Oh What a Week!

Ate dinner with the Kelley family! There is a family in the ward with the last name Kelley. They are great! The first Sunday there brother Kelley told me I was spelling it wrong and he would order me a name tag with it spelled right. But we ate dinner with them and they are a great family. They have a son preparing to leave on a mission in the next couple of months.

We were out tracting and ran into a really nice older guy. His wife wasn't home so we scheduled an appointment for the next day. When we went back they were showing us these birds they had. One of them flew in sister Bills hair twice! It was so funny. The lady finally put the bird away. They were really nice but not interested. 

We met with Eduardo and Estefany on Thursday. We were talking about faith and how we need to act and then our faith is able to grow. They knew that we don't drink coffee but we hadn't taught it yet and she happen to bring it up. It was a rough lesson. She couldn't understand why God would give such strict rules and said that was keeping her from being baptized. On Saturday we went back to talk more about faith. That as they apply faith with the word of wisdom they will be able to gain a testimony of it. It was a much better lesson! The spirit was really strong and at the end of the lesson Estefany said she would give up coffee if we brought her where it was revealed not to drink coffee and tea. Because in the Doctrine and Covenants it just says hot drinks. We also reset them with a baptism date. They were suppose to be baptized on Saturday but obviously that didn't happen. We had picked the first two dates they were working toward so we let them pick and they picked February 28th! We are really excited. One of my favorite parts of being a missionary is promising blessings. And i was able to promise them both that if they did everything they could to receive and answer that they would be prepared for that date. Now it is just up to them to act!

We taught Morgan this week about Christ's earthly ministry. We watched Finding Faith in Christ and she cried! It was great. That was the strongest we had felt the spirit and it was so good!

We started teaching Diane this week and I am really excited! She is the one we help clean her house. We just taught that God is our loving Heavenly Father and you could feel the spirit so strong! I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to share the spirit with others. 

Because Sunday was the super bowl we got all of our tracting done early! Saturday we were tacting and met a lady named Ms. Beverly. She let us in but was very skeptical of everything. We shared the restoration with her and answered a lot of questions. We invited her to church because that is where a lot more of her questions could be answered. And it is habit in the south that if someone invites you to their church you invite them to yours. And so she did. So Sunday we woke up and got ready really quick so we could make to her church that started at 8. It was so interesting! It was fast Sunday and so one of the things I was fasting for was to feel the spirit testify of truth in both the Baptist church and our church. Well Sister Bills and I were the only white people in the whole church. We stood out so bad! but it was such a great experience. They were singing and clapping and there was loud music. It was good to see but it was really hard to feel the spirit. When we got to our church it was amazing to feel the difference the moment I walked in the building. All through sacrament I was able to feel the spirit so strong. It was such a testimony to me that this is the true church. Although the church we went to had doctrines that taught good things and they were doing all they knew to in order to have Christ in their life. But this gospel just has so much more to offer and i am so glad to be apart of it!

Thank you for all the prayers and love. I'm so grateful for y'all and most importantly, for my Heavenly Father and Savior!

Oh and only one more week until I can drive again! It has almost been 6 months and I'm so excited haha 

Love Sister Erika Kelly