The Lord knows you and cares about you.

Hello Everyone!

This week was pretty great. We had some more funny contacting experiences. We were trying to get a hold of a lady that's recently started avoiding us (President Holland says to be more persistent than an AVON lady and let me tell you, AVON's got nothing on us! We're the definition of persistence! Anywho..) I love children because they're so honest and open to us! Parents probably hate that about them when we come around. So we went to this lady's house and her daughter was like, "Who are you looking for?" We told her her mom and she said, "She's in the back". We walk to the back and this man is there and asks who we are. We tell him, and we walks into the house and says, "We've got some holy rollers on our hands". Another lady comes outside and says, "Sorry, she's not home." As we walk away, we hear her daughter say, "Mom, why don't you want to talk to them?" hahah So funny! As a missionary, we have to find the humor or we'd just be super sad!

Some other fun things from this week was we got to pick more wildflowers! We've had a ton of rain, so things have been muddy, but the plus side is there's more flowers! Yeah for wildflowers! I love seeing them wherever we go. Heavenly Father is just so great to bless us with so much beauty!

I learned an important lesson about the power of service. We went to see an investigator that's kind of been avoiding us lately. When we walked in, it was obvious she wasn't exactly thrilled. She was busy trying to move her furniture. We just jumped in and started helping her and asking her what else we could do to help, and her entire attitude changed! Instead of being a burden, we became a blessing, and she was more willing to sit down and have a lesson. We were able to start meeting regularly with her again. We also had another opportunity to help a different investigator fix up her back yard. It was just amazing to me to see how service truly softens hearts. I read in the New Testament this week in 1 James 1:27 about how true religion is really service. My testimony of that was strengthened. If someone is hard hearted towards you, serve them! The Savior really knew what He was saying when He counseled us to serve others.

We didn't have any investigators at church this week sadly. We did have some less actives that we visited come! Yahoo! It's great to help people renew their covenants. We're just trying to help strengthen the branch any ways we can.

We started teaching a mother and her daughter this week! So exciting! They don't have much of a religious foundation, so hopefully we'll be able to teach them. The hard part is our investigators get fed antimormon stuff. We can usually calm their concerns, it's just hard when they won't tell us what they are so we CAN help them. It's all good though :) It's truly the Lord's work! Not ours!

Something that I'm learning on my mission is that I learn the most right after I have a hard experience. The Lord truly uses my struggles to teach me a lesson. It's awesome! He's right there to help and lift me up when I stumble. It's interesting because I have to take the first step and read my scriptures and study Preach my Gospel. It's usually as I act that receive the help and direction I need. Sometimes I think we think that "God will just help us". While that's true, we usually have to take the first step. The Stake President came in spoke in church and he said that the Lord can't magnify our works if we're not doing anything. We have to do something for him to magnify it. I love that! So true for missionary work. We have to open our mouths, and work hard, and then the Lord can use what we can do to bring forth His work. So true!

I hope life is well for all of you wherever you are! The Lord knows you and cares about you! Have a wonderful day!

Sister Edgel