Yes it is Transfer Time Already!

    I can't believe that we are already on week 5. This has been such a fast transfer! I have loved being in this area. I think it is my favorite area so far. Ventura is a close second but the work here is so much better than anywhere else. I feel like the ward is really trying to work with us and help to bring Heavenly Father's children back to Him. The other wards always said they wanted to help but it feels like here they are actually doing something about it. We had the most member present lessons this week than I have ever had in a single week which I am so excited for! 
     Yesterday something cool happened. We were knocking on one of our potentials doors to check up on her and see if she needed anything. She lives in an apartment complex and she is usually home. Yesterday she wasn't and I had the thought to knock on her neighbor's door. So we did. It ended up being this really sweet lady, named Carol, who took a couple of the lessons about 5 years ago but then moved and lost track of the missionaries. She remembers a lot of what they taught her and explained the Joseph Smith story pretty well to us. She told us that her therapist was a member and really helped her. Carol loved her therapist but her ex-husband sued the therapist for a few different reasons so Carol had to stop seeing this therapist. She then explained to us that her therapist passed away last year and that she has a really hard time forgiving herself for what happened. She asked us to come in and pray with her. She then told us that she loves missionary prayers because they are so powerful. We talked with her for a few minutes and asked if she had a Book of Mormon. She ran to her bookshelf and grabbed one. She had a few things marked in there and asked if there were any verses that we would have her read. I shared a favorite of mine and the story behind it and how it strengthened me and then gave her another one to read on her own. She told us that she would do that tonight and that we could come back. Unfortunately she wouldn't set up and exact time so she isn't a new investigator but she has a lot of potential and I am excited to help her find peace from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that the thought that I had was much more than just a thought. It was a prompting and I am so glad that I followed it.
Yesterday we were invited over to lunch with a few members for Father's day and they told us that one of our investigators, Millie, would be there. That morning she called Sister Anderson and said she was sick and wasn't going to be able to come to church today, so we were sad and figured that she wouldn't be coming to the lunch either. However, when we got to the lunch Sister Anderson came up to us and said Millie is coming. Sister Neilsen decided to give it a try and invite her and she said that she would come! So we were able to have lunch with her and help her to meet more people in the ward. While we were eating she did something that made my day she turns to us and says "I need to give more thought to baptism before I get even more sick." She was atheist and has recently started to believe in Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. She knows that she needs to be baptized and wants to be baptized but she has some smaller hang ups. Now though, she is much more willing to take the lessons and consider baptism. We have a lot to work on with her but we are excited that she wants to follow the Savior.
We also knocked into an awesome family the other day. We were knocking around our ward mission leader's home and a lady answered one of the doors. Her family was eating dinner and she told us that we could come back any day at the same time. Right after this, we had correlation and found out that the lady had a very less-active husband who told our ward mission leader not to tell the ward where they lived. They didn't want anyone stopping by. When we heard this we were excited that this family was still willing to let us come back and teach them. We are really hoping to be able to help the wife gain her own testimony and be baptized while activating her husband. 
We also taught Walter this week. He is doing so well! We had a really powerful lesson with him and invited him on a church tour on Tuesday. He was so excited again and couldn't believe that we would let him do that. So this week we will be giving him a church tour with a couple members who know him. We are so excited for this lesson! Walter has been reading the Book of Mormon every day and praying to Heavenly Father to know if it is true. He said that he has gotten an answer and that Heavenly Father told him to keep reading and then he will answer Walter's question. At first I wondered about this but then Walter continued on to say that he know that if God just told him "yes it is true" then it wouldn't be a strong enough answer for him and that he would need more proof. So he has taken his answer to heart and really started to study the Book of Mormon. The cool thing about Walter is that he notices the difference reading the Book of Mormon makes during his week and how things seem to go better. We are hoping to commit him to baptism when we show him the baptismal font on Tuesday.

     Next week we have transfers, just a heads up. The new president will be here so we are having a short transfer to make next transfer longer so he has more time to get used to everything. Did that even make sense? Oh well if it doesn't.

Ok, my time is up. Until next week!

