The Plan of Salvation

Hi everyone!

So sad news first: There have been A LOT of funerals this week.

Good news: Prime opportunity to share the Plan of Salvation.

So we've been contacting a lot of people this week. Our schedules are pretty hectic because our area covers around a 200 mile radius... I think. Round trip, it takes us about 4 hours, without traveling the border of our area. That's just hitting the major towns/villages. Anyway, with all of the driving we're doing, I'm slowly overcoming my car-sickness! Yay!

Sorry, back to the work itself. We're getting to know a lot of people through the members and through service. With an area this big, member missionary work is not only essential, it's ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Really, we don't do a lot of street contacting up here because... Well, there aren't a ton of people that just walk around on the dirt roads. This week, however, we were given a rare opportunity to talk to a lot of people at one of the many funerals that took place this week. The funeral that we attended was for the father of one of our referrals. The Bishop of our ward was asked to put together a program and he asked us to sing the opening and closing songs. Which we did acapella and I did the harmony. I'm also slowly getting over my fear of performing. Anyway, after the funeral they had a pot luck (they do a lot of those around here) and we were able to talk to some very friendly people and give them our phone number for any service opportunities. I get the feeling that most of what we'll be doing up here for a while is service.

Speaking of service, we were helping a woman with her yard and found out that she'd taken the discussions back in the 70s! She had a Book of Mormon that had a gold cover with different characters on it instead of the one that says "Antoher Testament of Jesus Christ". I should have gotten a picture of it. It was really cool and had a lot of study application inserts. Anyway, she said that she came across the BYUtv channel and that she loves watching it! She especially was excited for the Work and the Glory movies that they're currently playing. And she agreed to read some of the passages in the Book of Mormon that we'd marked and we'll be visiting her again to answer her unanswered questions. I like her a lot because we both love history. And she liked the story of Porter Rockwell a lot.

Another thing that we were able to do this week was to go and play volleyball with a bunch of members from the community. All of which are not members, so it was a great experience and we've been invited to come back every week! We're slowly but surely integrating ourselves into the community so that the people aren't so wary when they see us driving or walking around. It's definitely a different kind of work, but it's amazing to see how much people have softened toward the church in general and the missionaries specifically. It's been really cool to, kind of, open this area and to see the excitement of the members now that they have missionaries living in their community.

I love you all so much and I hope that you continue to remember and keep your baptismal covenants (Mosiah 18) and that you all remember how much our Heavenly Father loves every single one of us and that, no matter where we are in our lives, he will always be there to help us get back to him.

Steph

The pics are of a New Mexican sunset and of a new species of spider that I have never seen before, but has decided to make our home, it's final resting place (Can I just say that I really really really appreciate bug spray? It's pretty awesome)