Amber Ltr: 2013-11-04

Subject:  <Insert Clever Subject Line Here>

November 4, 2013

Hey family!!

Haha I loved the letter from you guys!! Sounds like you had a fun week! And a crazy adventure at the ranch!! Haha I'm glad you were able to get into the car! We are having dinner with the Johnsons this week so I will tell him that Uncle Eric remembers him. The church is a very small world. Brooke I got your letter and I'm writing you back today :) thank you so much! Mom I am so sorry that I forgot to comment on the entryway. It is beautiful!! I definitely put my stamp of approval on it and am very proud of you for picking it out. I also loved the pumpkins y'all did! I have to say that Dad's is my favorite but maybe I am a little bit biased there... :) Go Aggies!! Jace loves Utah State!!!

That is cool that you were able to look Sister Haderlie up and that you were able to see that she is a member of the mission page. You are more than welcome to log onto my facebook and add that page. As of right now we are a non facebook mission but President said that that will be changing probably in February or March of next year. So some changes are going to be coming... We are doing much better and she is really good at tracting and is a good teacher as well.

I really hope that the package is there because they haven't called me to tell me that it got there. It was weird because I should have gotten it on that Saturday we met with Elder Oaks (that was in a church building in Tucker by the way) but they didn't bring it. I will call them about it today. Thank you again for sending it. You are the world's greatest! A couple questions though: Did you get that tithing paid? And for my oral prescription, I got it refilled a week and a half ago but that was my last refill on it. Is there any way you could call the dermatologist and see how we can get more refills on it? I just went to the Walgreens pharmacy off of Winward parkway in Alpharhetta. Once again you are the greatest!

So we had another week filled with a lot of tracting, but there was a couple of AWESOME experiences mixed in with it all. So to start off let me tell you about Joe. So he is a referral from a member in our ward. He lives in a trailer park and all we knew about him was where he lived and that he loved to read and wanted us to come see him. But every time we knocked on his door he was gone. But last Monday, (I told you we had an appointment that day with a lady named Theresa) well that fell through but since we were in the neighborhood, we decided to go check and see if he was there. And he was! He had just gotten back from Texas and literally had just walked in the door and was leaving. So there was a reason we needed to be there! We set up an appointment at 4 for Friday. He told us that he always tried to finish work early then but he would let us know how things were going. So it gets to Friday and as we are texting him, he tells us that he probably isn't going to get off in time. But we already had a member coming to teach with us so we went over to his neighborhood anyway to check up on a couple of other people, both of whom weren't home. But literally as we were walking out of their driveway, guess who drives down the street? Joe! He tells us that his appointment fell through and would we like to come over? Um yes!! We started talking to him about his religious background and he is so ready to receive the Gospel it is not even funny. He hasn't been to church in a while because he hasn't found one that actually lives and applies their religion and he feels like you can't just say "I'm saved" and be good. He also believes that there has to be more to life than this. We talked to him for about an hour, just getting to know him. It was all we could do to not give him every lesson right then but we mostly just let him talk. It was awesome. We left him with a Book of Mormon and have an appointment to go back on Friday! He has a wife named Ronnie (Veronica) and a 6 year old son named Anson.

Awesome experience #2: So on Saturday, we had no appointments scheduled which means a full day of tracting. Yay. So we went up to this neighborhood that we had got started in a few days before and just started going. It had been about 2 hours of nothing. Then we came up to a door and a man answered and we told him who we were and he invited us in. As we walked in the door, he just started tearing up. He sat us down and told us what had happened to him that week. He was at a pretty low place in his life. His wife has been meeting with another guy after work for drinks and he feels like he is losing her, his daughter just had a baby and the dad took off, his son isn't doing anything with his life, and he just feels like his world is coming down. He said he has been really questioning God and asking why me? and was praying for help to turn his life around. That's when we knocked on the door. We were able to testify to him that the Savior is there for him and can help to carry him through this period of trial. Then we were able to leave the Savior's peace and blessing with him. That is a prayer where you literally call down the Savior's peace into the home and to be with the person. It was the first time I had done it and it was incredible. The Spirit was so strong and he said that he felt relieved and like everything was going to be ok after. Then he asked us if he could pray. He poured out his heart to Heavenly Father and thanked him for sending us to him. It was incredible. We left him with a Book of Mormon and invited him to Church and he came!! It was fast and testimony meeting and he asked us if he could go up and share his testimony. I went up with him and he bore testimony that Jesus was looking out for him. It was a great day :) We don't have a return appointment yet because he needs to try and see where things are at with his wife but we'll call him later this week and try to go and see him.

Oh an there is never enough time to tell you everything that happened. But things are getting better. There are still some really hard times but they don't last forever and make the great things better. I love and miss you guys so much and thank you for your love, support, and prayers. Truly I can feel them and I couldn't do this without them. I love you!!!

xoxo

Love,

Sister Bedke, the younger

PS Will you please tell Annalee how much I love that necklace that she gave me? I wear it almost every day and I always think of her when I do :)

PPS Tell Addie I'm sorry!! My email time is just so limited! I will write her a letter that maybe you can forward to her for me. Did you get my one letter for G'ma? I sent it last week so I hope it made it.