Week 8: Cats, Gators, and Roaches oh my!

April 18, 2022

Okee dokee...this week was another great one for the books! I got to experience so many amazing things thanks to the Lord and His goodness.

Fun Moments

-making cookies and fruity pebble rice krispies to hand out to others

-making slime and dying eggs with the Baier family

-sang Gethsemane for 3 families this week!

-got some beads in my hair!

-painted eggs for pday!

-matching shirts multiple times this week!

THE LORD LED US

-Lee is SO excited about the Book of Mormon and how she can find so many answers to her questions! She also is obsessed with he gospel library app! Even though this was our 2nd time meeting with her, we were prompted to ask her to pray about a date to be baptized! Wow. Heavenly Father knew when we needed to ask! She's so ready to turn her life around and she's alright brightening up with the light of Christ!

-Our friend Nicole has heard about the gospel of Jesus Christ before, but wasn't ready to learn more. After some time, she reached back out. She's having awful pain from her gall bladder, and her surgery to get it removed keeps getting pushed back. So we offered a priesthood blessing of healing. She happily accepted! We wanted to plan for the next day. When thinking of a brother to bless her, we thought of Brother Rowberry, not really sure why. The day of, we are discussing the role of priesthood power and authority. Afterwards Brother Rowberry asked what she needed healing for, and she said her gall bladder. TURNS OUT he had one of the most severe gall bladder infections that a doctor had ever seen. He had his gall bladder removed! We didn't know this prior to asking him, and we know he was able to offer Nicole a lot of comfort from his experience. God led us to ask him to be the one to bless her! She is excited for us to come back and start teaching her again!

-On the back of our car, we have written FREE BOOK OF MORMON and our phone number. Sadly no one had called us! We live in the Bible belt so we decided we might have more luck if we say Bibles!!! LOW AND BEHOLD in less then 24 hours we are at a stop light in the car and someone honks at us. We look over and this man tells us he wants a Bible. The light of course turns green and so we merged in front of him and told him to take a picture of our number. This happened TWICE! Sadly neither called us. But we now learned our lesson, we have Bibles with our information in our glove box now. 😉

Creatures

-Recently we've been doing service, and some people tell us they just never learned how to clean! So while helping a woman out, I definitely found at least 3 cockroaches in the dirty laundry everywhere..bugs like to hide in messes!

-Our friend Patrick called us and asks if we know anyone who does flooring. We were rather confused, and he explains his cat is missing and 1) it's either wandering the world or 2) found its way into a vent and is now in the flooring of his trailer house. We asked Patrick to fast for his cat with us. Fasting is going without a meal or two to receive extra strength from God. Then the next morning, Patrick tells us his cat is HOME! Fasting works!

-On Easter, we went to the Prices estate. They have this big pond in their backyard and it's literally filled with gators! Most of them are still on the small side, but WOW that was crazy! I saw at least 8!!!

-a bug bit me. Rude.

-Sister McGhee almost caught a frog.

Sketchy Moments

-When I say we almost ran out of gas, I mean that we said a fervent prayer PRAYING we could make it to stake conference, and afterwards to a gas station. Somehow through the Lord's hand we DID!

-A woman we are teaching has a son in his 30s. He seemed really interested at first, but figured out his interest wasn't the gospel when he messaged and asked me out on a movie date.

-Again with the Free Bibles note on our car, we sadly got pranked by the hermanas. They called from a private number and spoke in an unidentifiable accent. They got us GOOD. We set up a time to come by and drop off a Bible and EVERYTHING. We squealed after the phone call because we were SO excited. Then they sent us a video of the call... I guess we kind of asked for it putting our number on the back of the car like that😅🤣

Spiritual Thought

Zone conference was this week, and man it was hard! Lots of intense leaning and training to become better missionaries. But something I LOVED about Zone conference was a picture. (I couldn't find it for the life of me!) This picture was one with the Savior and a lamb. But this picture was different, instead of holding the lamb, the Savior is embracing the lamb! Almost as if he would a person. And his facial expression was so thankful that the lost lamb was finally safe. I'd like to relate this to us! The Saviors arms are ALWAYS outstretched, but we have to come unto him and accept that eternal embrace. And the Savior will neeeever stop hugging us, it would only be us who lets go. I PROMISE that as said in 2 Nephi 19, "his hand is stretched out still." He's waiting for you to come into His arms. His comforting, atoning, and all-encompassing arms. I encourage each of you to invite someone else to feel of the Saviors embrace this week! Love y'all!

Birthdays

-HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY TO MY CUTE PARENTS!! <3

-Happy birthday to Aaron Tietjen! Can't believe he's 5 already!

-Happiest of birthdays to my cousin Ashton! He's growing up so fast and is an example to all those around him! Love you Ashton!

-Happy birthday to the Englander Elder Tietjen!

Pictures