Group email!

Funny things first:

This lady in the ward told us that it costs $35 in oil for their fried turkey each year for Thanksgiving. Idk about you, but I found that highly amusing. 

We had our annual fish fry on Friday! So many people came and it was AMAZING! Amazing that they came, that is! haha I didn't really enjoy the fish, but I did try it! The part-member family that we invited and sat with were just cracking up at how dramatic I was being about being afraid to try it haha. Fried spots! Gotta love it!

The next morning we got to help the Scouts with their fundraiser. They were selling Boston Butts! If you are like me, you have NO idea what that means! haha. Basically it is pork shoulder that is so slow cooked on these massive grills by our High Priest Group Leader and the gang of Southern men who accompanied him. The Scouts stay at the church overnight every year and the men stay outside majority of the night making sure the meat does its thing. So funny! So we showed up around 9am and they gave us some real good vinegar pulled pork on a sandwich. A little early for food like that haha. I still prefer the sweet barbeque more than anything else, and still prefer non-bbq or anything else (ask my mom, she would usually cook me lemon chicken on a bbq chicken night at home haha). It was such a blast though. The men in this ward are so funny. They are so country and it is just the best.

A quote from the HPGL at church yesterday, "I can cook 16 turkeys just as easily as I can cook 4." haha He is all about inviting non-members to our events so it's the best! hahaha. I love it so much.

Yes, follow up time. I only made it 5 days for no sweets. Even that was empowering though! hahaha. 

More important stuff:

We had the most amazing lesson with Cicily and her daughter, Mia. This time around, it was time for Mia to feel and recognize the Spirit in quite a grand way. We taught the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and we finishing up with Moroni 10: 3-5. She truly had a spiritual experience. She read through the verses rather quickly and said, "I don't understand any of that." We took her back through the verses, line by line, and "sucked all the juice" out of every word. She, and the Spirit, taught her what the words meant. After each verse, we paused and let it sink in a little bit. At the end, she came to the conclusion herself of exactly what the verses were asking her to do. She said that in the past couple of days she had been praying about if she should be baptized and join the church. Her answer was yes!!!! It was the most amazing and exciting lesson. 

Because we had just had interviews, I remembered what our Mission President had said about pointing out their spiritual experiences. She was very aware that the Spirit was there, but we took it one step further when we said, "November 6th! Mark the date! This is the day that Mia felt the Spirit of the Lord and knew she wanted to be baptized." Her mom happily wrote down the date and the experience in her newly acquired study notebook where she records her questions and thoughts. It was amazing to witness. My testimony grew as well. The Book of Mormon and the Spirit are our most powerful tools in conversion!

What else...

The primary program was on Sunday and it was sooooo cute and I loved it so much. That new song, "Family is of God" is sooooo good! The kids signed it and our Ward missionary did a solo of the song and there I was wiping lil lil tears away from my lil lil eyes! That rarely happens! I was just reflecting on two things! 1) How amazing my family is how much I love them so much! I think I write about that every week! Yes! It's true and I think it about how much it has shaped my life every day! But 2) Is that I love how the Church is instilling in the children so young, so many great things! Like how important family is! God has ordained families! That is as simple as it gets!

Which leads me to a profound quote that a R-LA said this week. "Nothing worldly compares to family." That is so true! And it was so profound coming from his mouth because he would be one of the first to know about worldly things! The things that he has overcome already and the things he still intends to overcome are amazing! I know that the Lord has been guiding his footsteps and I'm so grateful that we still get to teach him every day.

He has such a great desire to get a patriarchal blessing. It's amazing. He is extremely talented musically and artistically and he is working on writing a song about him coming back to church. I'm so excited to hear it.

I really love these people! It is a direct result of sacrificing so much for them and serving them as much as possible. That is how you truly come to love someone!

I hope y'all have a great week. :)

on Halloween

at the Trunk or Treat

Youth at the Trunk or Treat