Monday, July 8, 2013

Gifts of the Spirit

Well it sounds like you all had a wonderful 4th of July! I did too.. Sister Littleford wore my blue blazer and I wore my red one and we were just so patriotic and spiritual. We had a breakfast with the 2 Bowling Green Wards and it was awesome. AND, we had some investigators come, which was even more awesome.
So, MY week was amazing. Sister Littleford and I spent several hours moving a family in the pouring rain into a little house in Adolphus, which is Latin for "out in the middle of nowhere, almost inaccessible, good luck trying to get a Uhaul in and out of here, ha ha". Seriously, that's what it stands for. We were soaked to the skin, but we were just laughing and having a good old time. For some reason manual labor is downright relaxing for us. The Elders showed up right at the end and helped us finish, all though you can see who the real heroes were! (: Sister Littleford and I have decided to change our companionship name to The Bryttleford Moving Co. Stay tuned!

Look at us poor, dripping wet Sister Missionaries.
We learned a valuable lesson this week: "If you want something, pray for it." Simple, profound. We spend about a week talking and whining about a certain issue, then we thought, "Hmm. Maybe we should pray and ask God for this thing". And we did. And not an hour later the prayer was answered. Lesson learned! Don't try to do the Lord's Work without the Lord's Help.

I love my companion. We are so unified. More unified than "Calv and Coolage. Put together!!
A few other cool things happened this week. We were in a certain part of Bowling Green tracting, and randomly I thought, "Plano. We should go to Plano." Plano is on the other side of town, pretty far out. So we got in the car and drove out there. We were driving along the road, not really sure where we were going. The Spirit told us, "take the next left". So we did. And we parked, and started tracting the area. We walked up to a couple, they invited us in, and we had one of the most powerful lessons either I or Sister Littleford had ever had. They asked for the Book of Mormon before we could offer it, invited themselves to Church, wrote down their numbers before we asked, explained to each other the importance of the Book of Mormon without any input from us, and begged us tearfully to come back soon. We walked away from that lesson with our minds blown.

Then YESTERDAY, something else ridiculously awesome happened! A few weeks ago, I randomly grabbed a For the Strength of Youth pamphlet and put it in my bag. I've been carrying it around for weeks. Several times, I was about to take it out, but I always put it back because I had a feeling I would need it. Last night, we were visiting a less-active member in our ward, and we saw a woman outside. We were just about to get in the car but we turned around and went and talked to her instead. She told us her story, how she had a son that she had set up for adoption 13 years earlier. She was going through profiles of the candidate couples for her son, and one couple stood out to her. She knew that they were to be the parents of her son, because the Spirit told her. She contacted them and they adopted her son. They are LDS; the father is a Bishop in a ward in Minnesota (Our minds were blown right about now). She expressed a desire to know more about our church, so she would know how her son was being raised. She is very religious, and lives a higher moral code than most of the people we meet. We taught her the first lesson. At the end, I remembered the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet in my bag. And, of course, I knew that she was the reason I had been carrying it around for so long. I handed it to her, and explained that it outlined the standard to which her son was being raised.

That was a huge testimony builder for me. This is the Lord's Work, and He is very much involved in it. Missionaries don't carry around For the Strength of Youth pamphlets. It's not something we usually hand out. The fact that I just happened to have a booklet with me that explained exactly the life her son was being raised to live is just mind-blowing. She was so excited to get it! God knew that what that it was what she needed to read. The Lord is laboring right along side us in this Work (Jacob 5:72).

I hope you are all doing amazing! Remember what I said about letters: "write me them". I love you all! 

We went bowling on P-day for Elder Pulsipher's going-away (transfers) party. Cheryl and Gary are the BOMB!


In the South we eat fried chicken, beans, corn, potatoes. And cornbread, lots of cornbread! Pleeaaase send me some rice crackers.




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