Week 23 (9/9/13)

This week has been awesome!

Sorry for the downer letter last week! I guess it just shows that things here are still real... but there are so many more good times than bad!

We had a fun time on Thursday. It was Elder Claudes birthday... (19th... I know. It's crazy) we ate cake and BBQ at the church. Then this HUGE rain storm came! So, the most of the Elders and Sister Whipple and I ran out in it and... really we just ran around like maniacs. Hahaha it was pretty fun. You wouldn't think that would still be fun since it rains every day... but it was a blast haha. But what we didn't know was that this storm was HUGE. Like.... everything flooded. There was about a foot of water on the roads and in our complex. The Senior couple drove us home and they couldn't even get their van in our complex. So, since we had to get to our house we got to run in it (we aren't aloud to play in the flood water because it's really dangerous... so we were happy we got to at least a little bit). OH! The lightning... it was INSANE. There were over 3,000 strikes that night. It was a record or something. Basically it looked like strobe lights.

We also had an AMAZING lesson with Danae this week. One of the best lessons I've had out here. We brought Sister Oakey with us. They connected in a second! Danae knows it's true. She's only had the first lesson and she commited to being baptized that day. So we taught her the second lesson and she just said that everything makes sense and she has always wanted to believe it all! It's so amazing to see how the spirt works. She keeps telling us how much we have done for her but we just tell her that we have done nothing and it's all the spirit. It's the most amazing feeling ever :) I love her so much! It's been amazing to see her want to do better and learn all of this for herself :)

Last thing- we are singing this awesome song in Stake Conference. Like, all the missionaries in our stake. It's the Army of Helaman and As Sister in Zion... but DIFFERENT! I don't like the arrangment as much, but the lyrics to the girls part changed... it's the same tune but the words give me chills every time!

"The sister of zion are called to God's labor. We willing serve him with spirit and might. We go to the nations with truth ever lasting. We teach of the savior our lord jesus christ."

Then this part we sing with the Elders...

" We go forth enlisted with Helaman's army in numbers much greater than ever before....."

Ha. I totally forgot the rest! But isn't that AWESOME! Some how I will get a video... let's be honest.... we go forth enlisted with helamens army in numbers much greater than ever before. It's the best.

That's all:)

I love being a missionary more than anything. :)

This is the most important work in the WORLD. :)

 

Love you all!

Love, Sister Calder :)

Week 17 (7/29/13)

This week was amazing as usual. A week ago I did something to my hamstring. It actually scared me A LOT! It was being weird in the morning after I ran, but then when we were playing basketball there was this super sharp stabbing pain in my hamstring. It was so weird! I had to hop around the rest of the day cuz it hurt so bad. It hurt way worse than when I strained it in soccer... or whatever I did to it haha. But guess what?! Yep. I'm healed. I thought it was going to be a problem, but prayers work. Always. Every time :)

We saw this week how much member missionary work REALLY DOES WORK. We were at a members for dinner. She said that she really didn't know how to do missionary work after we showed her the Hastening the Work of Salvation website and the videos. We tried to help her a little, but she was still scared. She came with us to some drop bys after dinner. We made 3 appointments with some referals we had in about in 30mintues. Afterwords she said that we should go and visit one of her friends that she hadn't seen in years becuase they lived in the same complex. We dropped by, they were SO happy to see her and her daughter. She introduced us. He then grabbed a chair sat it right down in front of us and said, "tell me about Jesus Christ." Nice. Cuz guess what? That's what we do ALL DAY! We were able to share some personal stories with him about how we had to come to know Christ. He was very touched. Then his wife, who wasn't there when we had shared the stories, said that she wanted to come to church with them. The Sister who was with us what beaming, and just amazing. We told her that people were prepared for her, just like they are prepared for us. We are meeting with the whole family tomorrow with the sister and her family that came with us.

Wow. I felt like I should have showed names. That really didn't seem to make sense haha.

BUT MEMEBER MISSIONARY WORK IS THE BEST! We got more done in an hour and a half with her than we had all day long. We were beaming when we got home. I seriosuly could not contain my excitement for everything! Now is the time! People are ready for it! It's true!

That night we got a text from a number saying that they had read almost the whole Book of Mormon that their friend had given them a month ago and that they wanted to learn more. We freaked out for 10minutes. Thinking it was a perfect ending to our amazing day. Yeah. 5 minutes later they told us it was the zone leaders hahaha they had gotten a new phone and texted that to everyone in the zone. Crazy funny though haha.

 

I love you all so much! I have had so many amazing experiences here! We even had a woman tell us that she could feel the spirit when we first went and talked to her. She usually doesn't let people in her house or trust them, but she now calls us her daughters :) it's amazing! Anyways! Love you all! Have an amazing week!!!! :) Oh and thanks for all the letters and things!

 

Love, Sister Calder

(1 Cor 2:5)