3 December 2012

 A dear friend of ours fell and is in the hospital and I made a special request of the girls, with which they agreed, that our friend needed to hear from them more than I needed to hear from them.  I wasn't expecting a letter from either of the girls, but they both managed to update me.  They type pretty fast ;-)
When I wrote to Alexis this week, I just couldn't help but share a funny story (at the expense of poor Faith).  Faith is our family cook right now and she asked me what she should make for supper.  I didn't have a good answer to that question so I told her that "fried Snipe" sounded really good.  I can't believe I said it with a straight face, lol.  She said she didn't know how to make fried snipe, but I told her that Bill knew how to make it and he had offered to help with supper.  I can only imagine what he was thinking when Faith asked him how to make fried snipe, lol.  He played along and went to the store to get some "snipe", but unfortunately, they were out, so he came home with chicken instead (Snipe kind of tastes like chicken....doesn't it?)

Here is Alexis' letter:

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Mmmm. Fried snipe! Definitely jealous :p I'll have to ask Faith about how it tastes, I would love to know her opinion. :)

Thanks so much for always writing me. I love it more than you can know! This letter particularly made me laugh and cry nearly at the same time.

Our ward is definitely in my prayers. I want to help them in any way that I can.

Right now I have a poem on my mind. Except that I honestly don't know what the poem is, who it's by or any of the phrases used in it. But I know what it is about and I have always tried to remember and apply it in my life.  The poem is about a tree. Christ often uses trees in His parable - which makes so much sense to me! This poem talks about how our roots (or our faith) keep us firm and solid, and our branches (our hopes and dreams) should stretch high to the sky. And we should never ever stop growing!  I first heard that poem years ago when I was in young women's. Our teacher quoted that poem to us by memory. I remember even know that I nearly cried as she told us that poem. I wish I had it memorized as she did and that I could recite it with as much emotion. I want to always be like that tree. Firm in the faith and hopes reaching ever higher.

This week was wonderful and frustrating at the same time. It has been so hard finding people to teach. I think that members often believe that investigators just flock to us. Yes, sometimes investigators do find us. But most of the time it is hard work on our part that leads us to them. We have two solid investigators right now - both of which are getting baptized in just a few weeks. After that My companion and I have no idea what we will do. All that we can do right now is have the faith that the Lord will provide us with blessings after our sacrifice. So, we persevere.

We also work with a few less actives in the ward who need a lot of love and support. Eventually we hope to hand over all less active work to our faithful ward members, but right now these few people need us. One woman in particular is struggling a lot in life right now. what touches my heart so much is to see her desire to get her life back in order and to overcome her problems. The other day when we visited her I felt overwhelming love for her. I tried to look at her as Christ would. As I did that, I found that I was content with my surroundings as I sat in her home (which is a hard place to be because she is not able to tend to it at all.) As I willingly offered to serve her  - I felt that I loved her more. After that it was so easy and natural to bear my testimony to her and to share a story in the scriptures that I knew the Spirit was prompting me to share.

I love you all so much!!

Have a good week, and until next time!