Sweet Is The Work: new year, new me, new miracles!

Hello everyone!! How was your New Year's?? Hopefully it was good. :)

Things have been going so great here! I love the holidays and all, but its soooo nice that its over and people will actually meet with us again! That's pretty nice.

On Tuesday we met with our investigator Jeff again. The best way to describe Jeff is just..... that he's a character. He does some weird at home business where he helps international businesses with stuff. So during the lesson he'll just be like, "One second, I need to make a quick call to Pakistan." Like what? Hahaha. We talked to him about the Word of Wisdom and committed him to live it. He said he would try, but it would be difficult. The real problem is his wife Connie........ she's a Calvanist and is very anti-mormon. So its been hard to get Jeff to church and to figure out how him getting baptized is going to work if his wife is so against it. So pray that her heart will soften! He has made a lot of progress though, so hopefully he'll get there.

New Year's eve and New Years day were pretty uneventful to say the least. We basically just spent time cleaning and weekly planning. Nothing too fun! We did have a little celebration at about 9:45 in our apartment though, so thanks for the package mom haha. :)

On Friday we had zone meeting and it was so good! We focused a lot on our goals as a mission and as missionaries and how we can achieve the vision that we have for ourselves. Last year the mission set a goal to double the amount of baptisms than the previous year, which was about 300 I believe. So the mission worked super hard, they didn't quite reach their goal, but they got about 510 baptisms last year alone. So, pretty impressive. :) That's the cool thing about goals I've decided! Even if you don't quite reach them, they leave you better than when you started. So this year as a mission we set the goal for every single missionary to baptize every single month! So two baptisms per companionship per month. So we're all trying super hard to have the faith to see miracles in the mission and working hard to get there.

Then after zone meeting we went on exchanges with the sister training leaders for a whole day! So fun. I went with Sister Armstrong in Quantico and it was totally a tender mercy because we spent like two hours helping a recent convert named Will clean up an antique store. I REPEAT: ANTIQUE STORE. I was literally so happy it wasn't even funny. I think I could spend my whole life in an antique store. Anyway, we were in this room full of old pictures and we started looking through them and we found this old picture of the Salt lake temple! What are the odds? Also, Will was telling me how he is obsessed with Downton Abbey so we became instant best buds hahaha. :) Then we went to dinner at a ward member's house and they fed us Filipino food! So yum :) Then, we took a member with us and stopped by this part member family's house named the Kendall's. The mom has been a member her whole life but went less active when she got married because she felt like the gospel was forced on her. And her husband is not a member but got in a horrible motorcycle accident a few years ago that almost killed him. His wife called the bishop when it happened and he came and gave Steve, the husband, a blessing and they both believe that is why he survived. So cool. So they met this family a few weeks before and when we stopped by this time the husband was just home so we went in and taught him the restoration. It was an amazing lesson. He was just so humble and the spirit was so strong. At the end he said that he would get baptized when he could tell someone exactly why he was mormon, but that he didn't doubt that it could be true. It's so cool to see people who have been through so much but are being prepared by Heavenly Father. Prepared people are everywhere!! I've seen that so much on my mission. We just have to open our mouths and go and find and teach them! Then, we went and taught this little 9 year old boy who just got baptized and his prayer at the end of the lesson was probably the best prayer of my mission haha. I was smiling so hard the whole time. Here are a few phrases that I remember hahaha:

"Heavenly Father, thank you for the earth, thank you for the ground. Thank you for the gospel. Help everyone. Send everyone prophets. Lead us, guide us, walk with us. Help us to be good. Tell everyone to repent. Tell everyone to keep the word of wisdom. Help everyone to get baptized. Help everyone that's sick. Send everyone missionaries. Help us to keep the commandments."

That is only a few he was saying them so fast hahaha. It was so cute I was dying. :) If we could all be like little children we'd be set.

On Saturday we met this cute little latino less active lady in our ward and she gave us canned peaches so that was fun haha. :)

On Sunday we saw so many miracles!!!!!! It was cray. Sister Phipps has been feeling a little better lately, and we've been getting out a little more and working a little more but she has really bad headaches. But, this night I gave her some excederine and poof! No more headache. :) So we went out and decided we were just going to try and contact tons of old potentials and less actives and just find people to teach! So first we went to try and visit a less active family in the ward, the Holt's. But as we pulled up to their apartment building we realized that we needed a pass code to even get into these buildings! So we said a prayer and told Heavenly Father that if he really wanted us to visit this family that we knew He could get us in somehow. So as we're walking to the building, this little lady walking her dog starts walking in front of us and it just so happens that she walks right into the building we were going into! So we hurry and follow her in and were just going to sneak in while the door was open and as we walk up to the building she turns around and says "You're mormons?" and we said uhh yes! Haha then she told us how her husband's family is mormon and she is from Honduras. So we gave her our number and then went to visit this family! So we knock on the door and this young black kid answers and tells us that the family had moved out. BUT, then we talk to him and he starts telling us how he's been looking for the truth and that he's felt like Jesus has "been in his apartment lately" and that he's been feeling a lot better lately. So we gave him a book of mormon and are going back to teach him this week! Ahh it was just so crazy to see how the Lord opens the door for us if we just trust Him . Then we found a bunch of other super solid people who agreed to meet with us this week! So it was just super awesome to see all the miracles pour in. :)

I don't have much time left but we've been setting a lot of goals as missionaries for the new year and I only have about one year left! There are so many things I still want to accomplish and become. So many things I still need to learn! But it is comforting to know that we can always become better, we can always become new people, that there is always hope. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful year and set goals that will bring you closer to the Savior!
2015 is gonna be a good one, I can feel it. :)

Love you all! Miss you!

XOXO Sister Fowers