the little kids were already reading the Book of Mormon. They were so excited. But they all loved it and the Spirit was there.

Wednesday we saw Tewana and her sister Shenia. Tewana wants to get to the temple by the end of this year! Which is awesome! We are going to help her get her there and the ward as well. Her and her nonmember husband both came to the ward's trunk or treat that night too! We then had district meeting, woot woot. We found a less-active family named the Carters. They are ready to get back to church though. Her kids are adorable though. We then had our trunk or treat activity this week and that was a lot of fun, so many people came!

Thursday we did weekly planning so that took up most of the day. We saw Sister Bottoms. We taught her the restoration. We then went out to white mountain lake with Charlie and he bought us pizza for dinner at the red house and it was so good. We had an appointment with an investigator but she canceled. So we went out finding.

Friday I went to MLC (mission leadership council). It was really good. We went to Payson for it so it was a drive. I got back right at dinner and went to the house with the Wallaces. Good burgers. Our less-active Jaimie was then having a hard time so we helped her out and stayed with her for a while. Her grandma passed away and someone threw a rock at her window so she was having just a hard day.

Saturday we had interviews with president! It's always good talking to him one on one. We then saw Sister Tuetken, and read about the stripling warriors. I love that story. We went finding at the apartments and had some good contacts. We then went to the adult session of stake conference. It was so good. President and Sister Robinson spoke for a little bit. They are doing boundary changes next week and I'm not excited about it, I'll be so sad if we lose our investigators.

Sunday was the rest of stake conference. It was all so good. We had another lesson with the Cuiriz family that night. We brought the Macneilles who speak Spanish so that was really good. We read the introduction to the Book of Mormon with them. It's very hard to teach when half of them speak English and the other Spanish. They are just so cute and I love teaching them.

My ponderize scripture of the week is Jacob 4: 7 "Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things."

On my mission I feel like my weaknesses have been magnified, it happens as a missionary. But it has made me realized how much I need Him to do His work. I need his grace & guidance & help. He gives us power to do these things, he didn't leave us alone to do this work.

"By the grace of god it rains, but unless we plant seeds, we receive no harvest" - Legrand Richards

We need to work, we need to plant those seeds and have faith it will grow. We are an instrument in his hands and it is by grace that we are changed and that the people we teach change and come unto Christ.

I hope you all have a safe& fun halloween, we're gonna go have a tri-zone party up in the mountains, we had a reverse p-day today.