This week has been full of really high highs and really low lows!
Wednesday was full overwhelming joys! We came home and literally
poured out our hearts in gratitude to Heavenly Father.
Thursday was Sam's baptismal interview and we were having a meeting
with him beforehand. Right before our appointment he told Brandon,
another recent convert, he was getting baptized at 3pm on Saturday and
was super excited to tell him! When the lesson started he began to
tell us how God was leading him down a different path and it wasn't to
this church. It was pretty heartbreaking. He stopped responding to us
but we know he has contact with some of the members of the branch.
That helped us feel a little better. I know he will accept it one day.
I don't know if I've told y'all about Ryan before but he is amazing.
He reminds me of a combination between Tad and Dustin so I
automatically love him. He signed up to take the Sisters out to dinner
because he had questions about the church and he wanted it to be
informal. That dinner was my first full day here. Since then we have
been meeting with him multiple times a week. He attended church for
the second time Sunday. He wanted to fast and asked us to explain it
to him Saturday. Tuesday he told us he had been having trouble feeling
like Heavenly Father answers prayers. He didn't know if he should pray
to the God he grew up praying to or the God we pray to and he always
felt like he was talking to a wall and would just give up. He had told
us a couple lessons before about how he was considering becoming
atheist but decided not to one day when he saw the trees and knew
there had to be a God. I felt overcome by the spirit to tell him to
pray to the God that created the trees. I told him that Heavenly
Father knows him. He knows his sense of humor. He knows what makes him
sad and what makes him happy and he wants him to be real with him. The
next day he texted us and told us his prayers went so well and he was
so ready to meet with us the next day! He said he felt the spirit when
he prayed and that he doesn't give up halfway through anymore. My
heart about exploded! Sunday he came to church and then bailed after
sacrament meeting and we were quite sad. We met with him later that
night and he said he felt the spirit during my testimony and one other
and while the sacrament was being blessed and passed. Once again my
heart wanted to explode! He and Steph (his friend that is a member)
went to see his old baptist church during Sunday school just to see if
he was for sure making the right choice to meet with us. When they
went to his church they told him the 11:30 meeting was cancelled! He
is still trying to decide if that was his answer or not but you can
tell that he's leaning toward that! He is amazing. What a joy it is to
be able to help my bothers and sisters rebuild their relationship with
our loving Heavenly Father... I love being a missionary.
There were some stake boundaries rearranged that made for some changes
in the missionaries areas and companionships... Sister Kutterer is now
in the Marietta Stake and my new companion is Sister Patten. I'm super
super sad to have her go. I love her a lot. But I am glad to have the
opportunity to learn with Sister Patten by my side!
Congrats to Cristian & Hilary on their big day!
Hope T&T and Gma Mac had wonderful birthdays!
I love all y'all!
❤️
Sister Christensen
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Sister Hosman 💕
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| We take pictures with the athletes sometimes so they'll talk to us for longer... Then we saw this newspaper a few days later haha!  Hi! I'm still in Athens and serving in the YSA and I'm really happy about that! There have been changes in a few ward and stake boundaries that pulled 2 sets of sisters out with nowhere to go. They did a big shuffle of 6 sets of sisters. Sister Hosman was involved as well. Sister Kutterer is now in the zone I just left and Sister Patten is my new companion. Sister Hosman and her companion are going to come up on Thursday and spend a day with us. I'm pretty excited about it. I bore my testimony about change and how the only constant in our lives is the gospel and Sister Kutterer bore hers about accepting the will of Heavenly Father. He's always trying to prepare us for what is ahead. We're sitting at subway in Walmart and a worker just approached us and asked us what church we were from... She told us how she is sad because her dad passed away with out having the opportunity to be "saved".... I love being a missionary. She is so excited to learn more. Lunch with some of the sisters that got shuffled. |
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