Family and friends,
First off, transfer business: Staying put!! AND training a newbie! Sister T and I are so sad to part... she is awesome! She's been in this area for 8 months (I know how that feels!) but is excited to meet new people! It's sad though because we have three baptisms coming up this month, and hopefully an entire family getting baptized (more on them later!). Transfers are crazy times, but all in the Lord's hands.
Happy Labor Day, by the way! (woot- libraries are closed and no mail! ....ecstatic.)
But this week has been a-ha-mazing! We found a new kid named Nes. He's 17 years old and referred himself on mormon.org to meet with missionaries. He's a Sr in high school and has a TON of member friends! When we got the text message from HQ about the referral it didn't say how old he was, so when his dad answered the door we asked if he was Nes. "Nope! I'm his dad! Nice to meet you. I'll go get him!" ... BOTH of his parents are so supportive of him meeting with us, and when we talked with his mom one day she agreed to also meet with us...along with the rest of the family! She told us that she would take Nes to church but couldn't make it this week: she'll come next week! So this Friday we have our first lesson with their entire family! Nes is the oldest of four kids (he has 3 sisters). His parents are originally from Vietnam, so we don't know what their religious background is yet, but it sure sparked the mom's interest when we testified of Eternal Families and the Temple. Nes has been reading the Book of Mormon already, and just loves it! We gave a copy to his parents.
Anyway, we're super excited to see what happens! All of his friends that are already in our wards say that he's practically already a member... he just needs to make it official! Haha! We can TOTALLY get him on the path to do that!
Ly (who's husband, Bert, referred her to us) is still going strong! We look forward to her baptism! We're going to the Temple visitor's center with her this week, so that should be fun!
Jae, the lady we ran into and invited to church, decided to not meet with us after all. She wanted to continue attending her Baptist church. We were saddened that she didn't give it a chance, but we know that we planted some seeds. There was a reason we met her that day. We'll continue to keep her in our prayers.
I had an incredible experience the other morning in my personal study. I was studying for one of our investigators when I kept thinking about Lan and Ban. They just kept popping into my head. They were still smoking and feeling down and out about not being "successful" at quitting. Putting them on date for baptism only stressed them out and any type of goal that we tried to set only caused anxiety. But I felt a strong urge to just put them on date. I closed my scriptures and knelt down and poured my heart out to Heavenly Father. I felt an incredible peace come over me as I prayed. I began to search through my mind about what date would be appropriate for them. September 29th... as soon as I thought of that date I had a literal burning in my chest. Something I have never felt before. It was a deep feeling... I've read many times in the scriptures of the Holy Ghost being described as a "burning in the bosom", but never before had I actually had THAT feeling.. It was strong, and I knew without a doubt it was the Spirit. I've felt the Spirit in many various ways throughout my life, and I've come to understand that as we change we can get different feelings from the Spirit... BEFORE my mission I would always cry whenever I felt the Spirit strongly, but now I get what I call the "Spirit shivers": chills all over coming from deep within! There are lots of other ways I feel the Holy Spirit, but this one was new to me.
That day when we went to Lan and Ban's the first thing they said to us was "Sisters, we're officially quitting. We feel so good about it, we can't even explain what's going on! We're ready to quit this time!" ... Again, that burning feeling came. We extended the baptism date and they both just sat there. Silence.
"Yeah, that rings true," they said, "Let's do it!" ... They were both so excited that they both jumped up and pulled out the calender and put stickers all over that date! Oh, they were so cute. I am glad the Spirit led me. I'm glad it leads me every day!
I know that the Lord loves each and every one of us. His hand is in everything. If we just open our eyes we can see that.
I love being a missionary. Happy 13 months today!
Stay true to the Gospel, and the Lord will bless you! I LOVE YOU!
* * *
Love, Sister Moore
PS- today was nice and cool! 92*! Oh my goodness, it feels amazing outside.. It should go back up to 104* later today, but that's alright... it's usually that cool at night anyway. *sigh*... I can't wait till October when it starts to cool down! Enjoy that nice weather up there for me, k? ;)
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