Weekly email - August 1, 2016

Hello family!

What a wonderful week it was! I just love starting a new transfer! It is always such a refreshing feeling and it just gets you pumped for all the miracles just waiting for you!

Last Monday it was p-day. After p-day we did a golden hour and then we went and had a lesson with our investigator named Kelly. I am sure I have told y'all about Kelly before but I will tell y'all again. He is 58 which is crazy because he looks like he could be like 40. We met him a while back while knocking doors he was just outside doing yard work. He explained to us he has been going through a lot of rough things in his personal life and he is trying to strengthen his faith.  We introduced him to the Book of Mormon and he said we could come back. We have been meeting with him for a few weeks now and he is making slow progress. He always tells us how he does not agree with things his religion teaches and when we share what we know is true with him he always agrees with us and says how it makes sense. But in the end he always tells us he is a Catholic and will always be a Catholic. Well Monday night he had a lot of questions so we spent the evening answering his questions and talking about how he can receive answers. It was great!

On Tuesday we went to the Mandarin district meeting. It was good. We talked all about the importance of working with members and gaining their confidence and trust. The sister who gave the training did awesome! It was probably intimidating for her because I was the one who gave it in zone meeting and she gave her training based off of what I did. One of the missionaries shared something that I absolutely loved!  It is our job as missionaries to work with the members. That means we should be seeking their help and advice in all we do. He said, we work with members not members work with us. The members are the key to finding and helping individuals prepare for baptism and keeping that retention. If we are always telling the members what to do it isn't benefiting us at all. We need to seek their ideas as well. Anyways, after district meeting we went and had a lesson with Nanny. It was great! I just love her to death! She had a few questions about the temple so we had a nice talk and were able to answer them.

Wednesday we had a lesson with John our recent convert. It was such a sweet lesson. We had not been able to see him since the beginning of the month because he has been so busy with work and family matters. We had an awesome lesson on the importance of scripture study and prayer.

We got him the Book of Mormon on CD so now he will be able to listen to it every day! Which will be awesome! I just love the Book of Mormon! It gives you that little spiritual boost you need! I truly notice such a difference in the days that I get to read and days where I can't. The days I can't it kills me and I usually have to stop and read something to feel better! 

After our lesson with John we went and tried to contact some potential investigators. Knocking doors in the afternoon is usually my least favorite thing to do but for some reason we both felt impressed to knock in this specific complex and try our potentials in it. We start knocking doors and we knocked on a potentials door and this woman answered. She instantly invited us in and knew we were missionaries. So we start asking her questions and we find out that she just moved here a few months back and she is a member! She told us her conversion story and we we able to share the restoration with her. It was the best! She told us how she wants to get back into church again and she wants us to teach her fiancé who is not a member! Talk about miracle!! Sister Ruesch and I had just been talking earlier about finding new people to teach and finding new less-actives to work with! Heavenly Father truly just blesses us and places all of these miracles in our paths! 

Sweating in the 106 degree heat and knocking doors we went and did some service for Nanny and her granddaughter. They moved Saturday so we helped he pack of some of heir house. It was a lot of fun! Our job was to pack the toy room...That may have been a bad idea because I don't know how much help we actually were. We kept playing with all the toys! We found this black wig and we made everyone try it on! Nanny was my favorite in it! 

Later that night we had a lesson with Kelly and we brought a member named Sister Clark with us. It was a good lesson. We continued to talk to him about receiving personal revelation and how his answer would come but he needed to be reading the Book of Mormon.

On Thursday we had such a crazy day! We started our morning off by going to the Dunn Avenue and Arlington district meeting. It was so good! Elder Boyson is the district leader there, he was my district leader in Ocala and he is just awesome! We spent the meeting talking about visions and the district created a vision. I've created a vision for myself this transfer. I have realized that sometimes I get caught up in my own confidence and I am relying more on myself then on the Lord so I have decided to call my vision "back to the basics". I am going back to the new missionary life. I have been studying from the first 12 weeks training booklet again and I'm realizing that if I just simplify everything and go back to doing things like a new missionary putting all my faith and trust in Heavenly Father the miracle will come! I'm currently going through the white handbook of all the mission rules and I'm planning to follow them to a tee! I'm so excited to see all the miracles come! 

