Halloween week

Halloween Week:

Well this week was interesting! We have an investigator named Claud who keeps letting us back in to "teach" him but all he really does is argue... so he asked us to share our own personal conversion stories. Me and my companions each shared really personal things after making him promise to respect them, Sister H even shared about when her mom died. After that he got really disrespectful and started doubting all of our stories. He said Sister P (the one who can squat 550 pounds) is strong on the outside but doesn't have a testimony, SIster H blocks out her feelings and that I'm just weak and emotionally unstable. It was terrible! So of course I started crying.... and Sister P major chewed him out. Then we said, "we can keep teaching you if you want, or we will just never come back and we won't be offended either way" (the drop talk). He apologized for being disrespectful and said he wanted to learn from us. Basically I've never seen a bigger turn around in my life. So now our whole district and stuff jokes that we're the power trio- H is the spiritual one, I'm the emotional one and P is the one who will put people in their place. It's kinda true though, hahah!

Amanda (the story I told you about last week) is doing really well! She came to church yesterday and agreed to be baptized eventually... we're working on setting a date for her soon. We taught her the law of chastity and let's just say it was really interesting. try teaching that lesson to an ex-stripper with 2 kids, living with her boyfriend. It went well though, I really like her a lot. She and I get along really well together. Chris was baptized on Friday, yay! Also we had a rebaptism (excommunicated) on Friday, that was a really cool experience.

For Halloween, we got to go to the Bountiful temple in the morning, then we shopped and went out to lunch with the elders in our district. Everyone at the mall thought 1) we were dressing up as missionaries for Halloween and 2) that we were on a double date. So after we had 3 or so people ask us that... we left, hahah. That night we stayed in and watched church movies and it was fun. We were totally ready for trick-or-treaters but not a single kid came by! We were so upset! Like, is this not a town home division in Utah?! I was shocked, haha. Also earlier this week.... I had the biggest emotional meltdown you've ever seen. It was so bad. I just got sick of weight gain, being overwhelmed with 16 more months of this. etc. Plus sister H got assigned to be a solo STL (sister training leader- like a zone leader) over 2 zones and she's really stressed because President doesn't let me and P help or go to any training meetings or anything because we're "too new". But there are girls who came out the same time we did who are STL's so we're like....? Kinda offended but not? Anyways it was just a hard day for all of us. I actually got approval to call Mom at home, that's how bad it was. I couldn't do anything, I was worthless. Instead Sister H asked for permission for us to take a couple hours off and go hike the mountain. I felt a lot better afterwards but it was seriously a rough week.....

So here's some advice I have for friends and family back home:

-be a good fellowshipper. You don't have to convert your neighbors necessarily, but if the missionaries bring investigators to church, please talk to them. Be supportive and nice please, it makes all the difference.
-don't feed missionaries enchiladas. We get them 3 times a week and it's really just getting out of control.

-Christmas gifts for missionaries: $$ (cash- checks are hard to cash) and teaching visuals to go along with the lessons in Preach my Gospel. I would LOVE some sort of visual aid to use with kids. Just an idea.

Thanks for your love and support, hope all is well!
xoxoo
Heidi

Chris' baptism!