Week 53 - One Year Mark

I hit my year mark this week on the mission... crazy stuff. I can’t believe a whole year ago I got on a plane, said goodbye to my family for 18 months, entered the MTC, and started being a missionary. This truly has been the best year of my life. Heavenly Father has blessed me so much this year with so many miracles and my testimony in the gospel has never been so strong. I'm so grateful to be here:)

Okay so this week highlights:

We had some lessons with Jackie and she is doing so great. She read 1 Nephi 1 like we asked her to and she said she felt really peaceful while reading so we asked her "why do you think you felt that?" And she said "wait is it that thing you guys were talking about... the Holy Spirit?" And we were like "yes that's the Holy Ghost testifying to you that the Book of Mormon is true!" It was a neat moment. We also taught her the word of wisdom and she told us she has a strong coffee addiction...but her faith is so strong. She said "but if I have to give it up so I can live in the eternities I'm gonna do it." These people's Faith! I can't believe how much faith these people we teach have and there eternal perspective, they truly are amazing. We had some lessons with Ida and she said "is it okay that I'm excited for baptism!" She's so cute! She's made such a change in the months we've known her. She used to be so scared of even the word baptism and now she's excited to be baptized! I can't wait.

Okay so this week we received quite a few referrals! We received one of a girl named Allie but with no address, all it said was: lives in town homes. So we started there. We were walking and we saw this girl on the other side of the street and said hi and she waved back but kept going. We then thought what if that was Allie, we then heard someone yell Allie. So then we were like that's probably her! She had already left our sight so we still didn't know where she lived. So we went to the beginning town homes and met this lady outside on the grass who was a member and asked her if she knew an Allie Brooks and she said that she was her neighbor! Miracle! So now we have her address.... sometimes missionary work is like detective work, haha. 

President Nielson (first counselor in the mission presidency) called us and said he's coming to Nibley to video us and the high council men over missionary work and some WMLs for a new Logan mission video. So I was video interviewed and it was pretty nerve wrecking but I think it went well. This will be my third video I'm in for the mission...hopefully the last!

We had exchanges this week with some sisters in our zone. Exchanges always bring miracles! We came to our area and found a new investigator! We were walking down the street and we passed this White House and as we passed it I couldn't stop looking at it. I had this feeling to go knock it even though it wasn't in our plans. So we turned around and did it anyway and found a new investigator named McKenzie! The Holy Ghost rocks and I'm glad I listened to that prompting!

Presents for my one year mark from my trainer,
best friend and first companion, Sister Brunt

So for my one year mark my old senior couples (the Sampsons and Roylances) through a little party for me and had sister brunt there too! We went to the Sampsons house and we had amazing lunch there. It was such a great time. I miss them all so much and it just felt like home at there house. It brought back a lot of memories. They were my senior couples my first transfer out...and now I'm at a year, time flies. I also got to see my wonderful trainer sister Brunt! She got me New Zealand chocolate and it is so good!! Like best chocolate in the world. I don't think I'll ever eat Hershey again. I truly love the people on my mission. So many amazing friendships I have made here.

Okay last thing... so this week was stake conference. So on Sunday since there are 12 wards in Nibley they have to broadcast stake conference to some buildings so that everyone can watch it because not everyone will fit in the stake center. So we decide to go to the 2600 building with Jackie and her husband and we watched it on the screen. Well president Farnsworth acknowledges that President and Sister Allred are there. So I get this feeling to check the phone. I look at it and we have two missed calls and two texts from president. We then get a call from our zone leaders saying president wants us to be at the stake center to give 4 min Resto. So we tell Jackie and Bryan we have to go and we grabbed someone from the crowd and asked if they could drive us. She drove us and she was going like 65 in a 25 mile per hour zone. We got there just in time and he called us up (he was the first speaker). We shared Resto and everything went well! After stake conference president came up to us and said he forgot to call us to do this and said he thought it was strange we weren't there, haha. All went well, but it was a stressful time.

It's been a great week! Lots of lessons and investigators coming to church. Couldn't ask for a better way to end the week! Love you all!

Sister Lowe