The women's broadcast was wonderful wasn't it?! That's super sweet of Katrina to send that to you mom. Perfect timing :) How incredibly strong we can be, with the help of the Lord, when we keep our covenants!! And as for the death of the Seller's grandparents, I'm glad that they have the hope that the gospel brings!!! The members have continued to be amazing. We've been trying to plan out how we might stay the night in Topeka on Monday nights so that we might save on miles, so we will already be there for our District meeting the following day.
Good luck on finals KC!!!! 10 pages is a lot. I dont' know if I've ever written that much either. I think I did 8 once maybe? May have blocked that from my memory. haha I hope rapping has a lot of bad rap so you can make it long.... ;) Homeless for a whole week, that'll be crazy fun :) Also, so sorry but I'll for sure send a letter today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Can't believe yet another teacher will have to come in to Otter Creek! I sure hope she's a keeper :) Also, way to go on the test! That's honestly really impressive because you're working full time too!!!! That little girl does sound a little challenging, but I'm glad she has moment of recognizing how wonderful you are :)
Fun fact about out cute old house. It really is old and makes funny noises, so the clanking Sister Hartung heard coming from our kitchen sink 2 days after we got here, she suspected to be a friendly ghost haunting our house. haha A couple days later, we had made some cookies to give in thanks to some of the members who really helped us out, and we set them on a plate and left them on the counter. In the morning, I saw a cookie in the sink and said, "Sister Hartung, is this your cookie? You could have thrown it away if you didn't want it, haha" Last night, We both heard another clank in our sink, so we decided to check it out. Another cookie in the sink with a bite out of it!!! This officially means there's a mouse or two in our apartment. Blegh! We have to buy mouse traps today.
Also, Dad I can't believe you read my e-mail. haha and you know me too well. Other people need a chance to bear their testimony since I get to every day!!!! And see, you're the strong sturdy one that everyone relies on!!! It's so cool that as we help others, taking no thought for ourselves, that's when we truly start becoming what God has seen as our potential all along.
So when opening an area, they don't give you instructions. So we've been trying to find find find!! We knock on door and people's responses have been so kind. We've also been going to houses of members on the ward directory who no one has visited in years. They were kind also, and know they need to get back to church, but they just don't have any support in that area. We've told the bishop about them and hope those people will feel ours and the wards love real soon. A lot of the people here in Holton have never seen the missionaries before and a few haven't heard about Mormons at all. It just shows how much we really need to share it and publish it because so many people have no idea!!! The Lord has really been blessing us because usually, you find maybe one or two people from knocking on a lot of doors, and we've found 5! It's so amazing :D
We've been looking for service opportunities and haven't been successful so far, so we decided to clean the little laundromat here in town. It was pretty gross, but it seems like many people use it. I got the opportunity to share the gospel in spanish!!! It was pretty rough, I'm not going to lie, because she seemed confused at what I was saying about the gospel, but we had a pretty good conversation (in my opinion haha) She said she lives on Wisconsin, so we're going to knock on a couple doors down there and we hope to find her again and give her a spanish temple card so she can actually fully understand our message. (since I didn't have anything in spanish when I met her)
So to back track a little so you can understand how great of a miracle this is, we went to visit a member in our area, Sister Jackson so we might introduce ourselves. She was very welcoming and shared a referral with us of a lady in the area who had been taught by the missionaries and had been on date at one point, but for some reason never actually go baptized. Since we didn't have any set appointments, we went right over to see the referral, Jaye Wheeler. Her husband was a little blunt and said, Not interested! But we asked if his wife was Jaye and if she was home, and he said, "yeah come on in." Whew! So she was really sweet and asked us to go visit her dad and her daughter Shriee Boyke. Well the address she gave us for Shriee wasn't right, so we knocked a few other doors down the street and couldn't find her. We didn't have Jaye's number either to check back with her. One day as we were meeting with DJ, (Sister Goodrick came with us and it was unbelievable perfect for her to be there because she was able to relate in amazing ways which was totally inspired because we hadn't met her til, 2 hours before our appointment!) we were teaching him the Plan of Salvation when his family members got home. A couple of them sat down and began to listen!!! And guess what?! Shriee Boyke was one of them and is apparently his aunt!!! She really wants to learn more and we have a return appointment with her and DJ. DJ doesn't even actually live at that house but he's there all the time because his cousins live there. We've been thanking Heavenly Father all week long because that was definitely a miracle of His doing.
Lately I've been reading an inexpensive copy of the Book of Mormon with a question in mind of "How does faith work?" So I've been learning much!! Many times, faith precedes the miracle, where God gives a commandment, someone obediently acts immediately, and God blesses them for it. But one miracle that came just because He loves us was the biggest gift of all. The Atonement. What a precious gift. He's already paid the price, so we have to use it! I've been thinking in analogies lately so I can explain things better. So picture this. Someone buys you a brand new beautiful car. They had been saving up, and after a lot of hard work and preparation on their part (with you always in mind) they buy it and deliver it to you. Would you reject it? Sure it might be hard to accept it because you feel bad for all they had to go through, but they did it for you. Our Savior loves us so much. And the Holy Ghost allows us to feel that. He's real quiet and often times we don't notice that we were led, but as we look back on it we can definitely see how there's no way it was us that made that happen. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is so true!!!!!
Thanks for your constant love and support that I know is always, simply, there :D I love all of you and pray for you!!!
Sister Harston
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