Sweet Is The Work: Busy Bees!

This week has been craaazzzy. It's been a big blur haha :)

On Wednesday we went and visited my former investigator, Sam! Which was kind of a bummer. It was great to see her, but she just said she was content without having a relationship with God. I asked if we could come teach her again and she said, "Sister Fowers, you know I love you. But I'm going to have to say no." #heartbreak.

I have faith that someday she will accept the gospel though.

President Wilson always talks about creating our own "personal ministries."
Which means the people in our life that we keep sharing the gospel with our whole lives,
not just when we have a name tag on. I love that.

Sam is definitely part of my personal ministry
and hopefully someday she will change her mind. :)

Sad story number 2 from that day....... I DROPPED MY COMPANION'S CAMERA IN A CREEK. Yup. You heard right. We were having a lesson in this little park and we were sitting on this little bridge that went over a little two foot creek. After the lesson Sister Weber wanted to take a group picture, so she set her camera on the rail. I wanted one too, so as I went to set my camera down next to hers, something terrible happened and plop! There goes her camera. Down to its watery grave. Pretty sure I've apologized like a thousand times..... hahaha. Luckily the memory card was fine and she still has all the pictures, but the camera is toast :(
Not my best moment.....

Then that night we had a lesson with this referral named Sarah! She is 18 and worked with 2 LDS guys that would talk about the gospel with her pretty much every day. Her family is Baptist, but she told us she has never felt comfortable there and doesn't know what the Spirit feels like because her whole life people have told her that the Spirit is what you feel when the preacher comes into the congregation and pops someone on the forehead and they fall down... Sarah was like, "I never knew if I was just crazy and wasn't feeling what everyone else was, but that just seems creepy." We were like, no, the Spirit doesn't make us feel bad. We will help you feel what the Spirit really feels like. :) We taught her the restoration and she had the best questions and just ate up everything we taught her! She had read 3 chapters that we gave her in the Book of Mormon since our lesson and loves them. So high hopes for her!!

On Thursday we had a few lessons, but the worst one was with a less-active. He had been showing up to church and FHE every once and a while but no one really knew who he was. So we went over to investigate and figure out who he was and if he was active. We took a member and pretty quick we could tell that he wasn't spiritually where he should be and that his heart was just really hard. He went on a mission a while ago in Utah and had tons of baptisms, but when we asked him where his scriptures are he didn't even know. He hadn't read them in a loooonnnng time. When he did find them, he was flipping through the pages and pulled out a paper and said, "this is the baptism program of someone I baptized and I don't even remember who they are." We were all just like..... umm sad. No one really knew what to say. We committed him to pray, and hopefully he did.

But mostly I just learned that we can never stop living the gospel!! We can't come home from our missions and forget the people, lessons, experiences, conversion that we had. We can't ever be the same. Or we will fall away.

Then on Friday we drove down to Richmond and had our iPad mission conference! It was AMAZING. Elder Zwick of the Seventy came and Brother Hemmingway, who is the director of proselyting in the church. It was interesting because they didn't really teach us anything about actually using the iPads. all they taught us was how our heart is the only true filter we have. We just need to sanctify and purify ourselves and that is our only protection. They shared super powerful experiences and it was just a great meeting. I learned a lot. Then afterward we went on exchanges with some sisters in the area and then all the sister training leaders went back to the mission home to sleep for the night, which was so fun :) The next morning we woke up at 4:45 to go to the church and go play a game that's famous in the mission, its called Oompa :) haha and President swatted so many sisters it was hilarious. No mercy :)

Then we had MLC all day and it was a long meeting, but we got our iPads and had a lot of trainings.

Then yesterday was just a miracle day! Our pday got moved to today because we had a zone meeting yesterday morning to hand out the iPads to the other missionaries. I had to give a training on our calling, which was kind of nerve wracking, but it went really well. :)

Then at FHE we had the coolest experience!! Remember our investigator Kelsey? She came to FHE and sat next to me during the lesson. She turned and whispered that she was going to have to move her baptism date from the 13th to the 20th because of her cousin's graduation. So that was a bummer, but I said, "You could get baptized this week?? :)" And she was like "I can? I didn't know that was an option?" But then she decided right then and there that she wants to get baptized this Friday at 6:30!! So we interrupted and told everyone that she just decided to get baptized and that they should come :) haha everyone was so excited! The members just took her right in. A few members are even taking her to the temple today :) SUCH A MIRACLE! She's so ready.

Heavenly Father is so good.

Plus, a few people brought non-member friends to FHE and we plan to teach them this week!

So many good things! Everyday I just realize more and more how much this is His work and we really don't have much to do with it. We play such a small part, but I'm so grateful for that small little part. :)

Love you all so much!

XOXO, Sister Fowers

ps. this pic is of the cutest restaurant we went to in downtown Fredericksburg called Foode. It's in this little alley way. Love :)