Miracles Happen

I forgot this last week, but... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONTH TO EMILY OSCARSON!! My baby girl is no longer a baby anymore! But she is. Love you!

This week was full of miracles! It was so good! For this transfer, I'm focusing on each one of the Christ-like characteristics each week and working on implementing it into my missionary work and applying it to my life. This past week, I focused on faith and hope!

As I studied this week, I realized that when we sin or yield to temptation, we are doubting in God and trusting in our natural man-- aka we are lacking faith and hope that our obedience to God's commandments has the power to bring everlasting joy. Faith-- no wonder it's the first principle of the gospel!

Last week we were walking down the street and this lady was walking toward us. We stopped to give her a mormon.org card and I will admit, I wasn't expecting her to be too enthusiastic about missionaries stopping her, but we started talking and she said, "Ohhhh! I have been looking for a church to go to! Do you guys do baptisms in your church?" UHM. YES WE DO BAPTISMS IN OUR CHURCH. So prepared!!

*miracle*

Monday our appointment never showed, so we went contacting and ran into a guy named Saad-- he is the only practicing Muslim in his family, but we talked for a long time about how this life is our time to prepare to meet God and that we will be accountable for the things we do here. He was interested and so we met again and talked about God's plan for us and about how Christ's Atonement is central to that plan and necessary for our progression and eternal happiness. Good things are ahead! Let the Holy Spirit guide!

*miracle*

So I have been called to be building manager, basically I'm in charge of ESL. I was like WHAT PLEASE NO. All I could think about was how I have no idea what I'm doing and THEN I realized this is Heavenly Father giving me the perfect opportunity to have faith in Him rather than myself. For our first ESL instruction meeting, I went in all nervous and freaking out "not knowing beforehand the things that I must do", and then by the end I realized it was fine? Things went well! Success thanks to the spirit; and to a loving Heavenly Father who knows His children and their struggles.

*miracle*

After ESL, we taught Rodolfo. For the first time, I really felt like I taught a person, not a lesson. The spirit was so present! He hasn't been super consistent with reading and praying and so we knew that the only way he could start progressing and really be prepared for baptism, is if we read from the book of Mormon with him. So we read about baptism and about how the spirit works. As we did so, he asked questions and opened up and it gave us the opportunity to hear more about where he stands and how he feels about everything. We also had a member there who was baptized recently and so she was able to share her testimony with him and simply talk about how she felt and how she knew being baptized was good and right. He said he feels ready.

*miracle*

As we were driving one day, Sister Waldron felt impressed that we should go visit a less-active. No reason at all. So we did. She was home alone and let us in and we talked and shared a spiritual thought and left. God knows what He is doing!

*miracle*

The other day we were walking down the street. Normal. Then we stopped and went down another street. We found a girl and her friend. We started talking to her and at first she wasn't interested, but she was nice enough to keep a conversation going. As we testified to her about her worth and our purpose as children of God she was like, "Do you guys just go around and talk to people about this stuff all the time?" WHY YES WE DO! The spirit touched her heart. She then told us that her friend and her were just talking last week about how they were thinking about going back to church, but didn't know where. God knows His children!

*miracle*

We also got a text the other night from a man who we handed a card to-- he wants to learn more.

And a punk kid on the bus that made a scene when we handed him a card texted us yesterday as well-- he too wants to learn more. And a guy who is Sekh, after we taught him about the apostasy asked "so what about now?" (as in, where is the prophet now?)

AND MIRACLES JUST KEEP HAPPENING HERE IN TORONTO!!

Also, Sister Waldron had a birthday yesterday! She is feeling 22! Ow ow! She is such a gem. I love this sister so much! She has such a beautiful soul and is such an example to me! When one companion has a birthday, two companions have a birthday! Basically all the food we fasted from yesterday, was made up for at Sister Waldron's birthday dinner thanks to the wonderful Contrerras family. We love them so much. So yes, we were fed well yesterday.

Always look for the miracles in your life! They are there! Love y'all!

FUNNY--

"Elder Holland could say 'TUNA FISH IS THE BESSSST!' and people would be like 'YEAHHH!!'"

so true.