Happy Fourth of July

This has been a really great week. We have been trying to work a lot with our members especially through this 40 day fast. We have been seeing so many miracles from it and it's been awesome. The members are seeing even more miracles from it and I think they're starting to get excited for missionary work. Which is what we've been working on since I got here. We've also been trying to meet all of the less actives in the ward and that's been cool. We stopped by one who didn't answer his door so we went to tract his street and met his neighbor E. He had us sit out front on his patio and we talked for about an hour about the church and what we believe and he seemed pretty interested. He took a Book of Mormon and said he was going to read it. We promised him that all of the answers he's been looking for would be found in this church so we'll see what happens with him. Then our next stop was to another less active. We drove by the house and it looked like they were having a party in the garage and I was freaking out. I hate going up to people when they can see you coming.. So we tracted a  few doors before them so I could build up my courage :/ When we got up there we asked for the lady and this guy, J., said she was inside sleeping so we just talked to him instead. He was the lady's son and I guess he had no idea she was ever baptized in this church but he seemed interested. We gave him a Book of Mormon, passalong cards and our number and invited him to church on Sunday. He said that he would love to but.. he's on house arrest. So he had 36 days from the day we met him until he could really do anything. We're trying to meet with him now to teach him and hopefully he'll continue to want to learn more. We've met a few of the less actives who have some pretty out their beliefs now so I don't know if we'll see much of them but there was a few who still have a testimony and we're going to do everything we can to get them back to church. As for our investigators, L. didn't come to church on Sunday but we're meeting with her this Saturday. E.. has been out of town for a couple of weeks and when we tried to call her, her phone was busy and it was like that for days. So we stopped by yesterday and she was home and we got to talk to her for a while and share a message with her. We're going to see her tomorrow too :] It was great to see her again. We missed her. And then we have Bro L. We had an AMAZING lesson with him a few days ago. We've been trying to help him recognize the spirit and he could never really grasp it, even though we know he's felt it before. So we were just trying to have him explain why he feels good after meeting with us and while he's reading the Book of Mormon and he said that he feels "enlightened". Oh my gosh. When we heard him say that we about jumped off our seats and we're like "THAT'S THE SPIRIT!!!" Finally, he gets it!!!! We shared with him a scripture about the spirit enlightening and he got the biggest smile on his face and he knew that he had felt the spirit. So we committed him to be baptized on Aug 18. He still has a million things we need to straighten out but he has a date he's working towards now :]

On Saturday we got to meet our new mission president! He's SO COOL! His name is President Vellinga. It's him, his wife, and their daughter, K. They are amazing and I'm really looking forward to working with them in this mission. When he was talking to us it was like all about families and how they can be together forever and we sang Love At Home and it was a really cool meeting. The spirit was so strong and overwhelming. I loved it. Then yesterday we had an awesome ward party at our ward mission leader's home and we had a lot of fun playing volleyball and eating food.. And we're meeting with a girl and her non member friend tomorrow and they were both there so we could meet her friend. She's really sweet. But yeah, this week has been fun.

I hope all is well. and I love youuuu all. Sister Maynard.