Counting Tender Mercies

April 29, 2013

Dear Family,

Wow. It has been a crazy week. I got my new companion, Sister Graham, Monday night, and Sister Chappell flew home on Tuesday. Sister Barry called and said that she is doing well. -She has her surgery on Thursday and returned home two days later. So she is recovering quickly and should hopefully be back next transfer.

On Wednesday, Sister Graham got sick, so I got to play nurse. Yay... I made her some delicious Tylenol soup (crushed up Tylenol in a spoonful of a hydration fluid that I had also made) and she didn't even like it. But it made her feel better, so she asked me for some more later. :) I spent the day organizing the potentials in the area book, which needed to be done. When I finally finished that, I treated myself to reading the Book of Mormon. I finally made it to Alma! :) I also got to write in my journal! And I started a "tender mercies" journal, because I love 1 Nephi 1:20 so much. I hope that by recognizing all of the little miracles that happen each day will help us have more. :) During training the new missionaries participate in a conference call with all the missionaries that they came out with. They each share how they applied something they learned and share a miracle they had that week. A couple weeks ago, right before the conference call, Sister Chappell asked me what miracles we had had that week. I got out my planner to see what had happened... I said, "you could share about how a less active family in our ward asked us to come help them make fleece blankets for the hospital...(flipping through planner)...or share about the two people who said we could come back... or the woman who talked to us in her garage for half an hour -when we first talked to her about the Book of Mormon she said that she had not interest in getting involved in our religion, but by the end of our conversation she said that she might pick up and look through her daughter's copy." Pretty soon we had come up with about 50 miracles that she could pick from to share. It made me feel good to think of all the good things that had happened that week. Miracles are everywhere! :)

On Thursday we got into a gated community in our area. (We have a lot of them.) I either feel like I'm part of the "cool club" or something...or that I am trespassing and they don't really want us there... But we were going to see a member in our ward, so I felt mostly okay. Plus. The gate was open. So they were practically inviting us in. :) As we were walking over to this particular member's house I looked over and thought..."I think a member lives in one of those ones." And then we saw someone waving from his car. It was a member of our ward. I was right! 6 months and I think I am starting to know the area. ;) We walked over to talk to him. We played "when I drop something, you pick it up" with his two year old daughter, who just laughed and laughed. She has been sick and he said that that was the happiest she had been all day. 

On Friday we had a full schedule. We had planning all morning and then appointments all afternoon. I love days like that! 

Saturday we knocked on a lot of doors. We decided to go to a member's home that I have been meaning to go see for a few months. They weren't home, so we set off to build some character. We had seen a couple little girls playing the guitar and their ukelele, so we started to walk in their direction. Then two nurses with a young man with special needs walked out of the house across the street from where we were. They were going on a walk, so we asked if we could go with them. :) They asked us some questions and then we were able to teach them a little bit about the Restoration. One of them said that he has a relative who is a member of our church and he has been to church with him a few times. Nice! We asked him if he would be interested in learning more and if he would mind if we sent missionaries over to where he lives. He said sure! He is golden! I will be looking for his name when the list of baptisms for the month of May comes around. :)

We talked to some more people and then headed back to our car. We noticed a car in the driveway of the member we had originally gone to see that hadn't been there before, so we decided to try again. And they invited us in for pizza and brownies. It was a good day! The wife said, "so you met the walkers?" I told her that we didn't get anyone's last name... then she said, "I meant the walk-ers." Oh! Like the people walking around. yes. We met them. :)

Sister Graham was sick again on Sunday, so I made her more soup. ;) We prayed and we were able to go to church. Hooray! I needed it!

I hope all of you are doing well! Have a wonderful week! And have fun with the Zoumberis family. :)

I love you so much!!

Love,

 Sister Scott