19 July 2010

Well, like last week, I'll state that this has been an interesting week... an interesting first transfer!

This week has been full of a different kind of work for me.

Sister J. has been here in this ward for almost nine months, so the ward knows her as the completely capable missionary that she is. The zone and district also know her as that missionary.

Transfer calls come next week, and I honestly have no idea how things are going to be changing, but I know that something will. I don't know if I'll still be in Norfolk or not. President said that he is planning on moving sisters so that we are no longer just in the tidewater region... I'm excited for the possibility of going inland :) I just know that whatever happens, I want to do whatever the Lord needs and wants me to do. regardless of how hard that might seem.

While we did spend a lot of time indoors this week, that doesn't mean that the work stopped. We still have several investigators that we are working with and that we've been able to make progress with. Brother Clemens, who I've talked about in some of the past emails is growing in faith so much!! It's readily evident at each visit how much he has grown just since the last time we met with him. We saw him twice this last week. Once on Friday night when he was asking all sorts of questions about the church and what would happen after he was baptized. He let the word "when" slip this week instead of the "if" he usually uses. We talked about the brother of Jared and his faith as well as the atonement of Jesus Christ with him. He really has a great ability to learn by the spirit. he has come so far from hating God to nearly being ready to be baptized into his church. On Saturday he came to a baptismal service for some of the other missionaries. He asked us all sorts of questions about the service, about being confirmed and about the priesthood... if he would be able to baptize people once he was baptized. It was awesome to see him so eager to learn! We also got him down in the font with his son after it had been drained so that he could see that it wouldn't be too bad. We arranged secretly with his son for him to drive down from Richmond to do that for us. Ed's family is so ready for him to take this step. So, now it's just for us to wait for him to tell us when he wants to be baptized. He has a date in mind, he just refuses to tell us. He is a little bit of a stubborn old man!!

We've also been working with this really cute little French lady Chantel Kerber. Her story is an interesting one. She was raised catholic and was practicing until just a few years. She came in contact with the church though many years ago in France where she nannied for a young LDS family. They lost touch after the family moved back to the united states, but after several years, Chantel decided that she wanted to get back in touch with her.... she searched the internet for years and finally found this lady... they've gotten back in touch and the friend shares a lot about the church and gospel with her. She said that she has always liked how family oriented the church is, and how we are all part of the services. Her favorite time to go to church is on fast and testimony Sunday when anyone can get up and talk. She has been coming to church every Sunday for a while now, but she has been really hesitant to let us come over and visit her while her husband is home, so we have to be careful about when we go see her, but this week she told the bishop's wife that she really wants to get her husband to come next week. This is quite the improvement! Her poor husband converted to being catholic for her, and she doesn't want him to feel pressured to become Mormon now too! She is wonderful, and has so many talents. When we went over this last week she showed us her garden of Bonzi trees and many other things!! She is always full of surprises. She isn't ready to be baptized yet, but she wants to serve in any way she can, and on Sunday she asked who she could give her donations to! We are really excited to see her grow toward her Savior, and bring her family too. We are especially excited to be able to teach her about the plan of salvation because all she ever wanted to do is be a wife and mother, and she was never able to have kids, so she said the other day that she felt she had wasted her life. :) She is so ready for the gospel! It's amazing how other people can have faith in so many religions that are so incomplete. How sad and meaningless life must be!!

Lets see, today for preparation day we went and saw a light house... I'm sorry to say Kelsey that I beat you to seeing the Atlantic. I tried to give you time. We went to see the cape Henry light houses. It was really awesome... I'll mail home a CD with pictures so that you can see them and put them on the blog for me. :) Next time though... I'm definitely wearing pants! It was still AMAZING though regardless of how hard to climb it was in skirts.

Presidents interviews should be this weekend, It will be an interesting week. My companion is going up to Richmond for a three day training... Tuesday through Thursday, and then Friday should be interviews. Interviews were supposed to be last weekend, but president had some other problems to take care of... so I'll let you know next week how that goes as well as where I'm going to be. :)

It should be a really exciting week!

Love you all!!

Sister Boston.

PS. Sorry last week's email is incomplete. I don't know what happened :S