Subject:
All times, all things, all places :)
July 14, 2014
Well hi :)
I feel like the
weeks are just going by so fast! I feel like I was just barely reporting on how
everything was going this last week and now here we are again. After this week we
are more than halfway through with the transfer. I have now been in this area for
over 5 months. I do love it but I'm going back and forth on if I want to stay here
another transfer or not. I am trying not to think about it too hard and just focus
on what is going on right now, but sometimes your mind just starts to wonder what
is coming up next. We will see I guess. :) Come what may and love it right?
I loved all of
your pics from Park City! They are so cute and it sounds like ya'll had a lot of
fun. :) Is that the cabin that had the trap door and the slide thing? I'm way proud
of you mom for doing the zip line! Congrats G'ma and G'pa for your 50th anniversary!
So you are probably
going to have to tell me the stories that Brooke has from the ranch because I'll
probably be home from my mission by the time I hear about it from her :) I haven't
heard from any of my siblings in a while...
We were actually
able to get in with a lot of our investigators this week which always makes a big
difference. :) Donna is still doing great! Her kitchen and dining room floor are
now done and hopefully her living room is going to get done this week. Our stake
is planning a stake temple week the first week of September and they are going to
include baptisms for the dead for new members in that! She is working on getting
some family names to be able to take to the temple that day :) She has been such
an incredible miracle that just keeps on going!
We were driving
by Shawn's neighborhood on the way home from another lesson the day before Erin's
surgery and just felt like we needed to stop by and see how she was doing. She was
on her way to the airport to pick up her son and was having a really hard time so
we helped her finish unloading her car and then she had to get going. But we got
a text from her last night telling us thank you so much for stopping by and for
the prayers in behalf of her and her family. We passed around a card in relief society
yesterday for her to show her the sisterhood that is waiting to take her in as soon
as she comes to church! We are dropping by that and some flowers later tonight.
But she said that the surgery went really well and that the doctors are hopeful!
I know that all of those prayers have made a huge difference in that. Thank you
for all of the support with her! Hopefully life will start to calm down a little
bit for her and she can start focusing on some of her needs now. I just really want
to be there for her baptism! She means so much to me and I know she can do this!
We had a lesson
with Anna last week as well and she is doing pretty good as well except in getting
to church. We finished teaching her the plan of salvation and except for Sister
Casteton telling her that we either become the sun, moon, or stars after judgement
(yup, that happened. haha you gotta love her), it went really well. She was all
set for coming to church with us yesterday (again) but then Satan made her sick
and she wasn't able to make it. But we talked with her again about being baptized
and how Satan tries to keep us from things that bring us closer to Christ and she
is still reading the Book of Mormon and praying and wants to continue meeting with
us. So we will see what happens with her.
We had another
lesson with Mike Clay this week and Brother and Sister Perry were able to come with
us again. They are so awesome! It was just Mike and it went so much better. We were
able to talk a lot about the history of the Book of Mormon and answer some questions
about it. We were talking to him about how we could best teach him and he asked
us if he could just take the lessons again. He went through the first couple with
the elders who originally found him but they just kept going in circles. So this
week we are going to teach him the restoration again and he is going to take notes
and then we will spend the next couple of weeks going over his questions and elaborating
on certain points. I feel like we actually were able to get some really good points
across this time and that he is more ready to listen. But he is going to need some
humbling to be able to yield his heart to God. When we first met him, he talked
about how he has to reason everything out logically and can't go based on faith
or feelings alone because there is some scripture in the Old Testament about the
heart being inherently evil. This last time I was able to talk with him about the
scripture found in Mosiah 3:19 where it talks about putting off the natural man
and yielding our hearts to God. (in my studies I have been marking every reference
to the heart in my Book of Mormon and it is crazy how often it talks about our hearts
and how depending on if we either give our hearts to Christ or to Satan, determines
the kind of person we become and the choices that we make) I was able to talk about
how in order to receive those answers from God, we need to surrender our hearts
to Him and let Him in. I felt really good about the lesson and I am excited to see
where this goes with him.
We also did a
lot of tracting and met some really cool people. We are doing a lot of finding and
just trying to help everyone move forward and get back in with those whom we have
met. Summer months are kind of tricky because everyone goes out of town, but I know
that I'm not alone in having that problem. It will all work out and come together,
I know it will. I love you all so much and I'm so grateful for each of you. I sure
am lucky to have a such an incredible family!
xoxo
Love always,
Sister
Bedke
