Sweet Is The Work: Did someone say.............YSA??

Well guys, I now have solid proof that Heavenly Father loves me lots and lots and lots.

Because..... He sent me to another YSA!

I am now in the Rappahannock YSA Branch in Fredericksburg! Ask me how happy I am..... I'm really, really happy. :) I love YSA so much and this area is just on fire. We cover the whole stake and we are seeing so many miracles in just one week. The members love us and feed us lunch and dinner pretty much every day. #hellozion

Haha my new companion is Sister Weber! She is so awesome. :) She is from Star Valley WY, her dad is also a farmer, she's 19, she went to BYU before her mission but she will be going to Utah State afterwards- studying Business! Isn't it kinda freaky how much we're alike? But this is her last transfer, so we only get one together!

I don't even know where to begin because I have so much to tell you!

Lets start with some investigators:

1. James ---> He is is super funny black guy with a huge afro that loves to write poetry and like what every one else hates hahaha :) He's awesome. He has been meeting with missionaries for a few weeks and just struggles to feel the Spirit. Then one day last week after our lesson with him he text us and told us that he had felt the Spirit and described it as "a baby's hand gently pulling on his heart" :) Basically he had this crazy revelation that we're not sure was actually the Spirit cause he learned some kind of sketchy things, but he has a baptism date for June 6th and is working towards that! He also said in his revelation that God told him he needs to understand 2 more things before his baptism, but he doesn't know what they are....? We'll see haha :)

2. Joey ---> Joey is a young guy that is a recovering heroine addict. He has been clean for like 40 days now! Woohoo! But I guess he was in rehab and would have tons of hallucinations because of the withdrawals and just side effects from using drugs and the doctor told him he might have them for the rest of his life because of how much damage was done to his brain. But then his grandma sent him a bible! And as soon as he started reading it his hallucinations totally stopped. Then he met the missionaries a few weeks later. Pretty crazy huh? He basically meets with us in between NA meetings, but is really accepting of it and prepared!

3. Rebecca and Melissa ---> They are sisters and were raised Baptist. They met the missionaries a few weeks ago while they were carrying furniture into their apartment. We have been teaching them and they basically had a bunch of anti-Mormon material ready on their phone for when they got there. Ugh. So I pretty much just told them to seek the truth without using their cell phone and they didn't really like that.... oops :) Hopefully they come around! But It's it just shows that we can never prove the gospel right or wrong, we just need to be humble enough to ask God.

4. Austin ---> He is sooo prepared! He is the manager of a book store that a few of the members of the branch work at called Books A Million. We have lots of lessons there :) Anyway, he had been talking to members for a few weeks and then one day the sisters went in and introduced themselves and he's been meeting with us ever since! He is kind of rough on the outside- tattoos, piercing, drinks, smokes, etc, but he is awesome. He used to be agnostic and just very logical, but decided to turn his life around. He has been reading the Book of Mormon and came to church on Sunday! He loved it. Some converts gave talks and he felt like they were just for him. Then yesterday we taught him the Plan of Salvation and he said he feels like this is the path that he's supposed to be on and that he needs to do this. We talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ and he said he feels like he is on the repentance step and that he knows he needs to be baptized. THE SPIRIT IS SO POWERFUL. It can change anything and anyone!
I have seen that first hand on my mission. All we need to do is be pure conduits for the Spirit to work through us to teach them. We just gotta get out of the way :)

5. Kelsey ---> She is straight up a miracle that just fell into our laps. She just showed up at church yesterday by herself because she just moved home for the summer because she's been going to school out at Virginia Tech, where a friend invited her to church at the end of March at the YSA branch out there, and then she met with the elders twice a week after that. When she met us she said, "So... I have a baptism date for June 13th... is that okay? Can I still do that?" Haha she is so sweet! We were like "ummm yes!" So we had her come to dinner at a member's house yesterday and we had a lesson and she just loves the gospel so much and knows its true. Her whole family is Southern Baptist though and are very non-supportive. But we are pretty much just prepping her for her baptism. :) So happy! Heavenly Father is just giving us so many miracles.

That's pretty much all the note worthy ones :)

We are also working with some super awesome recent converts and less actives and helping them get to the temple :)
President Wilson always talks about being a "full purpose missionary", not just a baptizing missionary but someone who hastens all areas of the Lord's work.

On Saturday we also got to do some service and help feed the homeless! It was awesome. We just ran around getting them food, drinks, picking up their plates, pretty much acting like waitresses.
But it makes me so grateful for all that I have and how much I've been blessed temporally and spiritually.
Speaking of service, here is my new favorite Mormon Message that I'm obsessed with! Watch it :)

http://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/lift-the-power-of-service

Also, happy news! Remember my investigator Sam from when I was at the Chippenham YSA? Guess where she is originally from and currently living? Fredericksburg :) Yup! So I called her when I got here and we are meeting with her tomorrow! I'm so excited! I don't know how it will go, but we'll see :)

Annddd.... this week is just going to be crazy busy. We have an all mission conference on Friday for the iPads and then all the sister training leaders will go out on splits with the sisters in Richmond for the night and then we'll stay at President's house and then have MLC (missionary leadership council) the next day! Then on Monday we will have a zone meeting where we get our actual iPads! So its gonna be hectic and crazy, but exciting :)

That was long email, but this transfer is going to be such a blessing. Sister Weber and I have a vision for getting 7 baptisms this transfer.
In Proverbs 29:18 it says,
"Where there is no vision, the people perish."
I know that as we set goals in faith that the Lord will help us to accomplish them!
So we have big plans and even if they don't happen, we will be better for it.
We won't perish :)

Hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day! I'm currently in George Washington's boyhood hometown, so it doesn't get more patriotic than that!

Love you all!

XOXO, Sister Fowers

ps. This pic is where we had a lesson one night! On a dock by the Rappahannock river :) And our recent convert kindly took our picture :)