Liberty week 27

May 7, 2013

This email came on the heels of several weeks of unproductive tracting.  Staci has been looking forward to the Hispanic Festival that she mentions at the beginning, as they hoped to make lots of contacts and hopefully get quite a few return appointments for the rest of the month.  It’s been quite challenging for her the past few months to open this area, train a greenie, and find new teaching prospects.  She’s been a bit discouraged . . .

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We had a wonderful week -- finally!

Well  -- up until Monday it was the same as the last few weeks – tracting, tracting, tracting.

On Saturday there was the much awaited Hispanic Festival here in Liberty so Sister Barlow and I went at 9 am to set everything up. The day was beautiful and the sun was shining. We set up our table and proceeded to wait. A few people came up but no spanish. The music was blasting SO LOUD so we had to yell everytime we tried to talk to someone. No bueno. Finally 2 English elders got there and then a couple hours later 4 more Spanish elders showed up. We all proceeded to start talking to all the Hispanics but again the music was too loud and everyone was too distracted to really give us the time of day -- I was sad. I left the festival thinking it was a failure. We were fortunate enough to be able to get a less active youth named Brittany to come with us on a lesson and she bore a beautiful testimony. So that was good. After Brittany left Sister Barlow and I went to go check to see if a couple was home that we have been trying to get a hold of. Sure enough the husband was in the front yard so I asked if he and his wife had a few minutes that we could talk to them. He said "No, we don't want to change our religion" (pentecostal) I asked if they had read the BOM we left them. H e said "no, we don't believe in anything that's written by the hands of men." I told him the bible testifies of the BOM in Ezekial 37:15-17 and he can't know about the truthfulness of it unless he prays about it. We thanked him for his time and we left.

At that point I was beat. I told Sister Barlow to go pick somewhere where we could tract because I didn't care. I was so discouraged and sort've a little frustrated with Heavenly Father because in my eyes our whole day had been a waste. Sister Barlow drove to this random lane and we began knocking. We talked to this atheist guy who said he's never seen any evidence of God so I asked him what kind of evidence he looks for. He couldnt' give me an answer so we gave him a mormon.org card and left. We started walking down the lane and it was such a beautiful evening and all the trees were blooming and I realized that "everything denotes there is a God". I decided that if we were left to knock I may as well enjoy being outside! The birds were singing and as we looked over we saw a bunny! It was so cute and I realized that this was a tender mercy from God that we were there walking down that lane because to me it ALL testified of Heavenly Father . He made the trees and the sunset and the little animals. I love nature and am so glad Heavenly Father sent me here to Liberty during this time of year because it's so beautiful! He knows where my heart lies and that I love wide open spaces and beautiful scenery. I realized that even though it seemed like our day had been a failure it hadn't because I was able to increase my testimony and we were able to end the day on a good note.

Wait the story gets better.

Sunday we were left to knock doors again and were rejected from every single one. Except one nice catholic lady who said she had a minor in theology and she wasn't interested. But at least she let us in! We had dinner with a less active lady sunday night who is bipolar and lets just say she did not treat us very nicely and thought I was hitting on her boyfriend while I was asking him questions...that's what I get for being friendly :D

Ready for the happy ending?

MONDAY we had zone meeting. I know that Heavenly Father was aware of my trials and the fact that I have been so discouraged. I've been feeling like the biggest failure and haven't been feeling successful at all! The first things the zone leaders talked about were being a successful missionary. Every single thing they talked about was something I needed to hear! It was amazing. It completely changed my outlook on my attitude of my mission! When Sister Barlow and I got back to Liberty we contacted on Main st and stopped to talk to to two ladies sitting on a bench. We told them we had a message about prophets and testified of Thomas S. Monson. They were very interested and gave us their information! We kept walking and since we walk main st so much everyone knows us. People have even begun to ask us where the church is and they want to come. It's amazing! Last week Sister Barlow and I found another building full of hispanics so we decided to tract it on Monday night. We did and EVERY SINGLE DOOR WE KNOCKED ON WE GOT A RETURN APPT :) I'm not even kidding. Every single one. That's seven. Plus four new investigators! I had prayed that the people in liberty would have soft hearts but I didn't expect this many miracles! Sister Barlow and I were smiling ear to ear and were in awe of what the Lord was doing for us. After so many days of getting rejected it made those 7 doors that much sweeter. (I just realized 7 is a heavenly number haha:)) We left the building feeling like we were walking on cloud 9! After that we saw this grungy guy walking on main st and we said hello. Right after we knocked on a door and it was his house, he said to come back when his girlfriend was awake at 8. So we stopped to talk to this nice hispanic lady on her porch and she invited us to sit down and talk to her! That never happens. Her name is Clementine and we got a return appt with her. We also knocked on another door in another complex and got another return appt! That's 9 return appts in total. This was all in a matter of 2 hours by the way! Biggest miracle ever!

