Dearest family and friends,
It has been an incredible week. Just incredible. And so hard and so rewarding all at the same time.
We still don't have our car, which has made things a little rough in our big farm area. We turned it in two weeks ago to get a previous fender bender fixed and it's made it really difficult to do the work we want to do here. We can street contact and tract all day, but it is not as effective as it would be for us to be visiting and strengthening part-member families and counseling with active members about their efforts to share the gospel. And the members have been fantastic at helping us out, but I just feel like a burden on them. It's been really frustrating for me! I just want to be able to visit them in their homes (without them having to drive 1.5 hours round trip) and to talk and counsel with them about what they want to do to help those around them come closer to Christ and how we as the missionaries can help them do so.
BUT! There have been some incredible blessings and miracles that have attended us as we've been carless. For example, Tuesday we were scheduled to spend the day with Emily and Madi, two incredible girls in the YSA branch, but they were running late that morning, so we had to take a couple of buses to meet them for our first appointment. As we were walking through the parking lot of an apartment complex, we felt prompted to talk to a teenage boy who was taking out the trash. He was receptive and believed in God (Hallelujah!) and accepted a return appointment for Saturday. We were on Cloud 9!!! And the rest of that day was great! Madi had never been out with the missionaries, but our first appointment with a less-active went very well and she bore such powerful testimony. She was on fire when we got into Emily's car afterwards. It was the highlight of my day to see how jazzed she was! :)
And then of course Wednesday was rockstar because we had MLC. I just love President and would follow him to the ends of the earth. We are experiencing some incredible energy in the mission and have 95 baptismal dates for this month. We are fasting as a mission on Tuesday to keep 70 of them. I am so excited!
And the greatest miracle of the week was Saturday afternoon. We finished zone meeting and got dropped off to visit Alex, the teenager we met on Tuesday, and we met Starr, another YSA there. She has been thinking about a mission, so I was really stressing about this being a positive experience for her. I was worried because Alex had not confirmed the appointment with us and then when we knocked on his door, there was no answer. We went back out into the parking lot and asked a man if he knew Alex and it turned out he was a family friend. He accepted a Book of Mormon from us and then drove ahead of us (we were riding with Starr) to show us where Alex was visiting with family. We crashed whatever party they were having, but Alex was happy to see us and we had an absolutely INCREDIBLE first lesson with him and his sister, Melanie, who sat in on the lesson. They both agreed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. They were both so prepared! It was an absolute miracle and I know that the Lord is involved in every minute of this work! It is His work! And Starr was so affected by the experience. She bore powerful testimony about it in her ward and I am SO grateful it was so positive for her! It was all a miracle. I am so grateful.
And I'm running out of time so I can't even give that last story the detail it deserves, but I am overwhelmed with gratitude. How can I ever doubt the Lord?!
I love you all so very much and am so grateful for you.
Please pray for David Mosher, Alex, Melanie, and Al Hurlburt.
LOVE YOU!
Sister Wheeler Jr.
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