Another Week of Mission Life

This week has been a good one full of exciting times and miracles. It is a great time to be a missionary!


We have been continuing to help with the Graham's shed / mini-house and yesterday we taught them the Plan of Salvation, using the great visual aid that you sent me Renae! It went well but Sister Beech and I were a little down on ourselves afterwards because it didn't go as well as we wanted it to, but there were a lot of factors to that. But just know that we are learning and growing and getting better every day.


For the most part people here are so nice.... just not interested! We have very friendly conversations with people but they never want to hear about the message that will change their lives! I just remind myself that we are just planting seeds and one day they will be ready.


We have a new ward mission leader because the one we had is moving to California in a few days. He is very nice and very willing to help us out and do everything he can to help the area grow. The bishop here, who has only been bishop for about a month now, is SO GREAT! He is really focused on missionary work and is constantly coming up with ways to help us and he is on top of everything. The woman who was baptized on Saturday, Bobbie, already has visiting teachers, home teachers, and will be getting a calling this week as well as invited to go on a temple trip to do baptisms next month. He thinks of everything!


Bobbie's baptism was so great! We had people speak and also had a special musical number by two girls in the ward. She was just beaming the whole time! You can see how truly happy she is now and how much she loves the church. She isn't the most social person, but at church yesterday as well as right after her baptism she was talking to everyone! She was even going out of her way to start the conversation sometimes. She is so great and it is amazing to see the changes in her. I love her so much!


On Saturday night we went to a wedding reception to do some service. The mother of the groom was the relief society president until a month ago when the ward split and at the same time she found out that her cancer has come back and it has come back with a vengeance! It is very rare and everywhere. It is going to be a long battle, but there were two wards who fasted for her yesterday and she is a fighter. We went to the reception to help with setting up and making and serving food and things. It was good to be there to help and also good because there were a few people who came from my last area! It was so fun to see them and talk with them.


Miracle story of the week! One morning as we were leaving the apartment to go running we went past one of our neighbors who was just sitting outside. We just waved and said hi and kept on our way. About a minute into running Sister Beech was in a lot of back pain and I had a really bad cramp in my leg. We just looked at each other and wondered what was going on! I said, "should we just go back?" And I was so surprised when Sister Beech said yes! She is the type of person who keeps going no matter what. As we walked back we were both thinking there must be a reason for this. She decided we needed to talk with our neighbor who immediately told us of her health problems she has been having and how it was impacting her daughters and how she knew there was something we have that would help them. We are going to teach them the first lesson tomorrow so we will see how it goes.


Isn't is amazing how the Lord works through us to be able to reach His different children? I love being a missionary!


I hope all is going well for each of you. Thank you for your emails each week.


Love,
Sister Shurtz



P.S. - I will send pictures of the baptism next week.