We had a cool experience this week.  Not that anything amazing happened, but we know the Lord guides us to who we need to see.  We had one of our ward missionaries out with us and both back-to-back lessons cancelled on us so we decided to go visit other investigators.  It is rare that both NIck and his daughter Kia are home at the same time.  Either she has the car for work and Nick is stuck at home or she is home from work and Nick can use the car for errands.  But this time both were home and we had a member present (Normally when we have a member scheduled to come with us the investigator cancels and they don't even know the member is coming.  (That Adversary - He is the worst!)  During the lesson when we were teaching about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Nick was basically testifying to Kia that what we are teaching is true and that he is reading the Book of Mormon to gain a testimony that Joseph Smith is the man whom Jesus Christ told his ancestors would come.  We all just had chills the entire time and it was a lot more meaningful for the father to testify the truthfulness to his daughter.  The thought came to my mind that once he is baptized and fully coming to church regularly, he will never leave this church.  I don't know if that will be true but it brought peace to my mind.

Well, another investigator dropped us this week, meaning he no longer wants us to teach him, but oddly enough, even though I was a little sad, both my companions and I were at peace with it.  They say we are cleaning out our area book for the elect.


We had dinner with this lady in our ward who has recently moved into the ward.  It is normally awkward eating with her but she was telling us a story of a friend and he knows where she is to be married.  I jokingly said, "well if you find out our futures let us know"  and then all of a sudden she went off telling us about our futures.  I found this very exciting and just fun.  Do I actually believe all this stuff, I'm not sure, but it is just fun to dream.  She said that I would be married in 2 years (I still have a little over 13 months left of my mission meaning that I am to be married then in 11 months of me getting home).  She went on about more stuff, even about a specific moment in time with me on a mountain but the most out-there idea was that I am to have 3 sets of twins.  Well twins don't run in my family so we'll see if my future spouse has that trait in his.:)
For one of our investigators we do a lot of object lessons.  Last time we did the Apostasy cups and he hardly remembered what the principles were so we reviewed them before we did another activity.  We wanted to then move on to the importance of the Book of Mormon so we acted out the story where Nephi and his brothers go get the Brass Plates.  This definitely keep him and his brother engaged and having fun. We decided we are going to do another one this coming week.




One of the members in our ward had an Apples to Apples game, but a Disney version. We played that one night before bed, and this just proves how well we know each other.  Sister Christian always talks about not wanting to get married anytime soon. She chose mine which was the date card.:)

Some of the people we visit go off on personal experiences they have had in the past.  Two people this week told us stories of their near-death experiences and how much peace they felt being given the choice of whether or not to come back to this life. I know that there is more after this life when we die and there is nothing to be afraid of if we are being righteous.

Another holiday I'll be spending on my mission comes this week and we have already started with the big meals.  A family in our ward was celebrating Thanksgiving with their extended family yesterday that we were invited to, and let me just tell you that I am going to have to work extra hard this week !!!

Sent from ALASKA !
Sister Shelley Willden