A MIRACLE

Well hello my beautiful people! This week has gone incredibly fast! In fact, this whole transfer has gone by in no time at all. Transfer calls are on Saturday. Sister Reese will be going home, and who knows what will be happening with me! We are both hoping that I stay. Shotgunning is a bit rough, plus I love the ward I am in! But what will be will be I guess. I got my hair cut on Monday :) It took about 2 hours even though we didn't cut off very much and that's why you didn't get a letter from me last week. Sorry about that :/ But you will get one this week! I will make sure it happens even if it is just a one liner. Want to hear something exciting that I should have told you last week in my email? ZACHS BACK!!! Our golden investigator who dumped us to work things out with his girlfriend texted us on Tuesday (28 October) and told us that he wanted to start meeting again. Me and Sister Reese were in the little closet at the institute where the computer is when he texted and we started freaking out! We were bouncing in our chairs and laughing and high-fiving and all sorts of things. I think that was one of the happiest moments on my mission so far! So, we are teaching Zach again, he is doing so good and he is going to be baptized next Tuesday. Any way, that is kind of old news since it happened a while ago, but it's new news for you :) So there ya go! So on Thursday we had our zone training. WOOHOO! It was so good. And not only was the meeting amazing, we had interviews with President. That was the best! I love President Shumway. I only got to talk to him for about 15 minutes, but I was only supposed to have 10, so I am counting my blessings. :) In district meeting we talked a lot about what we had learned from zone conference with Elder Packer. (Speaking of Elder Packer, in my interview with him he told me to tell you, mom and dad, thank you. Apparently for bringing such an awesome person as me into the world ;) You did a good job apparently). So we just kind of went over our notes and then discussed what we had learned and felt. It was really cool to hear what everyone got out of it. The spirit was really strong. We also got some instruction for a member of the Stake Presidency. I forget what his name is, but he talked about our responsibility to invite. It was really cool. He challenged us to invite in our ward councils and to invite the members to invite. The mission is going to be downsizing here pretty soon (290 missionaries right now to 190 or something like that) and so we are going to need the members help to keep up the work. Really good meeting. Also, we talked about the story of the Brother of Jared. How he brought stones to the Lord and asked Him to touch them to give light. If you look in the footnotes in that section, Ether 3:1 footnote c, molten means skill. We talked about how without the Lord, we just have a pile of rocks; but when we use our skills that we have been given and developed to further the work, and then we go to the Lord and ask Him to sanctify our efforts, we will be successful. It was so cool! So me and Sister Reese have been trying to think of some creative ways that we can try to find people to teach as well as involve the members in the work. Things that we can do, and skills that we have. Then, no matter how out there they may be, we can take them to the Lord and He will make them work. Some of the ideas that we have come up with were a hot chocolate stand on campus, drawing cartoons of people, and getting a small group together and singing hymns on campus. Any other ideas that we might try? :) Saturday there was a football game at MSU. The ward was doing a tailgate activity on campus with the rest of the school (it's become a wet campus. We were one of the few dry groups) and Bishop wanted us to go to that so we did. It was a little bit strange as a missionary. There was music going and a lot of loud noise in general. We had three investigators there though that we got to talk to so that was good. :) We left once most everyone had been through two or three bottles of beer though. Didn't want to stay and see all that craziness. Sunday was a good day as well. We got 6 lessons. One of the doors that we knocked on in the evening a guy from Nigeria answered. After talking for a few minutes he asked where my name came from. I told him that it was an English name and he said he wasn't surprised, he could hear a slight accent. WHAT?! Then he told Sister Reese that she looked like she was English. We both went away from that door very happy and were talking about accents the rest of the evening. We had dinner with the Mangelsons last night. There daughter, Kaite Gamble, is in the singles ward. They are a crazy family! Just to give you an idea, we talked about constipated goats at dinner. Yeah. Good times! Well, I better email president now. I love you all! Have an awesome week and remember to say your prayers :) Prayer is so important! I have really been learning that. I can't do any kind of missionary work without the Lords help. He is the one that moves his work forward. I just need to keep pace and I do that through prayer. By asking, He is able to involve me in the work :) Prayer works!!! Love, Sister Cryer Forgot a story: I had a neat experience on Tuesday. We went out to dinner with a member at a little soup and sandwich place. While we were there we saw a little family come in and look for a table to sit at. Their little girl (she was SO cute) really wanted a booth by the window, but there were none available. So they sat down at a table in the middle of the restaurant. I felt like we should offer them the booth that we were at, but I wasn't sure how to approach them and say "I couldn't help listening to your conversation, do want our booth" in a way that wouldn't sound weird. I should have just done it, but I didn't. Any way, they ended up sitting in the booth right next to us when it became available. I talked to their little girl a little bit, and then we finished our meal and left. As we walked away I couldn't help but feel like we should go back and talk to them about the gospel. Before I knew it though we were in the car and driving away to go visit someone else. They weren't home though and we were still close to the restaurant so I asked if we could go back and explained that I thought we should talk to that family. So we headed back. Stopped at a stop light right by the restaurant we could see the family through the windows getting up from the booth and leaving. NO!!! WAIT! The light turned green and we zoomed into the parking lot and jumped out of the car just before they got into their car. I walked over and started talking to the dad about family home evening after the initial introductions. I asked if he and his family would be interested in learning more about how to have family home evening. He said he didn't think so but he really appreciated us coming back to talk to them. We gave him a Book of Mormon and a pass along card and invited him to call us if he ever had any questions or if he ever became interested in learning more. Even though nothing came from it that I can see, I am so glad that we went back! The Book of Mormon is in one more home than it was before. :)