AAM in Online

We received transfer calls on Friday this past week and the crazy thing is that I kept forgetting they were happening at all.  This transfer has just gone by so quickly.  Sister Richards and I will be staying together for another transfer.  A lot happened this week, but here are just some of the more prominent things:

LDSSA:  UAF has this new program called LDSSA which I believe is Latter-Day Saints Student Association.  It's a group that helps with the school that gets our name out there.  So they asked last Sunday for volunteers to help with a tailgate party for the UAF/UAA Girls Volleyball match.  We handed out free t-shirts and other school brand things like lanyards to people who came up to the booth as well as free pizza. It was all first-come-first-served and people will come for food.  We told people about the game to have them come support the girls volleyball team at UAF.  One of the members of the Branch is on the team.  It was a lot of fun and we were able to talk about the church to those who asked.
General Authority:  We had Elder Foster from the Seventy and his wife come visit our mission.  They shared with us insights about working more with members to propel missionary work.  Also he said we are going to start online proselyting so that means our mission is getting Facebook.  I haven't wanted to have Facebook in our mission just because I feel like I would go back into bad habits with Facebook and it is just something else to add on top of all the things we have to do already.  But the more I think about it the better I feel it will propel the work faster.  Some will fault our mission because we have cars and have IPads, which definitely seem like a luxury for some other missions, but it is a blessing to have to reach more people in a quicker manner.  We are on The Lord's errand, and we don't have too much time to do it. Facebook can be a great tool if used properly, so we'll see how that goes once we are trained with it for the use with our mission.  We had a Double MCL this month because of Elder Foster's visit.  We did a sort of Skype call for those in remote locations away from Anchorage to have a discussion with all the Zone Leaders, STLs and the District Leaders.  The meeting didn't last as long as they said it would have, so we went out to lunch at Denny's.  The Denny's up here says on their sign, "The Northern Most Denny's in the World".  That is something definitely to photograph.  Sister Richards loves bacon; so all she ordered was bacon!

Food bank:  Thursday we show up and they said there were not too many orders for us to help with, but that they had another job for us to do.  We were to sort through the break and throw out any moldy bread.  At first it was one here and there, but then it got to the point where a whole box was full of moldy bread.  I smelled awful and it was making me cough so I worked with a mask, but then they just asked us to throw it away still in its wrapper.  There were a lot of garbage bags filled with bad bread.  At least they don't give out bad bread to the people.  We went back to help with the orders before we were finished.
Cory:  So we were trying people on Saturday and had the thought to go and visit Cory at work.  He works at this Dice Pawn Shop from Tuesday through Saturday.  He was there and very welcoming to us coming to visit him.  He is just very open about his past and has a desire to build his relationship with God again after his mother's passing.  We met his father who, same thing, just told us his life story basically of how he is at a point where he is not ready to come back to the church yet because of some issues and also with his wife passing.  We talked to Cory a bit more and asked if we could visit him the following day.  We brought a couple of guys from the branch to come visit him with us and that went okay.  Hopefully we helped him a little bit with his relationship with God and gave him some commitments to do.  When we asked if we could visit with him again next Sunday, he said, "how about I just come to church?" Awesome !!!
Out with the Missionaries:  Rachel, one of our branch missionaries, was off work on Friday and Saturday, so she took some time on Saturday to come out with us.  We wanted to have lessons with single males so that we could best use our time with her. We had a lesson with Craig which went really well.  He has a desire to come back to Church, which is awesome.  Our next lesson though ... we met at the stake center and he had opened up about his concerns and said he was just happy right now with the way he is living.  We shared with him how the BOM and having good friends who influence him for good can be a benefit, but I think it was too much for him, so he said he wanted to leave.  He and his nonmember girlfriend left.  I said a prayer of comfort to help ease my sad feelings.  We tried by some other less actives in the spare time and got in with a member we have been trying to get a hold of.  He said he could come to the activity tonight, but ended up canceling again.  The Activity was a success though.  A lot of people came and Neva came with Sister Wright.  Hopefully we can talk with her more about religion.

Michelle:  We had the thought to call this girl named Michelle that we had called before, but she forgot and made plans.  We called her while we were calling a lot of former investigators and she was crying.  Her neighbor died in her arms and now she has his cat.  She was very traumatized by what happened just earlier that day so we were trying to help her through the phone.  The scripture we read to her Alma 7:11-12: "And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.  And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities."  We aren't counselors, but what we do know is that the gospel can help people.  The Savior can help people.  We, most likely, won't know what people are going through, but Jesus Christ does.  Let go and Let God.

Sent from ALASKA!
Sister Shelley Willden