Hey-o Family!
1st Ward has been really nice, and we've got a few ideas to get members more familiar with us, but we've only eaten with members once every other week since the new transfer three weeks ago. Compared to 2nd Ward we were invited to eat at the members at least 2-3 times per week. So all Sister Shelley and I eat is ramen, peanut butter or tuna sandwiches, and cereal. We will be purchasing frozen burritos to add to our tasty list later today.
Miss Brazil didn't come to Church this Sunday because the member that she lives with was sick and she looked after the kids. Sigh. But I think it all turned out for the best because in Sunday School, we sat next to a lady who really needed us to sit by her. I won't go into details. We went over to the Simnitt's house and had a lesson with Miss Brazil though! We had dug through several different missionaries stuff and we finally found a Portugese Book of Mormon for her to have for herself. (We had ordered her one, along with the lesson pamplets in Portugese, and we get supplies once a month at Zone Meeting, but this month NONE of our supplies came. Poor Elder Saynes looked devastated when he had to tell me we didn't get anything! So we've been stealing other people's stuff to keep our heads above the water - with their permission of course).
The lesson with Miss Brazil was the best one yet! We struggled through the Plan of Salvation and almost crashed and burned at the end when she didn't understand Terrestrial glory. "But I live in terrestrial?" But we somehow got through it and then Sister Shelley asked the inspired question to Sister Simnitt: "How did you come to know that the Book of Mormon is true?" My goodness! Powerhouse testimony! I almost cried several times! The Spirit was so strong you could cut it with a knife! Even though they grew up together, Miss Brazil learned something from her friend that day - Sister Simnitt KNOWS the Book of Mormon is true! :)
As I already alluded to previously, we had Zone Meeting this week! Set a goal of 15 Baptisms this month. Elder Gao was kind of put out. He wanted to go for 16, because that's a very successfull/ lucky number in China. Elder Bishop (the new ZL who will be dying next transfer) said 15, but that we'll over-achieve and get 16. Hopefully we can contribute. We don't have any baptismal dates at all. 2nd Ward just had three convert baptisms (three unbaptized children I'd given the first lesson to before leaving) and there's 20 something on-dates still so far this month. We'll see how it goes.
We learned about how to get personal revelation. There's a really simple and easy process how:
Write a question at the top of your paper
1. Pray
2. Read
3. Write
4. Pray
They gave us the assignment to teach this to all our investigators this week. It went pretty well for the most part, except when we taught it to a RC and they got an answer they needed to move to Miami with her 11 month old baby to her family who is a really bad influence if you know what I mean. Feel kind of bad about that. We were planning on going back the next day after teaching her this and talking about what answers she got and making sure it was really the Spirit and not her own desires, but she was gone by then...
Out of time. Write me!
~Sister Carlson
