Monday, October 6, 2014

October's the BEST!!!

One of the reasons this is true is because I can wear scarves. :) Back down to the 80s, and the scarves can come back out!!

 Today is the 6th. In exactly a year I will be flying home. Weird. I have exactly a year left.

 So general conference was AWESOME!!!!!! We call Elder Robbins a mini Elder Holland, haha. (Or was it Elder Klebingat? The suuuuper to-the-point just-lay-it-out-there, six steps to happiness talk) And Elder Bednar always hits it out of the park, and Sister Esplin might have just changed my life forever. Conference is always awesome. October 2013 remains my favorite Conference ever, though.

 We still haven't been able to contact Cindy. At all. Which is awful. And absolutely heartcrushing. I don't think I can properly express how heartcrushing that is for me.....she was starting to be so happy again, and for a week she was so hopeful and excited, and now she's sunk back so low. It really is the saddest thing.

 But, we have been able to meet with David a little. Most of what he talks about is his missionaries who taught him years ago. He misses them...he was almost baptized several times, but just never went through with it. And we were finally able to hear from of those concerns from him, he was finally comfortable enough to talk about that. He may be willing to try again...he lost his BoM, so we gave him another one and we'll see if he reads from it. 

 So for some news taht I didn't get to tell you last week, there's a sister we've started working with, Sister Fox. She had a wrong address in the Church records, so there's no way we ever would've found her if it hadn't been by miracle. The Spanish sisters were working in her area and she was outside, so they started talking to her. Learned taht she had been baptized years and years and years ago but had never gone to Church, really. So we went over to see if there was anything she needed and if she had any interest in coming back, and....well, it was every excuse you ever hear from a less-active member who is visited by missionaries, and she didn't seem so happy to see us, so we figured she wasn't interested and we didn't want to bother her. We gave her a BoM and later asked if she had read it, she said it was too hard to understand, so we offered to read it with her, and she said no. So....okay. We got her a ride to church, and when her ride came, she said she had hurt her foot and couldn't come, and we just kinda left it at that.

 Well, one of our ward missionaries has family who lives in that neighborhood and decided to stop by. When the door opened, Sister Fox burst into tears and gave her a huge hug and said, "I've been waiting and praying that someone would stop by!!!" Her phone really was broken (it really was!) and she hadn't been able to contact us. But she had started reading the BoM, and she remembered why she joined. She felt the spirit so strongly when she read, and she remembered that it was true, and she plowed through 1st and 2nd Nephi in like two weeks. She missed the Sacrament and she was eager to come back. She had never been to the temple her entire life and wanted to get her lilfe in order so she could go.

 She came with us to the Women's session of Conference and they had a display for family history work, and with the help of the specialist she found a name she could start with. And she was absolutely ecstatic, couldn't stop talking about how excited she was to finally get started on HER family, HER line, the people that had made her HER...she was just so excited. She's been a whirlwind, it's crazy.

  I love you all! Thanks for your prayers and for your support!! I'm still very happy here in Arizona, and there's still nothing I'd rather be doing with my life!! This Gospel is incredibly, and sharing it with others has been the best thing ever!! You are awesome, love you all!!

 -Sister Stratford

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