Week 9 Virginia is a good name! Working hard and loving it in Pontiac!

Well another great week! I love it here. I had to go on exchanges last Wednesday with the zone leader, Elder Hunsaker, in Bloomington/ Normal. He is an awesome leader, the hardest part was teaching that night. We had to teach that a 9year old girl the first lesson. It was so tough. You need to keep it simple as much as possible. I struggled with her, because she already knows so much in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. She is an awesome reader. Her mom is a convert to the church. The only problem is her father is not a member and there is a family tension with getting her baptized. But she wants to find out for herself if it's true.
We later taught a mother who's daughter was converted to the church. She is now in provo BYU. She has to many questions and she is reading the Book of Mormon like crazy- she's so solid. It was awesome to see her desire and find out what her daughter got into.
We had Zone Conference the next morning. It was an amazingly spiritual meeting. President Fenn is an amazing speaker. It really was a huge spiritual battery charger. We were ready to go out and get to work again with that fire.
Friday we studied about how to talk about family history/ genealogy work. We were wondering how to talk about it with other people and to bring up the conversation. We got our answer an hour later. We went and did service at the Rec. Center, we found a woman who was reading the paper. It was a little awkward to say something because, I received a prompting to just open my mouth and talk. We were cleaning in our shirts and ties.We just started talking with her. She wanted to have a friendship not a religious talk. So we talked about National Parks. Yeah pretty legit conversation I'd say. that's her bucket list to go to all the National parks. I brought up did she wonder about her name and heritage? Her last name was Kraimer I believe. I was wondering if she was related to Maddie. She doesn't even know where the rest of her family is. The brothers all separated a generation before her. So it's a possibility. Her father served in World War II. I brought that up to her about my grandfather. We chatted on that. We gave her a mormon.org card and told her if she had any questions she could visit that site an learn more about us. I also was prompted to give her familysearch.org. she wrote it down and said that would be a good Winter Project for her. We think it will open up doors and she'll start learning about her genealogy and desire to find out more on the church.

(Zone conference we leaders taught us to follow our plans we make with the spirit at night, because if your going to plan with the Lord, the Lord is going to put people in your path. So it's important to obey your plans with exactness)
Yesterday after church, miracles happened. We went to go visit a slow progressing investigator. come to find out that he got put in jail for missing his court date. elder Wilcock said we should go back to the apartment and do our personal study for the day. Our back up plan was to go finding. But we could just get our study time out of the way right? We started back to the apartment. I felt the impressions in my heart. Go Finding! several times back to the apartment. we went to the apartment and I told Elder Wilcock we need to go finding. I got a feeling/an impression we should go. elder Wilcock told me to pick a street. I didn't feel like that's what we needed. I picked one randomly that was close to our next appointment. We gathered our bags, used the restroom and left.

come to find out that we already tract-ed that street the previous week. I went up to the door and gave a door approach. ( I really stink at door approaches, never is my best thing to do. So awkward to do, I really feel like I'm selling something. Which is not true. But if you get me through the door I'm good haha). My approach was a fail. Denied. We started walking towards our appointment. I was looking and searching. I knew that we were out here for a reason. I saw an Elderly woman sitting outside. I disregarded her at first because our appointment was in 5min. We went to our appointment and nobody was home we were stood up.(really a normal thing here haha). We went down that same street. This time the elderly woman's husband was with her. We were on the other side of the road. I told Elder wilcock lets tract this side and turn around and do the other side. We had one person who answered their door and he was not interested. I know that when we turned back up to go on that street we needed to see that couple. We knocked on a few more doors and skipped a bunch haha.

We went up casually to them. Instead of the usual door approach I just talked with them. Asked if they ever talked with missionaries like us before or heard of us. The older gentleman replied that his sister in law in one. He could see our white shirts but that was it. He was like 95% blind. His name was Mack Preston and his wife was Virginia (she didn't like her name that much, I replied it was a great name because that's my grandmothers name). They let us talk with them. We didn't talk much on the Gospel with them. They don't know anyone in Pontiac. Nobody comes to socialize with them besides their daughter. so they welcomed our company with joy. they loved us we spent like an hour talking with them. I think that it broke the ice. We told them hey we'll come back and chat with you again and maybe bring a message. We think they got the hint (hopefully, they really couldn't hear that part very good either haha) But what a great couple!

We went back to the apartment for our daily studies. We were an hour late. So one of our studies would have to be cut. elder wilcock jumped in his pj's because he figured that we would be home the rest of the night with studies. I just took my shoes and tie off and figured I could do that later. We started personal study, after dinner. After only a short couple of minutes we received a phone call. A member who has lived in Pontiac for a year was wondering where the church was and if anyone could visit him. We said we'll be there in half an hour. We hanged up the phone and just thought of what we just done. haha. We got re-dressed and took off.

He (Donny King) received a Book of Mormon from the Salvation Army last Friday. His wife Jennie (has a Baptist Background) found our number on the first page of the Book of Mormon and her husband called us immediately. We went over there to tell him where the church was. He was looking for us to teach his wife. She was open to it willingly. She apparently knows that the Baptist Church was not the place because when she went to the Minister/pastor asking for help at 19years old, because she had cancer. the Minister/pastor called her a liar and other things happened also. She knew that their was a God out there. She was seeking the truth.

We taught her the restoration and the spirit was strong. She wants to read the Book of Mormon right now. She said she'll read a couple of Chapters and more haha. We gave her the date for November 2 to be baptized. She said if she finds the truth than she will but only by her husband. he holds the priesthood so everything is set in stone.

The lord has truly blessed us. I truly believe it was only because we were being strictly obedient to our plans we made the night before. I know that the Lord has blessed us immensely. It has strengthened my testimony of how important this work is to the Lord .

Update on our current investigators. We got dropped by our mental investigator randomly. His associate told us off and told us never to come back. So that was depressing. Anthony O. is doing Great! He bought a suite last week and we think it's for his wedding haha. He's going to teach his children Family Home Evening tonight. So we are excited on that. We are trying to get Tasha more involved and continue to grow in her testimony. We really would like to see them baptized soon. We set a date for them on Oct. 19. I was hoping for the Sept 21. than it might be a for sure that I could baptize them. But it's to close for them to get married first. Either way I love this family. All of them came to church yesterday! Progressing very well.

Well this i my update thanks for everything! thank you for all your love and support. I wish each of you the world! Have a good week. Man this week has gone by fast haha. Love you all!