Girls Camp & Miracles

WOW I cannot tell you all how amazing of a week we had without writing a 8 page email so I will try to keep it (relatively) short.

Monday- ESPN We toured ESPN and it was AWESOME. Not like I've ever really watched it extensively, but it was still pretty cool! ( I have a lot of pictures from this week so it will definitely be on either this email or the next sorry oh well)

Tuesday- I got FOOD POISONING which kinda put a damper on the week, and we had appointments so I just dealt with it and taught people anyways (although I may have been slightly miserable) but I did lose 5 pounds of mission weight in one day #bonus

Wednesday- We handed out treats to the temple workers!! We also did our weekly planning and practiced a song that we had to sing for Zone Conference!

Thursday- AKA BEST DAY EVER so we had zone conference which was beyond incredible. We learned all about how this isn't a gospel of just doing, but it's a gospel of becoming. As we become the person that Heavenly Father knows we can be, we will find more happiness in our lives (which is awesome) ALSO sister holt and I got to sing at it, and although we were really nervous, the spirit was so strong! THEN we got to go to GIRLS CAMP and we had a blast and we sang with them and they all were SO excited to see us and it was awesome we were on a spiritual high for the rest of the weekend!!

Friday- TEMPLE meetings pretty much all day. it was awesome though!!

Saturday- We went on exchanges with sisters from another area and it was awesome, but I'm not going to write much about it other than we handed out 40 temple invitations, in order to save room for what happened on sunday!!!!!!!!

Sunday-This week was just as insane! Before leaving the house for Ward Council, we said our prayer and Sister Holt asked, again, for a miracle. But she changed the wording of the prayer to get a different miracle.She asked Heavenly Father to soften the hearts of those who had a desire to go to church and that they would be given extra courage to come. We left, had a great Ward Council, and then walked in to Sacrament meeting. 

The first thing we noticed were 2 men sitting on the back row in jeans and t-shirts with mohawks. They were rougher looking men. We had to take care of a few things and didn't get the opportunity to talk to them before the meeting started. During the meeting,we noticed ANOTHER man sitting with Elder and Sister Holbrook! Sister Holt mouthed to Sister Holbrook, "Who's that?" And with urgency in her eyes she said, "you NEED to talk to him!"  

WHAT

Sister Holt and I decided to tag team between the 3 men. She ran up to the Holbrooks and asked the Gentleman who he was. He didn't answer with a name, but instead he was just like "I want to be baptized." Mean while, I was talking to the 2 gentlemen who happened to be temple workers-- members from another state. So I go up and start talking with them. Turns out he moved from Ukraine to New York, and he met with Missionaries and got all of the discussions. He dropped his date a few times, but only because his wife was against him the whole time. Days before his long awaited baptism, his wife told him if he were baptized, she would divorce him. He cut all ties and quit talking with the missionaries. Well fast forward a couple of years and months... Andriy (our Ukrainian friend) prayed fervently for his wife's heart to be opened for him to receive the gospel. 

Saturday night, his prayer was answered. His wife told him that she doesn't care now if he joins our church???????? If it makes him happy, she's happy! What?! So we met with him and the Bishop. Andriy is so sincere and excited to come closer to Christ! We had a lesson after our interview and he knew it all. Tithing, Word of Wisdom, Moroni, and Joseph Smith. He wanted to be baptized literally that minute! It was incredible!  SO I CAN LITERALLY NOT BELIEVE what has been happening and he's probably getting baptized this week WAHOO!!

THE GOSPEL IS SO TRUE IT CHANGES LIVES.

stay posted for more pictures