Monday we played spoons for a bit, but to make it more interesting, we placed the spoons across the cultural hall as we had to run for them. After a while we played basketball before dinner. We had a later than usual dinner, so we went to this shop to get earrings made out of animal teeth I bought earlier and the lady was at first kinda guarded. After we had expressed interest in her shop did she open up and her passion for her shop showed. She even then brought up that she has Mormon family members on both sides of her family. Sometimes it takes people seeing us being normal people and then talk about church related topics versus us coming across as preaching to them.
Tuesday we had interviews with President. He and his wife drove down from Anchorage and said the drive was great because the roads were dry. That is good news because we had planned to do exchanges with sisters serving in Anchorage later that week. Later that night we had dinner with Dominic's family and a couple of members in our ward. We went over the baptismal interview questions with Dominic right after. He did really well and we are now working on him being baptized April 22nd. The two members said that is the weekend for Time Out for Women and they won't be here. The funniest thing is that Dominic was not wanting to change his date. We think he is just too shy to have many people at his baptism. :)
Wednesday we had zone conference. So late last week we get a call from President early in the morning asking if we would present a training at zone conference. We were to plan a training on the importance of using pamphlets in lessons. We spent a lot of time coming up with the importance and how to make the role play the missionaries would do effective and incorporating some aspects of our training. I think it went very well and was grateful for the opportunity to train with Sister Randall. Normally the APs (Assistants to the President) take care of the computer logistics and give a training but they did neither. I think because we are having zone conferences now every transfer, President is allowing others to share the responsibility and be a part of the conference. Everything went really well and it was a time to see how we can improve and confirm things we are doing right.
Thursday we drove halfway to Anchorage to exchange with the STLs. I went with Sister Johnson to Ocean View and Sister Jackson came to Soldotna with Sister Randall. I love exchange miracles. We got in with a less active who we ended up talking to for two hours as she shared story after story about the hardships she has in her life. By the end we committed her to take the lessons from the missionaries and testified again and again about the blessing of Christ's Atonement that can work in our lives. The other miracle happened during our dinner appointment. The family we ate with was a family I visited before last exchange in Anchorage. They are half way investigating. Missionaries in the past have pushed baptism and it scared them from wanting to be taught. The missionaries are now working on their relationship with them and taking things slow. We read part of the Book of Mormon with them and they excepted the invitation to read the Book of Mormon once a week with the missionaries! The miracles that happened in our area is tracting and giving out a Book of Mormon to someone. We plan on following up this coming week with him.
Friday we had dinner with the members who own the farm we help out with on Wednesdays. For St. Patrick's day they made us an Irish dinner: corn beef and cabbage. Two of their children with members of their family stopped by: both less actives in our ward we can now potentially go and visit. Driving for a long time and the sun now up longer zapping our energy makes us very tired. Both Sister Randall and I were slap-happy tired that day. We were saying some of the craziest things. Somehow we were talking about Jehovah Witness missionaries and she said "Jehovah Witnesses are like unicorns: people talk about them but you never see one." Story of my life.
Sunday was a good day. We had miracle after miracle happen. A less active Sister Randall and Sister Jackson visited on exchanges came to church! One of our ward missionaries who is off track from BYU-I came up to us and said she has started her papers for her mission !! The whole time I've been here she has been on and off with the idea of serving a mission. Hearing her testimony of how she knows she needs to serve is awesome.
Today we have a busy day ahead of us because Sister Randall and I want to do cool things together while we have the time. Having my best friend as my companion makes life a whole lot easier.
Sent from ALASKA!
Sister Shelley Willden
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