Fun times . . .

This week was an interesting week. So I'll fill you in on the soap opera that is my life.

So Tuesday was like any other day, well besides the fact that it was Sister Anderson's birthday of course! We decided to walk around and talk to people on Neil Rd. We started talking to this lady and she started going off on how crazy Mormons are, somehow not realizing we are Mormon. That was awkward but we just continued talking to her and testifying of Christ, not bringing up the fact that we were Mormon. Then I asked if I could share a scripture with her. I read Helaman 5:12 but didn't tell her it was from the Book of Mormon. Here's how the conversation after went:

Maria: I love that scripture! Where is that from? I don't remember seeing that in my Bible.
Me: It's actually from the Book of Mormon.

**awkward pause**

Maria: Well..uh..God really does have a sense of humor. Can you bring me a Book of Mormon?

So the Spirit's pretty awesome at helping us handle awkward situations!
Anyways, we then went on our way and had an amazing night filled with fattening food! I may or may not have told the waitress at Texas Roadhouse that it was Sister Anderson's birthday haha. Then we went and got frozen yogurt after too. So I basically gained 50 pounds this week.
We felt weird two days later about bringing Maria a Book of Mormon and then we understood why. Now we better understand the importance of following the Spirit. Our visit was interesting to say the least. After an hour and a half of us standing outside her apartment as she went off on God, told us how Christ doesn't understand her because she's suffered more than he has, how we are uneducated, how she could see my devil's horns and tail lol...anyways it went on for an hour and a half. It ended with me telling her that we would get the prophet in contact with her to answer her questions. I know I'm not supposed to lie but I'm pretty sure the Spirit prompted me to say that so we could finally able to leave. Anyways, we finally escaped.

The next day (Friday) we had MLC and it was life changing! Not so life changing that we got iPads but almost as great I guess. We had a couple brothers from the mission department come and gave us some amazing trainings! We learned so much about how to change our approach to missionary work and how to better follow the Spirit in all that we do.

That night we had an amazing lesson with one of our investigators Ed. We sat at this picnic bench in his apartment complex with him and a member and taught him the restoration. He told us all about how he read the pamphlet and how much he loved the picture of the First Vision. We had such a powerful lesson with him. We shared the First Vision and the Spirit was at it's peak and then **cue horror film music** we saw Maria walking toward us. I legit felt like I was in some scary movie. Then she started yelling at us about how we didn't come see her and how we were uneducated and yada yada yada. Anyways the Spirit has never run away so quickly before. After the lesson we talked about it though and we're pretty sure that was meant to happen. The Spirit was so amazingly strong and so clearly not there within 30 seconds that we think that needed to happen so Ed would be able to recognize the Spirit.

The next morning we had another amazing Spirit-filled lesson! We taught this lady named Cynthia. I should back up to better explain this miracle...I met this lady back in February with Sister Wright. We taught her the restoration and the plan of salvation and didn't see her for forever. Then the other day we were walking and I saw her in her front yard and we set up a time to meet! I was sooo excited! Saturday morning we had an amazing lesson! The Spirit was super strong and the member that came with us was a perfect fellowshipper! We invited her to be baptized and she accepted. After she accepted she paused and asked us if we believed in the Holy Spirit. We said of course! She then told us that when we said baptism she was completely overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit. It was so amazing to see her recognize the Spirit that was so strong!

Wow sorry this is truly turning into a novel. Anyways...

Sunday morning we got to teach at the air base again! We go about once a month and I love it! It is seriously the coolest experience being able to see a small group of servicemen gathered together in uniform for a sacrament meeting. It's even cooler to watch them kneel down in uniform and bless the sacrament. The church is soo true.

Right after church that day we were out walking around and then decided to go back to use the bathroom. I then remembered that we forgot to grab our dinner calendar from the primary president and so we went to check in the primary room for it. As we walked we saw a member of the ward talking to some woman but we could only see part of her around this man. I took 2 steps and realized it was Maria and lemme tell ya, it may have been Sister Anderson and I have ever run into the primary room to hide from someone before. Turns out our Bishop had just met with Maria and had come to the same conclusion we had. When Maria finally left we were finally able to come out of hiding and drive to our dinner appointment. I should add, this was Bishop Ford's first day as Bishop. Talk about an interesting first day as Bishop haha.

Anyways, basically to sum up this week, the Spirit is amazing. If the Spirit didn't guide us as missionaries, we would have never taught Ed and Cynthia. We would've never been prompted to invite the member we would to come see Cynthia and we would've never and we would've never had the amazing lessons we had with each of them. If the Spirit wouldn't have prompted us to check for our dinner calendar, we would've run into Maria outside of the church instead of barely avoiding her inside the church. The Church is true.

Anyways that's the novel of my week. Hope y'all have an amazing week! Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)