Faith & Softball :)

Hi everybody. It's me again. :)
More great miracles have happened this week, as always. Vinod and Mario are doing pretty good! We had a lesson with Mario last Wednesday night that went really well... and if things keep going well he said he'll be baptized on October 13th! He accepted a date! I was pretty nervous to ask him to be baptized, so Heavenly Father sure helped me out on that one. (SOOOO intimidating.) :) And THEN he came to sports night that night and played soccer with the branch! Hooray! He's made a few friends now, or at least has some acquaintances in the branch. Now we just have to find time to keep teaching him... he just got a new job and works everyday, so he's been turning us down quite a bit. :( Pray that we can find time in both of our hectic schedules to teach him.
Vinod also has a crazy schedule... he is taking 18 credits at two different colleges AND working part time. So we've a hard time scheduling teaching visits with him, too. But he came to FHE last night! He seemed to like it and opened up when people started conversations with him. :) We're going to see him again this Thursday, as well. He has zero Christian background whatsoever cause he's from India... So we are starting from square one, which is a little harder! But if he is ready for the gospel I know things will work out.
Lesson of the week: POSITIVE ATTITUDE=FAITH. There were two days in a row this week where Heavenly Father totally blessed me just for trying to look on the bright side. One of the days we were on exchanges... in MY area! I was leading out all by myself! AND, unlike the last exchange I had, my companion was Sister Pagel, who just got here two weeks ago! All morning while we were at our temple shift I was stressing over our plans for the night because no one was responding to my texts/calls. On top of that, I was struggling with talking to people on the temple grounds... I feel super awkward and incapable when I'm trying to testify/discern the needs of the visitors without my companion! One German couple in particular were completely unresponsive to me and I left the conversation feeling very discouraged. But I was the senior companion for the day, so I felt extra-obligated to put on a cheery face and force myself to think optimistic thoughts. So I tried my very best. Then, all of the sudden, we got a phone call from an extremely less-active who we have been trying to visit for weeks and he said we could meet with him that night! Everything started looking up from there, and over the course of the night, Heavenly Father continued to bless us with people to fill our whole time with. It suddenly clicked for me that having a positive attitude means having faith. For some reason I had never linked the two together before. (It sounds a lot more simple in this email than the way it clicked in my head... to me it was like this monumental discovery! Wish I could explain it better. :P)
Last fun things:
1. RACHEL JOHNSON CAME INTO THE BATTALION! :D :D :D soooo good to see her.
2. I GOT TO PLAY SOFTBALL TODAY!!!! Like legit softball, with real gloves and real bats and a real ball and 7 players on each team (all from my zone) on a real red-dirt field. :D :D Heavenly Father LOVES me.

Love you all! Keep the gospel rolling forth! And watch Elder Holland's CES fireside if you get the chance, it was INCREDIBLE.
Love,
Sister Madsen