After district meeting we stopped for lunch and something told me to not eat but sometimes my belly over powers my thoughts and the spirit.. I ate a big lunch and then we went and did service for our investigator named Justin and his roommate.  After the service they made us lunch... We had a giant salad, broccoli, and chicken Alfredo with garlic bread. Lets just say I thought I was going to puke multiple times while trying to get it all down. I would have just gone to the bathroom and puked but they are currently remodeling their bathroom and their was no working toilet..

So after dinner we had an hour before our dinner appointment. I literally thought I was going to die I was so full.. Well at dinner the members feeding us bought pizza which wouldn't have been bad but they bought 4 pizzas for the 4 of us to eat. I just had to pray that Heavenly Father would provide a way for me to eat dinner and not puke.  I'm here to tell you that miracles do happen! I managed to eat dinner and survive. In fact I ate 3 slices of pizza, some salad, and 2 giant sugar cookies! I have not been that full in a long time!

Friday was weekly planning. Those are always crazy at the beginning of the transfer because we have to plan all of the trade offs with our sisters. We have six companionships we watch over and then President Lee has also asked that we be in charge of planning out all of the sister training leader trade offs. So we had to figure out which sister training leaders would do trade offs with which sister training leader. It is a lot.. And to top it all off we have to get our weekly planning done that day and we only have 3 hours to do it all. But we managed! 

After weekly planning we had our final lesson with Nanny. It was good. We taught her about the importance of keeping the Sabbath day holy. 

That night we stopped by to meet a new couple who had recently moved into the ward. They were seriously the sweetest old couple I've ever met and they were just so humble! I didn't want to leave their appointment. You know when you just go to someone's home and you feel like you are at grandmas house and it's just warm inside and you could just sit their and drink some milk and have some cookies. Yeah, that's how I felt.

Saturday we helped Nanny and her granddaughter load all their belongings in the moving van so they could move. It was a sad day.  After we were done we ate lunch with Nanny and it was probably the cutest thing ever! Because everything was packed she was sitting on a shower chair and we were sitting on the floor and we ate our sandwiches. Afterwards she asked us if we could do something for her.  Of course we would do anything for our Nanny! She asked us to sing to her. So we spent the last half hour of our lunch singing hymns to her while she just sat there and cried. We ended with "God Be With You Til We Meet Again". I may have lost it during that one and cried as well!  She is such a sweet lady and I can't wait to come back after my mission and see her again!

That is about the summary of my week. I left out a few stories but I figured this was getting a little long for y'all to keep reading. 

I thought I would just end with a little spiritual thought. So I started reading the Book of Mormon mom sent me from the beginning. I love in 1 Nephi 1:20 when Nephi says, "But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance." This is like a thesis for the Book of Mormon and I love seeing it happen throughout the Book of Mormon over and over again. I also love seeing it take place in my life and the lives of those I love and serve. So for the past few weeks I've been trying to recognize and follow the spirit more and to see the tender mercies that come from doing so. 

I want to share one of those tender mercies with y'all. So it was last week I had a prompting to pray for someone from home and it seemed strange to me because I pray for them on occasion but I just felt so strongly to pray for Dr. Harmon and his family. Well I followed the prompting and prayed for them. Here comes the awesome tender mercy! This morning when I looked at my email I had received one from Dr. Harmon. He had told me how over the 24th they had taken their trailer and brand new car up the canyon to meet family and go camping. While in the process of doing so they hit something because he could not swerve and blew out 2 of the trailers tires. He then said how the next thing he realized is that the drivers side door is on fire luckily he got his family out safely. Sadly their car is a goner but they are all ok. I testify to y'all that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith. When we are faithful and obedient Heavenly Father not only blesses us but blesses and protects our loved ones! I invite all of you to recognize at least one tender mercy of the Lord in your life this week and share it with me in your next email! I hope y'all have a wonderful week!  I love and miss y'all! We are on the down hill now!  Less then 4 months and I'll be home!

Oh I forgot to tell y'all, so Sister Olsen is the missionary that I trained and she is training a new missionary this transfer and guess what!? She is training a Sister Webb! Haha how awesome is that!?

Love,

Sister Webb