In the Head of Hannie: Monday, April 20, 2015

The Whole District with Sinai.

Sinai

Sinai at her Baptism

Well, the back half of this week has been really stressful. We moved....for the 3rd time this transfer. I tell ya, I am sick of moving. If we could just stay with the other Hermana's for forever I would be grateful. Because of our hectic schedule we were not able to go out and work at all on Friday. Saturday was service ALL day. I Love Lodi, but not that much. Then we went to the baptism of Sinai, I'm going to count her as my first baptism because I taught her 3 or 4 times until she moved, and then we had dinner and 1 hour of weekly planning. Sunday, we had church, ward council, and then we have to finish weekly planning. We did get a great Family Home Evening in with the Esparza's though AND Hermana Esparza was at church this week!!! I'm excited to do missionary work!

The thing I noticed about not being out, in my area, working is that I get really sad and moody. I feel like I am doing nothing. Everything I am doing is perfectly acceptable and I'm not wasting any time. In fact I'm working really hard and the work we are doing will allow us to get more work done in the future but I just get really anxious and short when I'm not doing what I want to be doing, which is the Lord's work. I'm working of figuring out a way to cope with things that don't go exactly my way or the way we had planned the night before. Prayer is helping but I think I need more, for Hermana Seller's sake.

We had three really great lessons this week. One with Emilio and Hortencia. We were thinking about dropping them because Hortencia was really offended by the Catholic church and said she wasn't really willing to go to another church. But when we showed up for our next appointment and Emilio came out and said "So, who is this Lehi and Nephi guy and which one is the prophet. Also, I think it is really cool that they listened to the Lord and went into the desert. They must of had a lot of faith!" We almost died we were so excited. We read in 2 Nephi 31 with them and they brought up the question about kids being baptized as a baby. We read them a scripture in Moroni and they were tickled pink that we didn't baptize little babies. The spirit was so strong in that lesson and they are excited to learn more. We tried to invite them to baptism but they kept avoiding the question. We are going to be bold on Tuesday when we have our next lesson with them.

The next was Estela A. We found her son Jonathan last week and he told us to come back. We did and his mom Estela was home. Estela was actually a potential of ours and when we showed up she told us to come in and share our message with her. It turns out that her husband had died not to long ago and she is really struggling. She wants us to come and visit her because she think God can make her life better. We were really excited to add her.

Then Estela H. Estela couldn't come to church this Sunday because she had chemotherapy. We only got to see her once because she gets so sick after her treatments. But the lesson we did have with her was great. We asked her last time to read the page about the apostasy. When we got there we asked her if she read it and she said no. We were like "Aw man, Estela you need to read." Then she continued to ask us questions about the stuff she was suppose to have read. It turns out she didn't read the scriptures on that page because she didn't know if it was in the Book of Mormon or the Bible and she didn't have the energy to search though each of the books. It was super sweet. We can't wait to see how she is doing on Tuesday.

Like I mentioned. Sinai got baptized this week. We taught her for ahwile and then she moved so the Elders taught her and then the Sisters finished teaching her and baptized her. I am totally counting that as a baptism for me! (well, I guess for the Lord...) Me and Hermana Sellers were really happy to be able to attend.

Other than the stress this week has been really good. I'm really grateful for the Elders who helped us move and our wonderful STL's who we are now living with! Life is great!

Funny thing that happened this week. As a zone we are tying to contact 1830 people this transfer. Well Hermana Sellers and I have been horrible at contributing to this and so last night on follow up calls Elder Anderson said, "Sisters, do you want to make a contacting goal?" We said Elder Anderson, we will contact at least 1 person every day this week. and then he says, all dramatically "OHHH SISTTERRRSSS. that is a fantastic goal! What if Monday you get one, Tuesday you get two, and so on?" We all DIED laughing. Just because he said "OOOOHHHH SISITTERRRSS." He was so satisfied.

Alright everyone, I love you and thank you so much for your prayers.

Love,

Hermana Porter