Week 23 - I love being a missionary!

Hi my sweet family and friends. :) I sure love you guys so much and think about and pray for you OFTEN. I love my mission with all of my heart and I am so grateful for all of the support and love that I am shown from you guys. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you. :) I feel so blessed to have some of the most amazing friends and family out there. 

As usual we had an incredible week this week. :) I feel like I always have such a hard time deciding what I want to share with you guys every week because we really see miracles every single day and are so blessed with some incredible people that we are working with. :) I feel like our teaching pool has just skyrocketed these last few weeks, which has been so much fun! We are staying super super busy and are just teaching a ton. I love it.:)   This week was just a lot of fun! We had so many different things this week that made everything such a blast. :) 

On Tuesday we were able to go on exchanges again! I love going on exchanges! Every single time we go on an exchange I feel like I learn so much! I got to go to Hyde Park with Sister Bradley on this exchange and we just had a ball. :) I absolutely love being in the city. I love the energy, the excitement, the people, and the culture. Honestly everything about the city is just so much fun. :) I am loving my time here in LaPorte and I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I am crossing my fingers that one day I will get to serve in the city. :) We were able to teach some incredible lessons to some very special people. One of my very favorite lessons that we were able to have was with a girl named J*****. :) She has been dating a member for a while but hasn't ever really wanted anything to do with the church. Well, they invited us over for dinner and we were so excited about it. :) After dinner she said that she had a lot of questions. I was a little nervous about my ability to answer some of the questions that she was asking us so I said a little prayer that I would be able to answer her questions simply and in a way that the spirit could touch her heart. And the spirit absolutely did that. :) I was able to answer her questions in ways that she needed to hear, and in ways that were totally passed MY ability. I was absolutely given the words to say and I was able to testify to her by the spirit. :) It was so powerful and was such and incredible feeling. :) I was so grateful that Heavenly Father answered my simple prayer so immediately and powerfully. I have seen that happen time and time again as I have been a missionary. It is amazing to me the miracles that continue to happen as we put the Lord in charge of our work. Sister Bradley called me last night to tell me that J***** came to church yesterday and has been reading the Book of Mormon quite a bit. I was so happy. :)

Thursday was a total blast. :) We had a sisters conference all day and it was just so much fun! We honestly had a ball. :) It was so much fun to be will all of the sisters in the mission and to just listen to all of the incredible talks and devotionals. It was such an uplifting meeting and so many of the things that were said I felt like were directed right at me. I absolutely loved it. :) We talked a lot about how to "become" and it was awesome. It gave me so much comfort and direction. We don't have to be perfect at everything right now, but as long we are constantly working on becoming more like our Savior and are moving forward the atonement will make up for the rest. While we were at Sisters Conference we met up with our "mini missionary" Sister Daulton. :) Our stake did this awesome thing this week where every companionship of sisters in the stake had a laurel come and be a missionary with us from Thursday to Sunday night. :) It was so much fun to have her with us. She is totally darling and just so excited about missionary work. We had a really busy week and she just kept right up with us and was a total champ about everything that we did.  

Finished the Book of Mormon!

We went to the farmers market like usual this Saturday and had an incredible experience. :) We love our Saturdays so much. S**** is doing awesome and is reading and loving the Book of Mormon, and B**** couldn't be any better. He is such an incredible kid and we love getting to be with him every week. He is really starting to love the songs that we sing and more and more often B**** says "I love that one" after we finish a song. It is so cool. :) We had been singing for about 45 minutes when a man named Matt came over to us and asked if we could talk to him for a little bit about what we believed. :) So of course we jumped on the opportunity to talk to him about Jesus Christ and this special message that we have for the world. After we had talked for about 30 seconds we could tell that he had come over just to argue with us. He mocked our testimonies of Jesus Christ and then started to tell us that we were wrong for believing in the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and the restoration of the gospel. We did our best not to argue with him, but we just told him about the things that we loved and the truths that we cherish. :) We invited him to read the Book of Mormon and as tenderly as we could bore our testimonies to him. The whole time that we were talking to him B**** stood firm with us and never left us. He defended us and defended his beliefs in the most humble and genuine way. We were all so grateful for him standing up for what he believed with us, it was the coolest thing. :) That experience was honestly very draining so After Matt left we all sang 'I am a Child of God" and it was so powerful. It instantly brought the spirit so strong and was just a tender testimony builder to all of us that what we know is truth and the message that we share is absolutely from God. :) Although we didn't change his mind or anything like that it was awesome to see Tender mercies come from this expirience. There were so many blessings and the miracles that came from that moment with Matt that I dont think could have happened any other way. We realized after that we have never really testified to Bobby about the things that we know because every time we are with him we are singing. After Matt left B**** opened up to us like never before and stated asking us all these questions about what we believed.Getting to talk to him about the gospel was absolutely priceless. :) He was so excited and engaged in what we were talking about. Before we were even able to offer him one, B**** asked for a Book of Mormon and told us that he totally wanted to read it. :) God works in mysterious ways and it was amazing to watch everything unfold in such a perfect way. 

I Love Being a Missionary

We really just had a fun week. :) Lots of appointments, lots of people who are really progressing, lots of fun. :) Sister Daulton said something that I absolutely loved. Every time we were about to go do something, or we were coming back from an appointment or something she would say "ahh. I love missionary work. This is so much fun." and it is honestly so true. :) I love getting to serve as a missionary and I absolutely love my calling. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father redirected my path so that I could come and serve my savior. I am so grateful for the lessons that I have learned on my mission and I wouldn't trade these experiences I am having for anything in the world. I love being a missionary. :) 

Thank you so much my sweet family. :) I LOVE YOU.

-Sister Watts