Week 7 - They Came

Dear Friends and Family!

This week has been great! We have been blessed to find some great new investigators. I was struggling because before coming out on my mission I had the illusion that missionary work happened over night. But it doesn't. It really is a slow process that requires so much love and work.These are real people with real problems.(Seems so silly that I am just starting to learn this) We get to plant seeds of faith and help them grow! Best job ever right?
Here is an update on some of the people we are working with!
We were finally able to teach on of our investigators the stop smoking workshop! He has a baptism date for the 23rd of July. He is a great example of how you can change your life around and refocus on the things that are really important. He has had a pretty rough life and after finally facing things that have happened he is able to turn his life around because he realizes how important it is to be baptized by proper authority.
We have also been working with A young couple( The wife is a member the husband is our investigator). We were really worried because he had not yet prayed to know if Joseph smith was a prophet. we always left him the commitment to pray about it. he kept forgetting. We committed him to pray about it again and left it on a sticky note and he forgot. We came back the last time and he had prayed! He said he didn't receive an answer yet, but he prayed! ( This was huge for us because he will not pray in lessons with us)  We were able to watch the Finding faith in Christ DVD. (Which I highly recommend to watch!) This touched their hearts and you can really see the change taking place in him. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ!
Last we have a less active family we have started to work with. The dad was a convert to the church at age 10, then he became less active at age 18. We went by last Saturday to visit him and him and his wife were out of town, but his 19 year old daughter was there and invited us in. We got to know her and had a great visit with her. Then we told her about what we were doing in slidell (missionaries!) and about the message we share with people ( The restored gospel!) She was very interested. We loaned here a copy of the book of Mormon and invited her to come to church that Sunday. She said that she would come next week with her parents.
We went back This past Saturday, hoping to teach the daughter, or visit with her and her whole family was there. The dad and the daughter both visited with us. The dad told us about his history with the church. Questions about the word of wisdom came up and without bringing up church the daughter told us she was coming to church the next day! She begged her dad to come with her to church. He was adamant about not coming and kept saying that he wouldn't come. Toward the end of our visit, after we shared a message, the mom came and visited for a second with us too. We had a prayer with them and left. (The dads other daughter was there and we invited her to church too)
The next day was Sunday..We were very sure that the two daughters would be coming to church..Who should come to church but the daughter( The one that we initially met with), Her dad and her Mom! Sister Hills and I were so excited. We asked the daughter how she got her dad to come and she said her mom talked him into coming. We had a member of the 70 randomly show up at our sacrament meeting and talked a lot about the importance of attending sacrament and how we have agency. Exactly what our investigators needed to hear. God really does hear our prayers. I feel so grateful to have met and to be able to teach this family. I hope that they continue to desire to learn more about the gospel. After Church the dad told sister hills and I that we were only the second missionaries to ever get him to come to church! Sister hills and I smiled and said "So we'll see you next week?" :) He said we could come by any time this week. We are very excited and hopeful for them.
Oh big news! I was finally able to teach the Plan of Salvation to a real investigator. What is even more crazy is that I taught it by myself...well not all by myself. ( we were struggling to get members to come out with us so we had to split up and each go with a different senior sister). I am not going to lie..the lesson was super shaky and did not make a lot of sense. It is hard because the investigator did not really know who God or Jesus Christ is. In future lessons we are going to just go over individual principles and really take our time with them. We had just been meeting with the dad, but we invited his son to join in on the lesson. Come to find out the son had read a lot of the pamphlet we had left on the Restoration of the gospel and wanted to learn more! We committed them to come to church. The son is really excited about the gospel and really wants to come to church. The dad is a little shaky, but wants to do it for his son. ( His wife, died when his son was really young, so he has been a single dad) As we went to end the lesson the dad almost said the closing prayer..but the son said it. It was a very sweet heart felt prayer. (i have not heard so many humble prayers in my life as i have on my mission) As we were going to leave the dad turned to me and said.." I really felt something this time"..Success! It made me almost want to cry. Even though the lesson had been choppy..he still felt the spirit and desired to learn more. ( You can't go wrong when you are teaching about the atonement..right?)

There is a little glimpse of how the work is going for us sisters here in Slidell!

Southernism: "Catchall"- I know I've heard this used in my real life..but they use this word here all the time. Catchall refers to a room or place where all the junk you have gets thrown. "That room is the catchall.." Like that!
Tracting tips!: $1.17 (So close to happy hour cupcakes!)
Scripture of the week: 2 Nephi 9:49 I love this scripture because it talks about how much Nephi hated sin..he abhorred it! This basically means ultimate disgust or loathing. May we look upon sin as Nephi does and "delight in righteousness"! :D

Love, Sister Urie!