Week 9 - Service, Teaching, and the Temple

Hello my sweet family. :) It was so much fun to hear about your weeks and to see so many pictures, I LOVE IT. Thank you for thinking about me so much and for being so kind to me, I appreciate it and cherish it more than I could ever explain. I have the best family and friends in the whole world and I really am so blessed. :)

We had an amazing week, we saw so many miracles, had a lot of tender moments and just had a blast. :) One of the really awesome things that happened this week is that we found a new investigator and she is just the sweetest thing. Her name is N**** and she is 77 years old. She is just totally darling. She is a former investigator; she was meeting with the Elders about a year ago but then dropped them for some reason. We decided that we would just go stop by and see how she was doing. When she saw us at the door she literally clapped her hands for joy. :) She was so excited to see us. We went inside and just started talking to her. I bet she has said 7 times in the past week how excited she was to have the missionaries back over. We have been reading the Book of Mormon with her, and she just eats it up she totally loves it. We invited her to come to church with us but she said that she has having some health problems that were really bothering her, but she really really wants to come in the next few weeks. We are so excited to start teaching N**** again, she is so special. :) Every time we leave she says in the most genuine voice ever "I just love you girls, I really do." It just kind of melts your heart a little bit. :)

Exchanges with Sister Walton

Univ of Chicago Track Meet

Another kind of exciting thing that happened this week was that we were able to go on exchanges again, it was AWESOME. :) This time Sister Hansen stayed in LaPorte and I was able to go into the City with Hermana Walton. It was seriously the coolest. I think I was in heaven that whole entire day, I just love the city. It was beautiful, lively, and exciting. I thought it was awesome. The sisters that we exchange with are over the YSA branch on the University of Chicago Campus. So for a good chunk of the day we were on the campus, and it was super cool. We had a few lessons and things to do on campus so we were there for a little bit and it is absolutely stunning. The buildings down there are just magnificent and super unique. I felt a little bit like I was at Hogwarts. I loved it. :) We were trying to find ways that we could contact people but it's against the rules for us to proselyte on campus so we asked a ward member what they thought would be a productive way for us to meet people and he said "Oh! There is a track meet going on right now, come with me and I will introduce you to some of my friends." So that's what we did, we went to a University of Chicago track meet. :) It was super successful. We were able to find a bunch of people who were really interested in learning more. One of the people that I just had a ball talking to was named C*****. He is my age, goes to the University of New York and is like 6'6”. He was just this massive Javelin and Hammer thrower. He was totally cool. We talked for awhile and just got to be good friends. He was really curious about what he did as missionaries and after we described a little bit about our purpose and what we do he said "Can you teach me more right now"? We were super stoked about it. So we started to teach him about the Book of Mormon. Even though we were in the middle of some bleachers at a track meet the spirit was super strong and it was an amazing lesson. We invited him to read it and pray about if it was true and he said that he was super interested and would for sure read it. I'm friends with him on Facebook now so hopefully we can follow up with him. It was awesome. :)

For some reason the funny story of the week always comes with me embarrassing myself in front of a big group of people. Sunday I was asked to speak in Sacrament meeting which was kind of exciting. :) Back home the sacrament usually gets done around 25 after or a little bit later, but because this ward is so much smaller the sacrament and everything is finished by 10 after. So I had a lot of time to talk, and I think it went ok. I spoke on the blessings that come from paying our tithing, so it was a fun subject. But because I was up there for awhile and was just really excited about all these amazing blessings, I started using my hands a little bit too much and I actually smacked the microphone. Haha. :) And it made a super loud noise. Everyone laughed and it was super funny! Haha. :) It was a little embarrassing, but no big. It was pretty funny. :)

One of the most special moments of the week just instantly brought me to tears. We had a lesson this week with Sister P***** and we asked her if she wanted to work towards going to the temple. She was immediately so excited and just couldn't wait to go. She said that it was something that she had always wanted to do but she didn't know if it was something that she would be able to do. She told us that she had been praying and praying for someone to talk to her about the temple. :) On Sunday Sister Paulson was able to receive her very first temple recommend. Right after she came out of the interview she threw both of her hands in the air and just had the biggest smile on her face. She gave me the biggest hug in the world, and we both just cried together. I love her so much, she is absolutely amazing. I am so excited for the blessings of the temple to come into her life and into the lives of her family. We are hoping to go do baptisms this week, and then as soon as we finish temple prep with her we will take her to receive her endowment. I feel so honored to be able to be a part of this totally amazing and miraculous moment in her life.

So we have this investigator named K***** that we were trying to meet with, but we just weren't being too successful. So we decided to go over to offer service. When we stopped by Kimberly wasn't around but the rest of her family was. We told them that we wanted to help in any way that we could. :) Basically the verdict ended up being that we would cook their family dinner for them on Sunday night. We were so excited. :) This way we would get to serve them and we would get to teach the whole family. So we went over and made crepes and it was awesome. They were so kind about everything and said that it was super good. (Thanks papa for teaching me how to cook) And then we were able to have a lesson with them and it was incredible. :) just so so special. We talked to them about the Plan of Salvation and what that meant for their family. They were so excited about everything that we talked about and many times said "that makes sense" or " oh, I love that" it was so special. :) We were able to invite them to be baptized on June 16th and they said YES. :) We are truly being so blessed. In the missionary call letter it says something along the lines of "greater happiness than you have ever experienced will come to you as you labor among Gods children." And that prophetic promise absolutely came true for me last night. I could not stop smiling. :) I felt so much joy and excitement as WE taught this sweet family. It was amazing. :)

I'm really happy and I absolutely love what I am doing. Thank you for all your support and prayers, they are absolutely working. :) We are being so blessed.

I LOVE YOU.

-Sister Watts

Puzzle with Sister D