Another.....Best week!!!

I honestly had the best week teaching wise on my mission this past week. We were able to find 7 new investigators teach more than 20 lessons and extend baptismal dates to people! Ahhh the work is so amazing! I love the area. I love my companion. I love New Jersey. And I love the people. I'll tell you about some of the people I've met this week and man. I love NJ. haha

 

Like I said, this week was so great. It seemed to start off a little slow but ended up being fantastic! We went and met one of our investigators. Andrew, 18 years old and friends with a member family. We went and got to know the family and then he came. We were able to finish teaching him the plan of salvation. It worked so great. He does judo so I was able to relate it to judo like I did football with Brent in Barnegat. We invited him with a soft baptismal invite and he accepted! He's a nice kid and seemed to be really happy with the gospel and feelin the spirit and such. :) Yahoo! We also met with another one of our investigators and set him with a date of this upcoming Sunday. We don't know if he'll be ready to be baptized so I'll let you know next week if it happened or not. He's a really sweet guy and hopefully with prayers he'll be ready! I'm not taking any time for granted here. The best thing about being doubled in is you can go out and be as bold as you need to and commit people to things. It's the best!

I love teaching with Sister Maclay. She's been out for just about 4 months and she's great. We had a good day of teaching on Wednesday and had a member come out with us to try people. We went and watched the Restoration with a member and boy I felt the spirit so strongly during that movie. It's incredible, everytime I watch the Joseph Smith story it's powerful. Almost brought me to tears. I know that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and his son Jesus Christ and he is the prophet of the restoration. Boy I'm so grateful for Joseph Smith. I've been reading in the Book of Mormon and I'm in 3 Nephi and I forget everytime I read it how incredible it is. I just read yesterday when Christ came and boy it is so amazing. To actually had an account from our Savior Jesus Christ. Can you tell it's been a good week!? :) We went to the Servils that night and was able to teach the family. They are members but it was a good lesson and they had an aunt there and we were able to talk about the Book of Mormon a little bit more with her. I just love the mission! It's completely changed who I am. I know who I am. And I'm comfortable with the crazy things I do. :) ha

Thursday was weekly planning. I was having a little bit of a rough time still getting used to the area. I kinda wanted to scream all day....but....I was able to get my anger out. Not on my companion either! :) haha During studies I kept seeing flies come into our study room. I was wondering why there were so many. Soo each time I saw one I'd kill it..with my notebook. Unfortunately, one fly ruined it for all of his friends...I went into our back room and pulled up the blinds and lets just say it was a bad day to be a fly. I was disgusted to see SO MANY flies. And I'm not joking there were so many. So I kinda went to town on them....and killed them all....wanna guess how many I killed. Well the first day I had a running total of 80 flies....the next day was about thirty more. So I've killed 111 flies within two days. :/ Call me crazy but I was able to get my anger out..That's my highlight story. Well one of them for the week.

Friday was AMAZING! We went to lunch with a member family at a steakhouse and was treated very nice. The members have a brother that Sister Maclay knew in Arizona and he was visiting so Sister Maclay went and saw him after 4 years and of course I tagged along and just ate the food. It was nice. Then we went and tried a couple of people and found a less active and pretty much punched her with the spirit. As we were leaving we believe we heard her crying because of our visit. It was cool. We went on an exchange and I went to Short Hills speakin da Spanish. It was fun. I was with Hermana Herrera and she was one of the ones that stayed with us during Hurricane Sandy so it was fun to be with her again. We were able to teach a few people and contact a lot of people. The exchange was really fun but Saturday night turned out to be INCREDIBLE! Sister Maclay and I were both happy to get back to our area and we immediately went out to try some people. We found 4 new investigators and taught four people! We met three cute girls and I told them when I come back I'll bring them bracelets. So I had to make four for them. Then we decided we wanted something to eat so we went to go to Subway and had to park far away so as we were walking Sister Maclay is SO good at talking to everyone we talked to a nice guy from Morristown and then we were walking to Subway and there was this cute little girl, Hana, riding a bike. We stopped to say hello and she said "watch me ride my bike!" So we did. And the conversation just went from there. She said let me teach you! So I get on this tiny bike, in my skirt. And tried to ride it but my legs were too big. I couldn't peddle. So she said, let me teach you. She was holding me up and said "man alive, you are heavy" I finally got going on it and she was SO happy she taught me how to ride a bike. It was great! haha I was so happy. She melts my heart. I told her I wanted to come back and bring her a bracelet so I got her favorite color and she wanted a violet one, not purple, violet. It was so cool. She's four years old and such a prima-donna. Her friends came out and she asked if they wanted bracelets and so I was up to making 8 bracelets in a matter of 30 minutes. But it's cool. I don't mind. I love it! So we told her we'd go back the next day at 3:30 to give her the bracelets.

Sooo...church was good. We had four less actives at church! I loved the spirit. We didn't have bread at the beginning of the meeting so we did testimony meeting first and then had the sacrament. That was a first but it was good. I love fast sundays. We had correlation and then we had to make it over to Hana's by 3:30. We got there right on time and as we were walking up she was outside and as soon as she saw me she dropped her bike and said "oh my gosh, I thought you'd forgotten about me" So CUTE! I said of course I wouldn't forget about her and then she said "you're late" but I showed her my watch and said we were right on time. So she forgave me and then said "you have my bracelet?" I pulled it out and she said "that's so beautiful!" She went and showed her mom and her mom came out and thanked me and she said "you need to make one for my mom" They're originally from Slovakia and so she has this cute little accent. We started talking to the mom and its a coincidence but we met a recent convert at church from Slovakia so we're going to bring her over and start teaching her! Boom holla! She's just the cutest girl and I love her so much! She said when are you coming back, tomorrow? I said no but we're going back sometime this week to teach her and see Hana. Love her so much already! We went and had dinner with members which was very nice then went to a less actives house and then to another investigators house.

Seriously this week has been the best! I'm so grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ. for the opportunity we have to become better every day of our lives! The church is true. I'm so grateful for the restoration and the Book of Mormon. I've written a lot today so I better get going. I love this gospel with all my heart! Thank you for all your support! I can't believe I've been out here for this long but there's no where else I'd rather be! Love you all have a great week!

 

Love,

Sister Christine Taylor