Week 51

This week was a great week. Our investigator got baptized last Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. It was a very sweet experience and I am so grateful to have been apart of it. The spirit was so strong. It was a combined baptism with a woman who the Elders taught. I gave a mini talk on baptism. I really, really don't like giving talks, but I love writing them. It’s nice to have a reason to study by topic and really ponder them out. So the preparation was a lot nicer than the actual delivery. Conversion is a really cool thing to get to watch. It's really never just a moment. It’s a slow process of people changing their lives to find out what really makes them happy. It has been such a blessing to get to watch as he has learned the gospel and really found out for himself that it is true. The Holy Ghost is real and it testifies of truth. And for that I am grateful because it makes our job sooooo much easier. I really, really love being a missionary and I really, really love the gospel.

We had some other exciting things that happened this week, but it’s so hard to explain the coolness of events in writing. 

We have a woman that we teach who I have gotten really close to these last few months that ended up in the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. We got permission to leave the mission (the hospital was just out of our area) and go check on her. Most of her family was not able to be with her, so when we got there she was alone. It was about three hours after her surgery and she had - just two minutes earlier - received the news about a close family member who was also in the hospital, but would probably not make it. The hospital was packed and so she was in a panic and all alone. We got to rush in and hold her hand and talk her through some breathing. It was such a testimony builder to me that God is so aware of us. We were literally in the parking lot when she got that news. Of all the things on my mission, I feel the most grateful and the happiest when I can feel God working through me to help other people. It’s almost a rush to be able to feel that way. But by the time we left she was calmed down and we were able to go back that night for her to receive a blessing. I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father who knows us so personally and knows what and who we need, and who will actually send those people to us. How lucky are we? 

We get to go to Girl’s Camp this week and I am so excited I can't even take it. Plus it is only supposed to be like 95 degrees at camp (yeah, I am not an Oregonian anymore - I say ONLY 95 degrees) because we are driving into the mountains a little bit. Hashtag Blessed. We get to do a little 50-minute class about nature. When they told us that I was like... umm ok that is super broad, what in the world are we going to do? But we planned a class that I think will go really well. We are focusing on how nature is a great place to receive personal revelation (for example, Christ in Luke 5:16, or even Joseph Smith in JSH 1:14,17-19). And sadly sometimes we will be in nature, but we wont really be IN nature because of all the distractions we have these days. I am pretty excited - I think it will go really well. 

Cool story about that planning session. It was all four of the sisters who are going to camp and we were trying to figure out where to go and were totally stuck for like a solid 15 minutes. So we said a prayer and during the prayer the answer came for what we needed to do. I have a testimony of prayer. It really does work. 

We are also getting our new mission president this Wednesday. I am nervous but really excited to meet him. I am sure he will be great and exactly who the mission, and I personally, need at this time. Its funny how it all just seems to work out.

I love you all and hope you are having a fun and safe summer! 

Sister Doxey