First big news! Mindi's on date! :D Happiness! Hopefully it all comes together, but yesterday at church she said that she's hoping to be baptized Mother's Day weekend. So there. I'm so excited for her. From the very beginning this has been a golden experience. It's awesome to have found her in January, and now the weekend before I leave she'll be baptized. I've been there for the whole process :) For all of the baptisms that I have been a part of, I've been there from start to finish. It's been really awesome to watch people grow and know that the Spirit is teaching them and we're just relaying information.
On Saturday Mindi was texting us all this anti stuff, "so I kept thinking man she's really doing her research!" With an inkling of fear in my thoughts, let's be honest. But then I just felt like, "No, I already know she's ready, she'll be baptized. I don't need to worry." Lo and behold, something that was hard to send over in text was that her ex was texting her all the anti stuff and she was trying to explain that to us. Supposedly she just told him that she can't deny the feelings/Spirit that she's been feeling ever since she's looked into the gospel. She says this is the closest thing to real for her and she's going to take advantage of it despite all the stuff he was sending her. Because to her, you can get all sorts of information anywhere and most of that could potentially be fake because everything she's learned feels right. We didn't have to tell her, she told him. So cool.
She's the best thing that has happened this week.
Monday we had dinner with a family who met in Garden Grove! What what?! Their reception in the McFadden building, no joke. I've walked on those floors. When he found out I was from Huntington Beach he looked at me and said, "Harbor House?" Uh YEAH! He's going on a business trip this week and he said they were going to Harbor House when he got there. Hahaha. That place.So many good times. That was cool, because most people talk about vacationing in Huntington Beach or San Diego and it's so nice to talk to someone who understands. Oh and the wife grew up in Utah but was working in California and she lived on Graham and Warner! Right by our house! Crazy! Anyway, okay done.
Something that's been hard is that we picked up a lot of new investigators a couple weeks ago and now none of them are really keeping committments. One family I know will be baptized eventually, so I'm not too worried about them. But there is this couple that just needs the blessings the gospel can give. That might sound cheesy, but it's so true! There are just people where it feels like God prepared them through their life experiences, but they don't take the chance to try it out.
We read the Book of Mormon last night with Annie, she's the recent convert from Liberia. It was really good. She's been having a hard time embracing the Book of Mormon and the lifestyle. Which makes sense, she has a hard time trusting people and letting them into her life because of what happened in the past. And of course, this is a church where everyone tries to visit you, meet you and love you, which there is nothing wrong with that, but it kind of makes her uncomfortable. So we're working with her on just solidifying her testimony and understanding why God wanted her to be baptized into Jesus Christ's church. Ultimately that's why she was baptized, she didn't know why, but she knew this is where God wanted her. We're just trying to help her know why and her conviction will grow. She's an awesome woman. I really look up to her, she's so humble and God-fearing.
We had dinner with a family where we basically talked about food the whole time. Felt like home. Sister Kelly is from Mozambique and she lived in Portugal for a while, and the olive oil over there is prime. They get the BEST olive oil from a guy that goes every year and brings them back a gallon they can split. Oh my gosh. They let me try some. It's way better than anything else. The color is even a little different and it tastes so smooth and thick. It's perfect. Whenever we have dinner over there we talk about the Word of Wisdom and how the world has gone so far from just eating what God has given us on the earth and we talk about these discourses that Brigham Young has on eating healthy and how bread should properly be cooked, etc. I love having dinner with this family. They understand me!
Anyway, it was rainy all weekend and BAM. Yesterday was lovely. I got Joseph Smith's First Prayer stuck in my head because it talks about a lovely spring morning. Spring here is phenomenal. I've seen nothing like it anywhere else. I love it. Oh and we rode our bikes to the Family History Center this morning and it was just gorgeous outside. And we're playing volleyball later in this lovely weather. So happy.
Love y'all too much I can't handle it!
Sister Jocelyn Smith :)
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