Dear Family,
I loved being able to see little updates from you on the iPad! Even though I can't reply till Monday, it was nice to feel a little loved throughout the week :)
If you're still willing to pray for a list of investigators, you could pray for Dawnna, Alli, April, Bella and Rita. Dad, your question is my question too! Where are all the husbands?! We are teaching a lot of 30-50 year old women right now with young kids. Hopefully Dawnna and Alli's husbands will come around soon. April is a single mom and Rita is an older woman that we found this week. That was a real miracle! She was a referral from her member neighbors. It turns out that she is a theater teacher and has been really impressed by the example of the students in her class. Wow... Something I learned this week is like it or not, as members of the Church, we are literally missionaries all the time! People notice the things we do and say. Even in high school. The question is, are we going to live in a way that everyone will recognize the light of the Gospel in us? She also noticed when some students weren't living the standards and that was confusing to her, but after we explained that that was their individual choice and not a reflection of our belief, she decided to still investigate. PEOPLE NOTICE! The good and the bad!
This was a challenging week but also very rewarding. Most of our progressing investigators have been really sick or experiencing family struggles. Darn Satan. After several days of not very much success, the miracles came :) Dawnna said that she was finally able to talk about the church with her husband, who has not been super supportive. He had lots of good, sincere questions for her and even gave her a ride to church! Yayyy Dawnna! Tonight we're going to go walk around the temple with her. She is sticking with her baptism date in the middle of July which is a ways away, but it's what she feels comfortable with, I've learned you can only draw someone to the waters of baptism, you can't drag them. The important part is that she will be here to stay. :) Please pray that her husband's heart will continue to be softened and that he will want to learn about the church.
Bella is a woman we met this week who has met with missionaries in the past, is about to marry a less active member, and really wants to be baptized. Hooray!! We are excited to help her prepare for baptism and also help reactivate her fiance John. She wasn't able to come to church but please pray that she will come next week and really start progressing.
We presented a missionary tool that Sis Mayfield came up with to the stake president and the bishops and WMLs in the stake. It's called MTC, but it stands for Member Training Center and that's where we'd work with the WMLs to train groups of 4 or 5 families at a time on how they can effectively do member missionary work. We're super excited about it :) We're basically piloting it in our zone and if it does well, they may implement it in the rest of the mission. Time will tell! We had a good correlation with our WML yesterday who had some other ideas and we've kinda come up with a conglomerate that will work for our ward.
Sis Mayfield and I last night re-committed ourselves to our missions. We both kinda reached a point where we were a little tired and frustrated and Satan was working pretty hard on us. We were just having a heart-to-heart talking about this when we came across a man named Tony sitting in the doorway to his apartment. He told us he was genuinely interested in our message and to never get discouraged because we're doing an amazing thing. We both just about cried. It makes a huge difference to hear that from people, even when they don't fully understand what it is we're doing. Thank you, Tony, for being an instrument in God's hands to help out the missionaries. We might never see him again but regardless, he taught me that Heavenly Father can work through people in very simple ways.
Funny story of the week: Sister Mayfield and I went to the temple this week, and decided to eat at the cafeteria first. Bad idea (the eating first part). I got food poisoning and was alerted to this fact right before the session started. I sat in the endowment room, sweating and dying, pleading with the Lord to let me make it through. Right at the moment when I was pretty sure I couldn't make it... they closed the doors. The session starts and I sit there in pain and finally, right after they talk about how if you're not ready to make these covenants please raise your hand, I bolt to the door. Hahaha embarrassing. I came back and they looked at me all concerned and then started the session again. Pretty sure they thought I was feeling the fire and the brimstone... Nope... just needed to puke :) I always wondered what would happen if someone ran out. Never thought I'd be the guinea pig to figure it out! Haha
Sister Koyle has a necklace with a pendant shaped like a knot, and when we were companions she would always say, "when you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." My new motto is "when you reach the end of your rope, get a new rope." I've been doing that through prayer and repentance and relying on the Atonement. I know that because Jesus Christ loves us, He can give us the strength to renew our commitments and endure to the end and continue to serve and do whatever he's asked. And that can be a daily thing :) If you're tired or struggling with any challenge large or small, I invite you to take the Savior up on his offer to pray for His enabling, strengthening, and comforting aid :)
Love you lots! Sister Browning
Our celebratory cranberry juice at the end of the week. Do we look like we're about to pass out? Missionaries party hard. :)
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