hey everyone!
sorry i've been a slacker at writing posts these past couple weeks. here i am!
we saw some good things this week! we have been struggling to find new people to teach. it has been a trying time for us. i mean, every missionary goes through dry spells, but it's always harder in the moment than it seens like from an outsider's perspective. plus, i feel like they don't normally last as long as ours has. but anyway. last sunday we got TWO referrals from a member that JUST moved into our ward. she's an awesome member missionary. we visited both of them this week and now we are teaching them. not so sure how solid they are at the moment, but we have hope. and then on wednesday we did a blitz with our zone! i have never participated in a blitz before, but it was pretty cool... it's where all the missionaries in your whole zone go to a specific area and contact like crazy. so they all came to our area! we have a few potentials from that which we hope to start working with too. one set of elders contacted a girl who just moved here from indiana... and one of the first things she told them was that she was looking for a church to join! :) pretty awesome. she received the restoration lesson well and will probably be passed off to the YSA branch soon. miracles are everywhere!
i think the coolest miracle this week, though, was our visit from elder haynie (not sure how you spell his name) from the 70. we had stake conference this weekend and he came to speak. he gave an incredible talk on temples, and preparing to be in the house of the lord. but also, the entire adult session was on missionary work, and then, after the general session, we had a meeting... it consisted of every bishop, ward mission leader, ward missionary, and full time missionary in the stake, as well as our mission president, president clayton, and the stake president. and oh my word. it was a POWERFUL meeting. elder haynie talked about the shift in paradigm that needs to be happening around here. he shared a quote from elder bednar that said something about the keys to missionary work in a given area residing with the stake president, NOT the mission president. (confusing, i know. but it made sense the way he said it.) anyway, the idea is that missionary work belongs to the members of the area, and the full time missionaries are here to assist THEM in THEIR work. it was really motivating for everyone present, and right away we saw a change in our bishop--he asked us to come over to his house the day after and teach his family how they can be doing missionary work. while we were there, his family came up with 7 names (and they were planning on thinking of more) of nonmembers that they can invite to their home. :) it's been pretty hard for the past two transfers to get members to do missionary work, so that was a huge blessing, and i know that a lot of miracles will come from it soon.
and our ward mission leader came back from vacation after being gone for a month! haha. we felt pretty leaderless for a while. it's hard to coordinate without a coordinator. just goes to show that the church really is true and that god has a perfect system of organization. without his system, his children are wanderers. he speaks through his leaders to get to his other leaders to get to us and his children. :) i love being a member of god's perfect church.
i've also had a change of heart this week. of course, i keep having to have a re-change of heart--this concept is nothing new. i swear this a lesson i've already learned 46 times on my mission. (sometimes i wonder how many more times i'll have to learn it.) but it was a lesson on faith, positive thinking, trusting heavenly father, praying sincerely, diligence, believing in myself, and THINKING accordingly--all rolled into one. :) the biggest part of it, though, was remembering that first and foremost, heavenly father LOVES me. and is PROUD of me. i have the hardest time letting myself really believe that. i'm sure grateful for the atonement and the power it has to change us, piece by painful piece. i'm also grateful for my companion and the lessons i've learned with her that i haven't been able to learn with ANYONE else--i KNOW god gave her to me for that purpose.
think that's all for now! hope you're all having a dandy end-of-summer! (wait--what?? it's the end of summer?? i swear it just started...)
I LOVE YOU!!
sister madsen
