Here's just some random stuff before I get into that miracle of the week.
On Wednesday we had to say goodbye to the amazing Sister Brough, as she finished her mission and went back home to good old Santaquin, Utah. She was the mom of our apartment and was just a super awesome role model for all of us sisters. It's been weird the last few days without her, but we're using all of her great advice to help us get over this loss(;
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| Name tag collection |
On Thursday we went up to the Mission Office to get some things and they had my English nametag! AH! I was pretty excited to get it, but now that I have it, I don't really like it. It's weird. I liked how my chinese one was an instant conversation starter! I just feel too plain now(; It will be really cool for the memories later though! I've got 5 nametags now! :O
Alright funny story next. We were out knocking on Saturday and came to this house where the guy who answered was decked out head to toe in Georgia Bullldogs gear. He also had a TON of GA souvenir helmets, posters, and other stuff inside his house. So we did our usual, "We represent Jesus Christ and we believe he's sent us to you today to leave His peace and a blessing with you and your house. Would it be okay if we left this blessing with you right now?" approach, but he kindly refused. Then just as he was about to say goodbye I quickly said, "We can pray for your football team." I knew from some members that they'd lost to their rivals Georgia Tech and didn't finish well in the final rankings. So I thought I'd poke some fun and maybe get a little football talk out of him to warm him up a bit. I was really hoping he'd sense my slight sarcasm and just playful humor. Luckily he did! He started laughing a little and said, "Yeah we've been losing. We need one!" I asked about how the end of the season went with the bowls and everything and he seemed a little impressed. He asked who my team was and I said, "Well I'm from Austin, TX so I'm a Longhorns fan!" He was like, "Oh yeah they didn't do too well this year either!" So we comiserated a little bit. :)
Anyways we keep talking and he tells us about cool places he's been in the US because of his service in the Navy. He's even lived up in Idaho before so he's had a lot of LDS friends. He told us that Mormons were some of the nicest people he's met in all the places he's lived. We ended up not praying with him, just left a mormon.org card, but he told us we brightened his day and wished us luck on the rest of our missions. It was cool to help him have another positive experience with LDS Missionaries. I don't know what will happen to him, but I know we said and did exactly what we needed to that day to help him strengthen his faith in Christ. Being down here in football country has been a BIG tender mercy for me! :)
Alright now for the miracle of the week! I think I may have told y'all about Virginia Sullivan in a past email. Anyways on Tuesday we went over there to help her pack one of her rooms up, because she's selling her house to move up back up to DC to be closer to family. Well we got a frantic call from her about 20 min before the appointment. She said, "oh Sista Smith and Sista O I've lost my glasses and I desperately need them to see! Will you sistas help me find them when you come over??!" so of course when we got there we helped her look all over her house for them. We also had one of our laurels from the ward there to help. She suggested after 10 minutes of looking that we say a prayer. So we say the prayer and keep looking. About 30 min later we were all in one of Virginia's daugher's rooms and the laurel who came to help us found them! It was really crazy! We were about to have to drive out to the optometrist to buy her new ones!
So we immediately said a prayer of gratitude and Virginia just LOVED it. She was so grateful and said many many "Oh Thank God!" and "Praise the Lord!"s. A few hours later she called us and said "Thank you so much sisters for helping me find my glasses. Are all of the people in your congregation that nice and helpful?" So we said, "Yeah generally we are! Well we try to be at least!" :) So she said, "Oh that's great! You know I think I'll go to all 3 hours of your church this Sunday." We both FREAKED out! In our last lesson she didn't want to go because it's at 9am and she usually gets up at 11am, and 3 hours was wayyy longer than she was used to for church. We were able to get her set up with an AWESOME member to take her to church and she did come to all 3 hours! She did sleep through a lot of it, but what she remembers she really liked! It was just an amazing feeling to see someone change from not wanting to go at all to wanting to go to 3 hours of church! I know that without the opportunity Heavenly Father gave us to serve her that day, she wouldn't have wanted to come to church.
I can't wait to help others also have an increased desire to come closer to Christ. I'm pretty impatient sometimes, but I know it will come! We're really close to getting another family to come to church this next Sunday and our teaching pool is getting bigger everyday! The work is moving forward here! :) No news really on visas still, but keep praying for it all to work out!:) The church is true! And as they say in the South, Jesus loves you(:
-Sister Oviatt
-Ou Jie Mei
