Hello all!
It hasn't been a very eventful week around here. We've been knocking a lot of doors and trying to schedule more appointments with members in the ward so that they can help us find some people who are ready to be taught. It's pretty slow-going, but we're trying to find ways to keep ourselves busy and positive! A lot of our investigators and the people we've been working with are moving out of our area, which is discouraging, but it just means that we've got to find some other people to spend our time with. We have a couple of potential investigators, so it'll be interesting to see if anything comes of trying to meet with them.
We were able to invite a lot of people to the Messiah sing-along, including a really great woman named Theresa. She owns a thrift store in Mandan called Community Blessings that started from a church drive and grew into a pretty busy little business. We volunteer there on Wednesdays, which is really fun. It's a cute little hole in the wall. She seemed really excited about it because there aren't that many Easter events around here, so we were hoping to see her, but I think the fact that it started so late and was so long was kind of off-putting for a lot of people. We didn't have a lot there and we couldn't stay for very long, but we really enjoyed the part that we got to watch! I hope you all had the chance to watch it, and if you haven't, there's this crazy thing called the internet that might be able to help you with that. :)
And if you haven't seen this year's Easter video, the internet can also help you with that. It's like the greatest thing. I've seen it at least ten times and it's still amazing, so go watch it. That's your homework. #hallelujah
We had exchanges this week, so I got to spend some time with Sister Jenson, one of the sister training leaders in Bismarck. It ended up being an exciting exchange because Sister Jenson found out that morning that she has a concussion from being hit in the head with a basketball on p-day (elders are dangerous, dangerous creatures). So I drove the whole time and she was a little bit confused, which was at least entertaining. None of the people we tried to meet with were available, which was a shame, but we did get to volunteer at the food pantry for a couple of hours. That was super fun. They've got a great group of volunteers that help a lot of people, and it was cool to be a part of that for a little while.
The most interesting thing of this week was tracting into a guy named Samuel. We tried to teach him the restoration, but instead he decided that he needed to teach us about the Fall and original sin and all this other stuff. I'll admit that we hadn't taught the best lesson in the world, but I still feel like he had kind of already decided that we were going to have to impress him if he was actually going to listen to us. He basically told us that we weren't qualified to teach, to go read the Bible, and in the meantime find someone who actually knew something to come back and teach him about our church. I kind of wanted to get out my ministerial certificate and hit him in the face with it and tell him that we have been called by a PROPHET OF GOD even though we're not scholars or even proficient teachers. But I didn't do that. I did get pretty fed up with him and basically told him that we weren't going to be able to prove anything to him and he had to figure it out himself through study and prayer, which is about the only thing I felt like I knew while we were talking to him. I just wanted him to listen to something we were saying, but who knows if any of it got through to him? I kind of expect that we'll be dropping him next time we stop by because we're not going to be able to "convince" him that what we're saying is true because I can't do that on my own and that's not my calling, so the spirit's not going to help me with that. There may be a miracle, and we're certainly going to prepare a better lesson for him so that we can have our act way more together than we did the first time, but the Lord works through who he has, and we're the best Samuel's going to get. So even though it was really frustrating to feel like I wasn't able to be a powerful or impressive representative of the church, it was a good reminder that we're not meant to be powerful or impressive. The Lord works through small and simple means to bring the gospel to those who are humble enough to hear and accept it. If we do our part, the spirit will testify.
(I'll stop ranting now.)
We enjoyed the women's session of conference on Saturday. If you haven't had a chance to watch it, let me remind you yet again about the blessing of the internet. I really enjoyed the message of helping lift each other up and serving with our gifts and talents as directed by the Lord. I'm really excited for conference next week, and I hope that you're all preparing for it! I'm going to try to prepare more specifically for conference this year so that I can get as much out of it as possible, because I feel like it's going to mean so much more to get that direction and guidance while I'm trying to figure out how to work this mission thing.
Thanks again for your love and support! God loves you and is watching out for you! I hope you all had a good Easter; spend some time thinking about the gift of the Atonement and the resurrection and how you can change to grow closer to Jesus Christ. There's always something we can do to qualify more fully for the blessings of the Atonement.
Love you all!
Sister Myers
