July 20, 2015- When it rains...

This week on Tuesday we went tracting! Whoo hoo! We spent a few hours in the heat knocking at apartment door after apartment door. We met lots of interesting people, including a woman named Ernestine. We knocked at her door and she opened it and did not seem very happy. She came outside, closed the door, and folded her arms. She chided us saying she just put the baby down to sleep and she didn't want him to wake up and all this stuff and we were thinking she wouldn't listen at all.

But it was actually super cool, somehow we started talking to her and her anger vanished and we had a positive conversation, and invited her to meet with us. She said that we could come back!

In my studies this morning I noticed the phrase "eyes to see and ears to hear" quite a few times as I was reading. I studied Matthew 13 that has lots of cool parables in it. Jesus Christ describes people that hear, but do not understand, a problem that we run into a lot. People will listen, but they don't understand no matter how simply we teach. But then there are people who listen, and things just click, they understand what we're saying and are even willing to act on it. I love those experiences.

On Wednesday we drove all the way out to the very very edge of our area. There is a single road that divides us from Woodington and we were driving on it. We had originally gone out there on Tuesday for an appointment with a potential. She wasn't home. So we went and talked with some of her neighbors and made a return appointment for Wednesday. Sister W went out with us (thankfully! that's a lot of miles!). She is amazing! =) Our appointment fell through (again!) so we went and contacted somebody else who lived in the area named Brenda. We met Brenda's grandson Calvin and taught him the Restoration. So that was neat!

Wednesday morning we got to help Sister R, the Relief Society president in K2, put up corn! I've been wanting to do this since Sister K in Mt Olive told us about the whole long process of putting up corn. =)

The first thing you do is shuck and silk the corn, and cut out any bad parts. Then you pry out as many more of the silks as you can. Then you "blanch" the corn by putting it in a pot of boiling water for about 15 minutes. Then you put the corn on ice to cool it down. then you cut the corn off the cobs, and freeze it! We only got to shuck and silk, as we had to run to our appointments way out in the middle of nowhere, but it was still a lot of fun, sitting in the garage with a big fan blowing, picking silk off of the corn with Brother and Sister Finch. =) I loved it.

Thursday we had weekly planning and we finished in 2 hours and 25 minutes! That's amazing! =D

Then we went out on splits with Sister B. She is so cool! She served a mission in Chile and she loves playing card games so we've gone over on Mondays and had big huge games going. She is so fun! =) We went out and tried to see a bunch of people, and ended up meeting a less-active named Nancy. She is really nice and let us come in and share a message with her. She likes to garden, it's her favorite thing to do. She says she spends more time outside than she does inside. =) That was neat because what we came to share with her was the parable of the sower. So we related that to her and taught about rooting ourselves in the gospel. (good soil!) I talked about how when I was younger, my mom and I would pull weeds from around the roses, even though it was hard and pokey work, so that the weeds would not grow up and choke the plant. It was neat to be able to relate that experience. =) Nancy is great. We don't know why she doesn't come!

On Friday was went and saw a returning member named Sister C and it was so neat - we invited her nonmember son to join us. He didn't seem interested in staying at first, but as we read from the scriptures and really included him, he warmed up to us. It was a cool experience! His name is Christian. We challenged him to read from the Book of Mormon each day and helped him to download the app on his phone.

Saturday was so fun! It was also really crazy. We did service for Sister S in her backyard. It was so fun! So Sister H picked us up at 7am and we ran and all got breakfast together. There is this Handy Mart down the road from our house that has DELICIOUS fresh food. In the morning they have biscuits (AMAZING BISCUTS), sausage, eggs, and stuff. We dropped by there and got food for everyone, because this was going to be a big project.

Sister H invited all the elders and a family from the ward. Sister S is older and her backyard needed some clearing. There were weeds as tall as I was! And vines! Lots of vines, 10+ feet long! It was SO FUN! The elders just tore into the weeds and cleared a huge space in about 30 minutes. We ran into some rusty metal covered in fire ants and fire ant eggs, so that was an adventure! =D I prayed the whole time we wouldn't run into poison ivy. We didn't! =D We took hatchets and shovels and clippers to all sorts of weeds and vines. We pulled up stumps and roots and in general had a blast! =D It was so fun.

That night the K2 elders had a baptism for their investigator Leo! It was such a happy day. =D
As we were headed out the door, it began to POUR. That's some of the heaviest rain I've seen in a while. We were shouting and hollering as we ran to the car. I skipped over puddles with an umbrella in my hand as I helped Sister Allred back. It was so fun, though. =)
Sister Allred gave a talk on baptism, using a Kit Kat as an object lesson. It was so cute!

Sister T made the refreshments for the baptism and she went all out! She LOVES doing things like that. And even though she's 80 years old she was serving the water and cake and having so much fun. =D I love Sister T!

It was a really fun day, we also got to have lunch with the Basden's, some of our favorite people! =D

I hope ya'll have been doing well and that you have a great week! We're going at it and working hard this week!

I love all of you!

Sister Moore