Remember WHO you are and WHOSE you are!

MEH

    First I need to say this: I have found more spiders in this apartment than I have in my entire mission combined. I can't tell you how grossed out I am. I am CONSTANTLY looking at the black marks on our walls to make sure they are only black marks and NOT spiders. Half of the time they are spiders. Lately we have been getting these nasty big black ones. The poor elders called us last night for weekly call-ins and I saw a huge spider crawling across this stand that I was by. I ran to the other side of the room and my poor companion had no clue what was going on. I told her to finish giving the elders our numbers for the week and then I told her to kill the spiders. The district leader was listening the whole time and heard me freaking out haha! Oh well! Other than that though, I feel like this week wasn't super exciting. Except that it was because we have three new investigators! That is awesome!

     This week we taught Walter again! We brought a recent convert who was baptist (that is what Walter is) and Walter loved him. Unfortunately this member thought he had to lead the lesson so we are either going to have to explain to him again what his role is or we will have to use someone else. We wanted to teach the Plan but we ended up getting stuck on prophets. This was good though because we were able to find his concern and now we know what we need to study and how we can help him better understand. We were able to see Elder Dort yesterday as well and he said he would be willing to come talk to Walter after church one week. So we will be setting that appointment up this Tuesday when we meet with Walter.
We were also able to receive two new investigators! They are a mother and daughter. The elders had met them before but were never able to catch them at a time when they could talk. So we were able to set up and appointment and teach them this week! We taught some of the Restoration but then had to go to a dinner appointment so we weren't able to finish it but we did set up another appointment with them. They were also able to come to church this week which was so exciting! They were originally only going to stay for the first hour but then the daughter Cassidy wanted to stay longer so they ended up staying the whole 3 hours! It was ward conference this week so the classes were all different but the last hour was so good for the mom. Our lesson wasn't focused specifically toward members which was great because Valerie could still relate to it all and not feel like she was being singled out. We talked a lot about motherhood and how it is our calling from Heavenly Father. They also talked about The Family: A Proclamation so we will be giving one to them soon so she can see what we were talking about. I feel like she could really relate to the proclamation. She has raised her children to be great kids who have high standards. 
    When we were teaching Valerie and Cassidy they were talking about how Cassidy would get made fun of because she didn't know what drugs smelled like and because she chose not to do bad things. It was so easy to relate to that having gone to a California high school. Valerie later told her friend (who is a member of the ward) that she felt something while we were there teaching and that they felt a lot more comfortable with us. We are so excited to continue teaching them! We love them already and are excited to watch them progress and grow together as a family! 
     Last night we had a cool experience! We went to dinner at a recent convert's home and when we came they told us that their non-member friend was coming and that she had a lot of questions. So while we ate we were able to talk to her about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. The woman had actually gone to an LDS church yesterday up in Simi Valley. She said that she used to live next to the missionaries and they would come talk to her. She told us that most of the time her spirit would reject the message they had but now her spirit was more open to learning about it. We committed her to come to church with her friend on Sunday and she said that she would! At first she said that we had answered all of her questions and that there was no reason to talk anymore. We explained to her that there was so much the gospel had to offer and that we would love to be able to really explain what we believe and let her see the blessing it is. She agreed to let us come back and teach her, but she said she didn't want a Book of Mormon yet because she had to pray about it first. We tried a couple more times to give her one but eventually decided that we would give it to her next time. She said the closing prayer and in is she asked to know if this is what He wanted her to do. She is a born again Christian so we will see how things progress with her!

Anyway, Hope things are going well for all of you! Love you all!

OH! HAPPY FATHER'S DAY DAD!!!! In case you were all wondering, I have the best dad in the world. I am so grateful for all that he has done for me. I don't think he knows what he has actually done but it has been tremendous. He is the perfect example to me of how a husband and father should act. He is hilarious, fun, outgoing, and crazy and he is the perfect dad for me! I wish I had more time to brag about him but it is just about time for me to get off the computer. But I just wanted you all to know that I love my dad and am so grateful for all that He does to take care of my family. 

Sister Skeeter