Week 51

Girls camp was awesome. The first day with the YCL's we talked to them 3 times (3 groups) for an housr each time. Tiring. As sister missionaries. We each shared a different aspect for about 10 minutes of how to come closer to Chirst. I talked each time about prayer. I shared a personal experience and yes i cried every time. At dinnner that night one of the girls (Brook) came up to me and thanked me for my story because it really helped her.  I asked her about it and she told me why. She is so sweet and asked me for advice everyday at camp. She looks like a combination of Riley and Savannah. Everyone told us we looked like sisters.
This happened with so many of the girls. I MADE SO MANY FRIENDS! haha I really LOVE all these girls so much. I was able to love a lot during camp.

This week at girl's camp a miracle happened. We had 1 non member come with the Luna ward to camp, Logan B. She is 16 years old and lives VERY far from the church but has come a few times over the years with her non-member mother. At camp she got along well with all the girls and with us. Friday during the day Logan read the Book of Mormon with Sister Pass and ENJOYED what she read and learned. Testimony meeting came Friday night, she bore her testimony about the Love of Christ. After testimony meeting was over we were all walking towards the bathrooms and sinks to get ready for bed. I walked next to Logan and asked how she was.
She said, "just thinkin."
I responded, "thinkin about what?"
"activating" she said.
I asked, "activating what?"
Logan said," come on you are bright.....Activating myself in the church!"
I grabbed her shoulders and retorted with wide smiling eyes, "you want to be baptized?!"
"YES!!" She said!
By then Sister Lee and Hermana Pass were by us and we all squealed and embraced her and jumped up and down.
Logan told us how she has been to so many different churches but that she always feels SO GOOD when she is at the Mormon activities, she said "there is something about your church that makes it different from the rest and it makes me feel so good!"
We were so blessed to be at girl's camp and forge this friendship with Logan. She is excited to see us again!
I feel so happy! We are seeing miracles! There are prepared people here, we are sure of it, just is a matter of finding them.
We are trying to figure out how to REALLY motivate the members to HELP us. We literally cannot do anything with out them up here.

I failed to mention that on July 5th when sister Lee and I were on our way to Pie Town we decided to stop by President Hobbs and President Parker's homes on our way. They both live by Quemado Lake. We didn't know exactly where, just kind of, but there aren't too many houses between us and Pie Town so I figured we could find it. Anyways we didn't. But on our way back from the Lake to the main road, and ambulance passed us, headed up towards the lake. I figured an accident happened on the Lake right? Well, then that night the scary lightning happened. Then the next day at church Sister Lee and I were studying in the relief society room and Sister Hobbs and President Hobbs were the first to show up for church. Sister Hobbs walked in with her sunglasses on and asked how we were and hugged us. Then we asked how she was and she started to cry and said, I am very sad this morning. President Parker passed away last night." 

President Parker was helping a neighbor out on the roof and slipped and fell off and hit a railing. He didn't make it to the hospital. That ambulance we saw was for him :(.... really crazy, the ONE time we ever tried to go to his home, he ended up dying.
After we talked to Sister Hobbs for a minute she left, then President Hobbs came in and asked if we heard about President Parker. We said yes and he looked at us with tears in his eyes, '"Sisters, I need your help, I am losing everybody in the branch. "
Talk about MOTIVATION!
His wife Della asked us to sing at his funeral "I am a Child of God." I remember that's the song we sang at Grandpa Eem's funeral.

There were lots of nonmembers at the funeral and they loved the service. They all live in the gated community by Quemado Lake, we will go visit some soon. We didn't stay the whole time, it was really hard for sister Pass, that's the first funeral she had been to since her mom's. Then we headed back to girl's camp.

We were finishing weekly planning yesterday and we had this prompting to leave and contact this referral we received from Bishop Payne. We went and found this man Anthony, his dad just committed suicide. We had a nice visit and he was very kind and appreciative of us coming by. Then his girlfriend came out as we were leaving and we waved to her and said hello.
As we started to drive away she started running towards the car so I rolled down the window. In her Russian accent she told us how she didn't appreciate us talking to her husband instead of her. That we are missionaries and should know that that is immodest. 

She was MAD and stormed off.

It was really awkward.

Then we felt sad because our prompting to go to visit them wasn't as fruitful as we expected and we felt a little discouraged. 

On the way back through town I got a feeling to stop by this house we had talked to people at last week on the 5th. My companions weren't too supportive after what had just happened but I stopped anyways because I knew the girl at this house would cheer us up.

Sure enough. Veronica was ECSTATIC to see us again! She hugged us and talked our ears off! She told us her whole life- SUPER SAD! She is 18 and just moved here with her boyfriend into her cousin's home. We had such a good visit and were all crying as we shared experiences with one another, She accepted to read The Book of Mormon. She was so excited. She asked us to please come visit her next week and she will text us after she finished the chapter we assigned her to read. She recognizes when she feels the Holy Ghost and loves feeling that "spiritual high". A REAL investigator! She just has a lot of things we have to help her with. We are excited to HELP HER!!

I love Reserve. There are some harsh people a lot of the time actually. But we are softening a lot of hearts. Progress. :)

We were talked about as Ninja Warriors in Relief society yesterday. We are the ninja warrior missionaries!

Haha Love you all! AND THANK YOU SO SO SO SO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGE! BEST PACKAGE EVER! I THINK I SAY THAT EVERY TIME! BUT THEY JUST GET BETTER EVERY TIME! :)

Hermana Christensen

Brook and I

The first aid girls