September 10, 2012

Hello Everyone!! It has been a GREAT week!! Sister Sorensen and I worked hard and were blessed more than we deserved. Our investigator Nathaniel is preparing to be baptized on september 29th!! He's so awesome! Ive never met someone so sincere about making changes in their life. He's got a few things to overcome before he gets baptized... he's smoked for a long time... but he really really wants to quit, so I have faith the the lord will bless him with the ability to do so. I still cant believe that meeting him in a really akward exchange at a gas station has resulted in all of this. I have the biggest testimony that Lord is constantly putting people in our path who we need meet. Not just as a missionary, but as normal people too! Think about all the friends and aquaintances you've had over the years. Most of the time we have a sense that God had a hand in helping us meet each other. I think we can have an increasing amount of friendships like that as we seek to reach out to those around us. We also started teaching a pentecostal pastor this week. We felt like we should knock doors on a certain street, and 3 houses in we met Eugene. Most of the time when we talk to clergy from other faiths, they immediately try to tear us down. He was really receptive and really fascinated by the book of mormon. We're meeting with him on tuesday again. Not sure where it will go, but im hopeful! People who are strongly rooted in their current church will be some of the strongest members in our church when they're converted. The petersburg ward is definitely struggling, it could use some strong converts. The same night we out walking some streets. It was about 8:45, almost time to head in. I felt like we should walk down a street that we had walked 100 times before. At the very end of the street we saw a couple women sitting on their porch. We went over to talk with them and one of the women was overly excited to see us! Turns out she is a member of the church but has been less active for about 10 years. She's moved around a lot and isnt on our records, so we had no idea she lived there. She was talking with her mother about how she felt like she needed to go back to church again, and then we showed up!! I couldnt believe all the miracles that happened that day. Amazing things happen when we follow the spirit. We found a few other really great new investigators this week, too many amazing experiences to even write about ... like I said before, we've really been blessed more than we deserve. Im super excited for this next week. We're teaming up with our zone leaders tomorrow... something new that president richards has started. Specialized training on Thursday and then I'll be doing exhanges with sister park for two days this week!! She has been one of my favorite companions, so it'll be great to work with her again. It'll be a busy week! Have a great week everyone!! Love Sister Walker