July 21, 2014
What
a wonderful week!
We met some awesome
people with GREAT potential that we're going to be working with and trying to
get them as investigators. For our actual investigators, we worked with them a
lot and we had really great success but also some major bummers :(
First, the man who's
brother thinks he's Satan. Let's call him Mo. We've been meeting with Mo once
or twice a week since I got here and have been trying to figure out how best to
help him. He's so stubborn about his beliefs about the resurrection, Adam and
Eve's transgression, and other things like that. I've been feeling very stuck,
in the way that he has not been really progressing with his testimony.
We
finally had to have "that lesson". We just tried all that we could to
help him understand the importance of praying so specifically and receiving
answers from the Holy Ghost and not television or other things like that. It
was so frustrating to be bearing my testimony about the fact that is GOD's
church and so personal opinions don't matter because our opinions are just
opinions. And God knows better than we do. Man the Spirit was so strong.
Mo
asked for a sign. He wanted Thomas S. Monson to tell him what he's been praying
for. He's a very Bible oriented man so I asked him how well it went for those in
the Bible who asked for signs and how Christ responded to them. It stopped him
in his tracks. But we asked him to pray specifically about coming to church
(because he refuses to come until God tells him) and then let the Holy Ghost
tell him. And he texted us a few days later and said a preacher told him not to
get involved with things that didn't 100% match up with his current
beliefs..........SATAN! Bah! But we totally knew that it was time to walk away
and trust that eventually he'll soften and figure things out.
Now for the
"Tower" family!!!!!! I've mentioned a LOT about the mom and daughter,
and they were doing so well for their baptism date of the 26th! But
unfortunately mom gave in after a week of not smoking because of temptations
and issues in the home. She was absolutely terrified to tell us and was so
humble and sorry. Oh it broke our hearts, but we promised her we weren't going
anywhere and it would be ok!
So we re-set them for August 9th. The daughter
still has questions she wants resolved and also wants to do it with her mom. We
visited them about 5 times this past week to give encouragement and try to
help. We had a lesson with the son and he listened! And we've picked him up as
investigator as well. Dad is still stubborn but the changes happening in this
family are POWERFUL, and we know it will pull him in. Wednesday we went to meet
with mom, daughter, and son and while standing at the door we could hear
everyone yelling inside. They argue a lot and just don't like each other a lot
of times. When we've taught about eternal families someone always says,
"Well, I don't have to be with everyone do I?" They always talk about
who would go with who if the parents divorced and son and daughter just yell
and are mean to each other. We tried to start teaching the lesson we prepared
but they would just not STOP!
So Sister Stone and I
very quickly stopped what we were doing and started doing a family therapy of
sorts. Well, Sister Stone was extremely frustrated and kind of shut down but I
knew it had to be taken care of. We talked about the importance of actually
liking each other and having that special spirit in their home. We explained
why they need it and how they can get it. They each shared how they would like
things to be different and then we asked each one what they could do to make it
happen. Everyone is so quick to say that if everyone else changed everything
would be better. So we made them say what THEY needed to change to make it
better. There were times where they tried to argue. But oh the special spirit,
and they felt it! We were really getting somewhere when father came in and just
started another argument and the yelling was ridiculous. I wasn't quite sure
how to jump back in because father still isn't a big fan of us but finally it
was obvious that there needed to be a family prayer and he needed to say it. So
I got off the comfy couch and knelt by myself on the dirty floor while everyone
looked at me like I was crazy and I asked father to say the prayer over and
over and over again til 10 minutes later he finally did. And it was a BEAUTIFUL
prayer that was honest and powerful.
We dropped in again on
Saturday and oh my goodness Sister Stone and I almost cried. They were laughing
and talking nicely. Son and daughter hugged. A legit, "I love you",
hug! Father still stayed in the other room but you could feel an amazingly
different spirit in that home. It made our hearts happy. We're really working
on them and so is the spirit. We're excited to start getting son on the path to
baptism. He had an amazing meeting with Bishop after church and is so excited
to come back next week. He's turns 20 soon and we'd love to have him baptized
for a birthday present of sorts :)
THERE IS A BEAR IN OUR
NEIGHBORHOOD!!!!! It's really exciting and I wanna see it! It's been around the
other side of town for a few weeks now but it was spotted in our parking lot on
Tuesday! :)
We had our first
interviews with President Salisbury this week. Mine was the shortest and I'm not sure if that's good or bad :)
Yesterday was Sister Stone's birthday! We had dinner with the Morgan's and they
decorated the whole house and went all out for her. They do so much for us as
missionaries, and we don't know what we would do without them.
Last story! We came
home Tuesday night to find a second package for the day at our door. We were
confused as to why it didn't come with the package earlier, why there was no postage,
and who the heck gave it to me! We opened it to see that Spencer (awesome
brother-in-law) was staying in Blacksburg (45 minutes away) and brought a box
of goodies to my door because he and Alisha love me :)
There was super stellar
stuff that was and is very much appreciated! Especially the pictures. There was
a big walmart pouch full of pictures of the babies in the family and it made me
smile :) Til I realized there were some of a newborn baby boy and I couldn't
figure out why she had sent me pictures of a random baby. Then it hit me. I
started BAWLING! And Sister Stone was freaking out trying to figure out what
was wrong and I just sobbed out, "It's COOOoooole!" Well then I got
mad because I figured just the day before was P-day and someone definitely
would have told me that I had a new nephew to love if he had been born
right?!?!?!?! Apparently wrong. Wednesday I got a letter from Mom saying he had
been born July 3rd. PEOPLE! There has been a baby for me to love and cherish
for 2 whole P-days and I didn't hear NOTHING! Today counts as number 3 and
there's still no emails or pictures. That is so not ok. You know how much I
love my babies. I chastise you all right now! If something happens you have to
tell me! I don't have facebook! I'd rather hear it 50 times from everyone than
not at all! Don't do that to me! If this happens with Mary too I'm gonna
flip my lid and come home just to beat you all up then come back!
I love you. Yes I do.
But I'm also mad. And that was my week. Now I'm off to party with the zone in
Radford playing volleyball and basketball and other awesome stuff (after a
Sonic run of course).
Sister Packard
Best:
1. Awesome old
sidewalks that show how old this town really is.
2. Sister Stone also
has an awesome Ohio St hoodie.
3. Baby shower for a
little boy already born. I couldn't hold him....but still.
4. District meetings
are awesome because we are an awesome district.
5. I didn't throw up
this week.
6. "Bombing"
Sister Stone with crushed water bottles after the lights were off and she was
in bed.
7. Rockin weather with
rain and cool clouds.
Worst:
1. Flies and weird
centipede thingys have been everywhere in our apartment, dead and alive. I
can't handle it.
2. Headaches. Brutal
headaches.
3. Nobody has jobs, so
nobody has a car, so nobody can get to church. You wonder where your tax money
goes? To Pulaski. All of it.
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