I've been out for 1/4 of my mission already! Can you even
believe it? It's gone by so fast! And what better way to celebrate this
milestone than with something that Sister Gardner likes to call "Miracle
Week." Allow me to elaborate.
First we had the No More Strangers Devotional, where
President Holm came to Boiling Springs to talk to the less-actives, recent
converts and non-members just to explain what our church is all about. Before
the devotional, I got to do my interview with President Holm. He is such a cool
mission president! I'm so grateful for him! He told me that I should start
practicing the piano once a week so I can develop that talent again... That
will be fun for me though! I started playing this last week and I can't believe
how much I miss playing the piano! And guess what? I led the music for that
devotional. Hahah. I lead the music so much. I'm pretty sure it's my new
calling in life. People were asking me if President Holm has asked me to lead
the music for everything but he hasn't. It's just an unofficial thing.
On Thursday, Sister Gardner and I went on a spontaneous
temple trip with Sister Andersen from our ward. That was the first time since
I've been out that I've gone to the temple and HOLY COW! It was freaking amazing!
I have seriously missed going to the temple! It was so awesome and we were so
grateful for Sister Andersen for taking us! It definitely made me appreciate
our temples in Utah so much more because we had to drive 2 hours to get there
instead of a 10 - 15 minute drive.
Also on Thursday, we got two referrals for families! One was
for a Cambodian family. The husband (still not sure of his name because we
haven't really met him...) is a less-active but we didn't have his records. We
found him because the Elders in our area knocked into his sister, for whom we
also didn't have records. The sister is now coming to church and wanted to get
her family involved in the church so she sent us over to her brother's house.
We met C and
her 4 kids on Friday. She grew up Buddhist. C really wants a church and
wants to get baptized. She told us this within the first 10 minutes of us
knowing her. She was like "I'm excited to get baptized!" We were like
"Whoa! Let's teach you about our church first!" It's been an
interesting experience because she has no knowledge about God. It's been really
unusual for us to teach her because everyone that we've taught has a basic
understanding of God or Jesus Christ but not really her. Luckily for us, we
have a guy in our ward who used to be Buddhist so he's going to help us out a
little with that! Who would have thought that I'd be teaching a Buddhist in the
Bible Belt? Not me.
The other referral was from Bishop. It was for a
less-active, Sister M, who just moved back into our ward with her 6
grandkids. None of her grandkids are members but Sister M wants them to be.
So we're going to start teaching them now! We're actually going over tonight to
see them! It's going to be interesting because Sister M's a member but she
doesn't know anything about the church... We'll have to teach her along with
her grandkids so we're pretty pumped!
Then on Saturday, we got this call from Bishop Fore. He
wanted to show us a "video that they made to show to investigators"
and he "wanted our opinion on it." So we went over to his house and
he pulled up the video on his laptop. The video started out with "Cody's
Mission Call." I was racking my brain for Codys in our ward. Then I saw my
little brother on the screen and for some reason, it didn't phase
me. I was like "Oh it's just Cody opening up his mission call. ...
WAIT WHAT?!" No one had even hinted to me that Cody had his mission papers
in so I started bawling, which was slightly embarrassing because Sister Fore
was filming me to send my reaction to y'all. But it was so awesome! And
Cody's going to the England London South Mission! Holy crap! I'm so proud of
that kid! So is the Boiling Springs ward. Just to let y'all know, Bishop Fore
has shown some of the ward members that video and told the whole ward council
about it so Cody's kind of famous here now. We're all very excited for him! God
save the Queen ;)
So remember how I said that we had two referrals
of families to teach? Well... All of them came to church yesterday!
We had nine investigators at church! I can't even believe it myself since
I've been lucky just to get one person at church! I was thrilled! It was a
little nerve wracking because I had to give a talk yesterday in front of these nine
investigators, all of the Elders’ investigators and the rest of my ward. But it
was still a sweet sacrament meeting!
So that sums up our Miracle Week! I'm sure that it
will continue through to this week as well! I thank you all for your
prayers in my behalf and for all of the support and encouragement I've
received! It really means a lot to me! I love y'all and I'll talk to you next
week!
- Sister Amy Christensen
Ether 12:6 - "... For ye receive no witness until after
the trial of your faith"
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| With Sis. Gardner in front of the Columbia South Carolina Temple |
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