Assembly of God

I am loving this ward! I guess I have told sister Dutton that every week since being here, but it is true. The people are so kind and really love to help us as missionaries. Monday night we went to a members house for a FHE and it was so much fun. We, well I, got to know them a bit better and just felt so welcome. They showed us a funny video, "How the apostles eat Reese's Peanut Butter Cups." Y'all will have to check it out.

The beginning of the week was a bit crazy. After MLC we as leaders are to teach the rest of the missionaries what we discussed at their district meetings. The zone leaders are usually the ones who teach but President Olson asked the sister training leaders to also help. So Tuesday and Wednesday we spent most of our time at the church teaching the different districts. We taught about cleansing the inner vessel and how it will effect our missionary work. It was a great topic, but by the third time teaching it we were pretty burned out. 

We also had interviews. It was the first one with President Olson, sister Dutton and I both had to agree that they were just different. We are still learning to adjust and so are the Olson's. But I am glad the Lord trusts us to be here at this time to help them in His work! 

Thursday we were in Mendenhall once again. We went to go see a lot of less actives in the morning. There is a family, the Creole's, in the ward where none of them are active.Grandma Creole was an active member and had all of her children and grandchildren baptized. Well now none of them are active and some of them don't even remember being baptized. And they aren't very receptive, but we are working on it! 

That afternoon we went and saw Alexis. She is doing amazing. We started teaching her son Michael the week before and so we got to teach both of them this week. We taught the plan of salvation. It was so cool to talk about how we will be made perfect and how her daughter Daja will be able to talk with her. It made Alexis so happy! 

We had given Michael one of the children's Book of Mormon picture books, and he loves it. We asked him what he read and he told us all about Nephi and Lehi. While we were teaching we helped him draw the plan of salvation in the back of the book so he will have it to remember. At the end of the lesson we asked Michael if he could teach us everything back.And he did! I think he taught it better then we did!

While we were talking about eternal families we asked Michael if he would also like to commit to being baptized. And he goes, "What does the mean." Oh! well I guess we didn't think about that! haha so we taught him about baptism and he committed to do it. We reset both Michael and Alexis to be baptized on the 19th of September! 

That night we went to the kick off for the high school football season. Brother Cothern is one of the coaches, their son is on the team, and their daughter is the athletic trainer. It was weird to be back in a high school setting! 

Sister Dutton & Sister Kelly at the game

Saturday we met Tracy and Howard. They are a coupe in their 60's and have started getting into church about a year ago. They have been through a lot and love the church they are attending, Assembly of God. But they let us in and we had a great talk with them about the church! They had lots of questions and we got to learn so much about how they worship. We ended up staying there for three hours just talking about Christ and his gospel. It was the best. We left them with a Book of Mormon and they said they would study it. Then they invited us to come to their church service. So last night we got to go! It is very different from when we go to church but it was good to experience something different. Sister Dutton and I got in the car and talked about how they love Christ and want to follow him but the spirit just wasn't there. We started singing hymns and it was such a great feeling as the spirit came back. 

Assembly of God with Tracy and Howard

I am so grateful for the spirit and truth in my life. I was studying Enos, Jarom, Omni, and the begnining of Mosiah this week. Something that i loved was how they were continually stating how important the scriptures were. That we need them to be protected and perfected. I am so thankful the prophets took all the time to record their dealings with God.

I love this gospel and know it is true! Love y'all, hope you have a great week.

Sister Erika Kelly 

I've been out one year so Sister Dutton made me

this little treat.  We didn't have a candle so we used this 

giant flashlight.