Tornadoes and Good Times.

What a crazy week! On Tuesday, we were doing Mormon.org time in the public library, and all of a sudden the librarian comes over and says "Okay, we have a tornado warning, so you can go into the basement and hang out there if you want to, but you don't have to.." ...so we didn't. We heard the tornado sirens going off in the distance. A few minutes later, she comes back and says that she now has orders to make us all go down in the basement for shelter, no exceptions! So everyone in the library goes down there and sits in the basement. We were there for like five minutes, and then she said the warning has officially been lifted so we can go back upstairs! I've never been around tornadoes in my entire life, so it was pretty exciting for me(: Apparently the tornado touched down once like five miles south of town, then disappeared immediately after. No big deal!

Before the whole tornado extravaganza, when we first came into the library we sat down at the computers. I sat next to this older lady with long grey hair. She turned to me and said, "I hate you." And I was like..... Huh? I didn't know what to say haha and she said, "I used to have hair like yours, and everyone loved it, but now look at it! I'm so jealous of you!" Then she laughed(: We started talking and I told her I was a missionary and she said that she was a Mormon once. I asked her what religion she was now, and it was some weird name I've never heard of before. She told me how she just graduated from UW in religious studies and loves learning about all religions. What broke my heart though, was that she said she'd even been through the temple before, once upon a time. And she said, "And by the way, that is the most poorly performed ritual that I have ever seen!" It just made my heart hurt to think that one of the most sacred things on this earth was put to shame like that. But after she shared what she believed, I told her what i believed and she was very sweet and nice to me. When she left, she told me good luck and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I hope I'll see her again around Laramie!

On Friday we taught a less active who is struggling with some family things right now. She has siblings who are Mormon, other siblings who are Jehovah Witness, and her dad used to be Mormon but is now totally against it and tells her all of this weird stuff. So, we taught her the Restoration of the Gospel. And I was very surprised, because she really did not know a lot of things about it! What an awesome lesson. The spirit was so strong and my eyes were opened very wide. When I thought of less actives before, I just assumed they knew everything because they were once active in their lives. But they have lost hold of those simple truths and doctrines, and that's truly what they need in order to gain their faith again and to repent. I learned this week that less actives are just as precious as investigators.

I know I've said this before, but our ward missionaries are the best. They truly care about what we are doing and how we can improve and ways they can help hasten the work in our ward! In our meeting on Wednesday, they asked me if he could look at my planner, so I gave it to him and he gave many compliments and suggestions(: They told us that they were telling us all of these things we could do and work on because they trust us, and they can see our potential in becoming even better missionaries. Sister Martin told me later that they've never had a missionary correlation mtg like that before in this ward. She said that the ward is changing and the attitude towards missionary work is changing, and the ward members are catching the spirit of missionary work like never before! It's exciting!

Yesterday (Sunday) was a great day. We didn't have any investigators come to church unfortunately, but we'll try harder this week! So our ward mission leader wanted us to come into priesthood meeting for opening exercises. So we came in with him, and he had us sit in the very front facing all of the priesthood! Before they opened, the first counselor asked us if either of us played the piano... I said I did(: He was so grateful that I was willing to play an opening hymn for them! It made me so grateful that I at least know like 10 hymns I can play in case anyone ever asks like that. One of my biggest regrets in life is fighting those piano lessons for eight years mom... I never thought I'd admit it, but it's true. I'd be so much better now if I would have just embraced it. That's one thing I'm going to improve on when I'm home! Anyways, so after the opening prayer and announcements, He had Sister Martin and I stand and he basically told everyone to look at us and see the light and spirit that we have, and told them that "these sisters need people to teach! And they're doing all of the work themselves! We need you all to step up and invite people you know and love to be taught in your home. It's a glorious experience." It's true, we need their help! Missionaries can't do the work alone, they need members. 

 

My invitation to you this week is to give the missionaries in your ward a referral, either someone you care about or someone you just barely met. And if the missionaries want, then offer to go with them to teach or maybe invite them to teach in your home. They need your help! I know, because we need the Sherman Hill Ward's help. 

 

The church is true! Love you all,

Sister Thomas