Called to Serve: PS~~ oh, I forgot to tell you some funny stories.

Being a missionary is so great. The littlest things can sometimes be the biggest successes. This week, we had a lot of good appointments set up! But unfortunately, life happens and most of them cancelled on us. That was a bummer but sometimes it was a blessing in disguise! Because as we adjusted our plans to make up for the cancelled appointments, we were led to be in the right places at the right times.

One day, we were walking down to visit a less active lady. We had just enough time to get there and back before our dinner appointment. But on our way to their house, we ended up talking to a man who was searching for the truth. Our neighborhood is growing and a lot of houses are being built. We walk past the construction workers every time we leave our house and we are very friendly to them. They say "hi" to us and we ask how they're doing. So this day, we were walking past and one of them came to us and was like "are you testifiers? Are you of the Jehovah’s Witness?" We got a good laugh out of that. But, he said he has seen us walking a lot and his buddy told him we were Jehovah's Witnesses. We then were able to explain to him who we were and all about our church. We pretty much taught him the first lesson...all about Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the restoration. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he committed to reading it and praying every single night. He told us that he knows God exists but he is searching to find the truth. It was so awesome to have that opportunity to teach him and lead him to what he is looking for! It was also a testimony to me that if we go out and work, the Lord will make sure we are in the right places. Even though we had planned to go see this less active family, we really needed to be walking that way to meet this man. Since he is a worker, he doesn't live in our boundaries, but we gave him our phone number so if he desires, we can find the missionaries in his area.

We have been focusing a lot on a few less actives in our ward. We meet with a few of them weekly and it's interesting because this past week, two of them mentioned to us that our visits really fill them with light and with the spirit. They are still a little apprehensive about coming to church and making the commitment to change, but they definitely feel the spirit when we visit with her. One lady we meet with every Thursday night has to work this week. And in the past, we would just not meet that week. But she told us she needs the visit because her week goes a lot better when she has our message to think about when she gets down. So we are meeting with her a different night instead! We decided we need to let her know that our visits are great, but she can get that same spirit at church and the messages at church will help her even more throughout her week. Hopefully she will realize the truth of this and have the desire to make church a priority! It's interesting to work with these less actives because they know what they need to do...they just have a problem making those changes. But thank goodness for the atonement because it allows us to change! We can have heavenly help and assistance to change and become better through the atonement.

Our investigator, M, has been so busy! She's been out of town and then this week she has another camp. So unfortunately another week has gone by that we haven't seen her! But, we set up an appointment for this weekend, so that will be great. These people here are so busy! There are some families in our ward that my companion hasn't even met yet because they've been out of town so much! And it's week 6 of the transfer.

Speaking of transfers, they are coming up! We won't know until next week what will happen, but I have a feeling my time here in Parker is about up. So I am determined to make this week the best week ever because it very well may be my last week in this area. I am going to work as hard as I can and give it my all. My mom always said to leave things better than you found them...so I need to finish strong and leave this area better than I found it! And when we work hard and are obedient, we are so blessed. I have seen this to be so true in my mission so far. The Lord loves his missionaries! And He will do all he can to help them accomplish His work.

Keep on keepin on everybody.

Love you!

xoxo

Sister Hoer

PS~~ oh, I forgot to tell you some funny stories. So the kids we live with...I always tell them goofy things to do and sometimes their parents don't love it!

One day they were playing with twigs they found and pretending like they were Harry Potter wands. I told the youngest boy, Cannon, he should put a zig zag on his forehead then he'd have real powers like Harry Potter. Lo and behold he runs inside and draws a lightning bolt on his forehead and runs back out yelling new spells on me. Hilarious. Then his dad was like "oh Cannon", then wiped off the marker. Oops!

And then last night, they were all playing pool and I told the kids that the blue chalk for the pool sticks is perfect for your nose. So, they all stuck the blue chalk on their noses and ran around with smurf noses. I'm sure their parents weren't too fond of that either. Maybe it's a good thing we're moving out...I keep getting these kids in trouble! LOL