Helloooo

Leather apron in the Ashery.. It's a size or two too big..

Hey!

This has been an AWESOME week. Sister P. is so diligent and hard working and we're seeing so many miracles because of it! We met M. sometime last week and he came to church and I think he enjoyed it! We don't know how interested he is in finding out if it's true but he's definitely interested in learning about what we believe. It's frustrating for me though because I can see his potential and I want that so bad for him but I don't know how to help him get there.. I have so much to learn as a missionary.

Oh my!! Seriously this is not okay.. Last week we had Zone Conference and Sister Vellinga talked to us for a good 30 minutes about bedbugs and how it's become a huge problem in the mission and she had a slide show and everything with pictures and I'm so paranoid. I can't sleep.. And since then some other missionaries have found bedbugs so we had to check our apartments like crazy last night. Hahah we're so paranoid!!!!! They told us that bedbugs don't like alcohol so we've been rubbing hand sanitizer all over our beds. I don't know if that's really going to help but our mattresses are extremely clean now. 

Checking for bed bugs... Ewwwww!!!!!

So we've been working on doubling our diligence so we can reach our goal of 7 baptisms this transfer. I'm so bad at diligence but I'm trying so hard to actually work my hardest and not just do the minimum work. At sites we try to do 45 minutes in the call center and then 15 minutes for doing area stuff. So we brought our egg timer to sites so we could do everything exactly on time and it was so cool. I felt so good after that day. But then the next time we were at sites I could not focus for the life of me! This is so hard. But I know as long as I'm trying my absolute best that we'll be blessed and see success. Which we already have been. No baptisms yet but we've met so many potentials and have gotten so many new gators in the last few weeks. It's been amazing. We just need to figure out how to help these people accept the gospel.

For instance. Last transfer we met this girl named J. She's awesome. We gave her a Book of Mormon and got her number. We didn't contact her again until last week and we ended up having a lesson with her. She is so prepared. She just totally accepts the Book of Mormon is true but we had her pray about it anyways during the lesson and it was so cool. Just listening to her ask Heavenly Father if this was true and the feeling that was there was so powerful and it confirmed to me that it was true. We invited her to be baptized on Sept 22 and she said yes :] Yay! She's really busy with her music and stuff and we still have a lot to teach her but we're going to make it work.

Then last night after our dinner appt we had a little bit of time before our next appt so we decided to contact in this park. There was a group of teenagers sitting on these tables smoking and I was scared to go over there but Sister P. is fearless so we did anyways. The guys were punks and weren't very serious but there was a girl sitting kind of away from them and she started asking me things like "what makes your church different then other Christians?" So I explained that we were Christian and she was telling me that it doesn't make sense to her why people claim to be Christian but then aren't modest. I was a little shocked that out of everything she could bring up she brought up modesty. So we talked about it for a little. I talked to her about the restoration and the Book of Mormon and invited her to read it. She said she would and then her friend C came up and started talking to Sister P. They are both SO PREPARED!!!!! We're meeting with them on Saturday :D It's so exciting!!!!!

Sites has been really good too! We're getting lots of tours and I think I'm starting to get over my fear of calling nonmembers. It's a stupid fear to have as a missionary. I haven't called any others since M. but she's is giving me the confidence I need. I just love sites. I think that will be the hardest part of leaving. I'm dreading that already :[ I can't just leave the school of the prophets.. I won't do it. I've had wayyyyy too many amazing experiences in there to leave. Just giving you a heads up for when that time comes. I love my mission. I wouldn't have it any other way. So that's my life from here on out. But I love you all and you can come visit me in Ohio anytime you'd like, kay?? :D

Sister Maynard.