There's more!

We went back to that guys house at 8 and his girlfriend answered the door.

We introduced ourselves and she said "are you jehovah's witnesses?" We said no we're mormons and she said "Oh! Come in then!!" Okay. That never happens either. Sister Barlow and I were speechless. we went in and she explained that she had been a JW before but she's always wanted to know more about the mormons. She was really excited to learn more! She said she had always prayed for guidance and then we showed up at her door. Yeeppp. Basically Heavenly Father threw an ocean full of blessings on us in a matter of three hours. It was so sweeeeeeet! I can testify to you that although we have trials Heavenly Father never forgets us! He showed his hand to sister Barlow and I on Monday and we are continuing to see blessings. Yesterday we had an appt with one of the 7 doors we knocked on, her name is Luna Guzman and she has two cute little boys, ages 10 and 7. They are from Mexico. We taught them with one of our members, Roxann, who also speaks spanish. We taught the restoration of the gospel and it went so well! Luna comitted to pray about our message and said she wants to learn more about Joseph Smith because she has never heard about him. Also I am so glad Roxann was there because she is also a convert from catholicism and could relate to Luna. Luna said that she thinks that religion doesn't matter, that the only important thing is just finding a good path and following it. Roxann then asked her that since there is only one God shouldn't there only by one true church too? Luna agreed and said she is looking for the right one. I testified to her that she could find the truth through prayer. We have a meeting next tuesday where we'll teach her about the Book of Mormon.

Basically I love this place and I have a feeling I might be transferred here in the next couple weeks...even though I have only been in Liberty for 2 months my heart will always be here. I love our little branch and I love all the people that we see everyday in Liberty. Because it's such a small town everyone knows us and we're all friends with them. I love it! I hope I get to stay here for a while longer but we'll see.

Thank you for all your prayers, love, and support. I am grateful for adversity because it's only through adversity that we can experience true joy! If it wasn't for the weeks of feeling like a failure I would not have appreciated so much last monday and all the miracles that we saw. I know that trials will always come but the Lord makes a way for us to endure them . He ALWAYS provides relief!

Next week when I email Will will be in the MTC!! Woot! Good luck bro! See you all on Sunday!!

Hermana Richardson

Liberty week 26

May 1, 2013

This week...(you guessed it, tracting!)

Not a lot new, the weather has been gorgeous and this Saturday there is a "Fiesta para La Familia" here in Liberty so we are taking advantage of this opportunity to find people and setting up a table and bringing in missionaries from all over our zone to help us out. It should be sweet! I'll let you know how it goes next week.

Last night we were able to visit with a lady named Maria from Guatemala. She is so wise and although sometimes we have to pull in her 11 year old son to translate for us I love talking to her. She loves talking about God and she has a lot of family that lives here...I have a feeling that if we can get her to know the truthfulness of the this gospel she'll be the key to getting others as well. Last night when we went to go talk to her she started telling us that it must be hard getting doors shut in our face (yes) but we need to keep persevering because we are doing an important work. It's like Heavenly Father told her just what to say. I am so glad for those tender mercies of the Lord. I'm not grateful enough for all the little miracles we see everyday!

On Tuesday we visited Trish, one of our investigators. She had a mini stroke a couple weeks ago and we had the elders go give her a blessing. She's started to pray and when we went to go visit her on Monday I could see a difference in her countenance. It's hard for her now to move the right side of her body (the doctors told her with physical therapy it will get better) and she said she has been really frustrated but prayer is helping. That made me so happy to hear and we asked her if she will get baptized and she said yes :) Tomorrow we are going to set a date with her!

We also have been meeting with this lady named Almida (a Dominican). We met her on main street one day and she gave us her address and told us to come over. We did and it turns out she met with sisters a while ago so she already has experience with our church. She has a son in jail and that is really hard on her (I'm sorry if I already told you about her!) and she has schizophrenia. Last week when Sister Barlow and I went to go visit her she kept talking to herself and I thought oh no she probably has schizophrenia (I was right) but she takes medication for it. We met with her on Tuesday with one of our members Roxann and (thank goodness for members!) Roxann talked a lot to Almida about forgiveness and baptism. Almida was baptized in the Catholic church when a baby and thinks that's all she needs. We talked to her about baptism in our church and asked her if when she knows this is true for herself if she'll be baptized. She said yes so we're going to keep working with her!

I think that's about it. We find a lot of spanish people here but the problem is that they ALL say we can come back later (excuse to get us to go away) and then we never see them again. So we teach a lot of first lessons but then we never meet with them again. It's frustrating but oh well. I'm trying to decide if Heavenly Father sent us here to prepare the hearts of the people or if he actually wants us to baptize some of them...

Gracias por sus cartas, amor, apollo, chistes...etc :)

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Richardson