Week 7 - "made right through the atonement"

Hello my sweet friends and family. :) It's been another amazing week here in LaPorte. The weather is beautiful and the work is really picking up. I'm loving it. :)

M***** GOT BAPTIZED. :) Oh. This weekend has been so special with her baptism and confirmation. It had been such a miracle and such a blessing to get to be a part of something so incredible. I feel so blessed. :) Every time we talked about her baptism with her she would say how absolutely excited she was, she could hardly wait. It has been such a sweet thing for me to be able to watch M***** prepare for this very special moment.

The Program was so incredible. The talks were amazing and brought the spirit so strong. The bummerish part of the program was that Sister Hansen and I were asked to sing the special musical number. At the last baptism we provided the special musical number, but I accompanied on the piano while Sister Hansen sang, and it went really really well. I would much rather play. We decided to sing "I stand all amazed" for M*****'s. Which is one of my favorite hymns. It is so pretty and I love the message. Anyway, the plan was for me to sing the first verse, Sister Hansen would sing the second verse, and we would sing the third verse together. So I started off and It was going ok until it started getting a little high for me.. As soon as I sang the top of the line "I tremble to know that for me He was Crucified." I let out the most horrific croak. Ooooh my goodness it was awful. The entire congregation just burst into laughter. Haha. :) I have definitely learned that if you can learn to laugh at yourself you will never stop laughing. Haha it was totally embarrassing and totally hilarious. :) We have laughed about it so much since then.

In these past 6 weeks I have witnessed the most amazing miracles. As soon as I got assigned to my trainer, arrived in my new area, and got a little bit settled we went right over to M*****'s home. The very first time I met M***** I sat on her floor and listened as she told me her story. She told me about how she knew that something was missing in her life, she didn't know what but she knew that she needed to find out what it was. So she went on this search to "find God". She started looking up churches, calling them and visiting them. One day she called our church building and the sisters answered the phone, M***** said "I want to learn everything I can about your church, is there any way that you can come over today and teach me? Oh, and could you bring over any materials or literature from your church that I could read?" Oh. :) Those Sister Missionaries that answered the phone were SO excited. It's amazing to see how much The Lord is preparing the hearts of these people to receive the gospel. M***** is incredible, and from day one she has showed incredible amounts of faith as she has strived to keep commitments and come closer to Jesus Christ.

M***** told me all about how she was being evicted at the end of the week and that there was nowhere for her family (two kids and her granddaughter) to stay. They had absolutely no money coming in and were about to become homeless. The first night I met M***** She just sat there and cried. She was stressed, worried, scared, discouraged and overwhelmed. I have seen the atonement 100% change Her life. Jesus Christ brought hope to a situation where there was no hope. I love the line in Preach My Gospel that says "Everything that is unfair about life is made right through the atonement." That is the epitome of the role of the atonement in M*****'s life.  Over the next several weeks their small family would live in a one room hotel, struggling to find food, work, and closure.

Through miracle after miracle they were all able to find work, get back on their feet, and are now living in a beautiful apartment. :)

So she was ready and so excited. Right after M***** came out of the waters of baptism my companion and I were standing there waiting to give her a towel, she came out with the biggest smile on her face and immediately gave us the biggest hugs. After she was baptized she said "I feel so much lighter now." The atonement of Jesus Christ is so real. I watched it completely change M*****'s life. She just shines. M***** is so incredible. I love her so much. She has shown so much faith and trust in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I feel so blessed to have been a part of something so incredible. :)

Right now we are teaching 3 kids. :) I love teaching those sweet kids so much. They couldn't be cuter.

Teaching them is so much fun because 1. We have to get really creative with different object lessons and

with different ways to teach them in a way that they understand and can relate to. 2. I love it because we teach the very basics and fundamentals of the gospel. We need to teach very simply. It is so amazing to me that the spirit is so strong when we teach simply. The truths of the gospel are 'plain and precious' and I love focusing in the basics. :) 3. They are SOO excited. When we taught A***** this we had a dinner appointment at her home right after we taught her. When we were done eating dinner she looked at me and said "can we please have another lesson right now?? I don't want to wait all the way until next week." Seriously how cute is she? :) When she came to church on Sunday she ran right up to me and gave me the biggest hug. It was so cute. She sat by us through the whole meeting and was just so excited. I love these sweet kids so much, they couldn't be more amazing. 

Our Easter Egg Hunt is coming up on Saturday and we are so so excited.

We have invited so many people. Everywhere we go we are handing out invitations and asking people to come. We invite the cashiers at the store, people we pass on the street, we've gone tracting and invited people. We are inviting the whole town. :) One lady that we knocked on her door told us she was a pastor at her church but that she had a ton of kids who came to her church. She said that they would LOVE this. She told us she would bring her whole congregation to our party. Haha I don't know if she will or not, but we are hoping that this will be really successful, and that we can find some more people to teach. :)

I'm so happy. :) I love you all so much. Thank you for your prayers and support, it means more to us than

we could ever say. Every time I hear someone say a prayer for the missionaries I feel a little boost.

So Thank you so much. :)

I LOVE YOU.

-Love Sister Watts