Week 9

hey guys!

your san francisco trip sounds like it was so much fun! I am so jealous! but guess what! so the elders that are in our ward had to go to pittsburgh on sunday for a doctors appointment. it's a member doctor, so he will see missionaries in the evenings and on weekends for free. so since they don't have a car, we had to drive them to pittsburgh (which was fine with us)! except we were excited because we were going to go to chipotle and chick fil a because they didn't know what day they had to go on, so we were hoping they would have to go like tomorrow or wednesday. but they found out saturday they had to go sunday. so we were sad because we couldn't go to any of our favorite food places :(. but it was really fun! they actually had to go a little past pittsburgh, so we got to drive right through the city! it is so pretty!!!! i wish I could serve right in downtown, but it's all just elders areas! But it was so fun even just to drive through it! but anyways, we dropped the elders off at the doctors' house and we got to go eat with the pres johnson and sister johnson. because the elders were going to eat with the doctor, and we didn't have anywhere to go and it was fast sunday. so the johnsons told us we could come eat with them. it was so fun! and it was really good food! we had rice with this sauce and chicken over it, and it reminded me of italian chicken ha!

I had my first baptism on saturday!!!! Tiara hoy got baptized. 

so she had a date since I got here, but we just finished teaching her. her sister, shana, was baptized a few weeks before we got here. and at our appointment with her on saturday, theresa (their mom) told us she is really excited to start coming to church! she just needs to finish getting her car fixed. I think I have told you about them before. she knows it's true. she sits in on all the lessons, but she won't take rides from anyone. and shana and tiara's dad, marvin, wants their whole family to get baptized. but he won't sit in on the lessons yet. it will be a big lifestyle change for them. theresa and marvin both smoke, and they aren't married but they have been together for 20 years and have 5 kids together. so theresa asked us on saturday if she could go to church even though she smokes and they aren't married and we told her of course! we told her that to get baptized, they would need to get married, and she would have to stop smoking but she can definitely come to church! so we are so excited because her desire to come to church is getting stronger and stronger. the baptism was amazing! tiara said she felt really good during it. so now we have to teach her all of the recent convert lessons, so just go through all five lessons with her again, and hopefully marvin will start to sit in!

I think I have told you guys about nick and jan. we went to their house to skype, and he is a nonmember who likes reading the book of mormon with us every sunday and she was recently reactivated. so we didn't get to read with him last sunday because they had people staying at their house, but we went to breakfast with jan on tuesday, and she told us that nick asked her if we could come over sometime during the week to read with him because we didn't get to on sunday. so we said of course! and we were so happy that he wanted to read still! so we went over there tuesday night and read with him. so sister tolman had a great idea! He loves reading the book of mormon which is obviously awesome, but we decided to kind of sneak the lessons in there. in first nephi, it talks about lehi having visions so that is perfect to talk about prophets and how the gospel has blessed all of lehi's family. and how heavenly father loves us so much, which is why he guided lehi and his family to the promised land. so on tuesday, the lesson was so good! I think we really got him to think! we asked him if he thought joseph smith was a prophet, and he told us that he didn't know because anybody can say they saw something. but he did say something awesome! he told us that everyone always says they want proof to believe something, and he said: "but you can't have proof." so we thought it was awesome that he acknowledged that he will never have proof! we told him to keep praying and that we know that praying is the one way to really know if something is true. so this was on tuesday, and we were excited because the lesson went well. and we asked him if he would read 1 nephi 6, and normally he never actually reads during the week by himself. but we told him it was only 6 verses! and it would only take him a few minutes to read it, so he said he would!

okay, so then sunday comes. and we are looking for jan after sacrament meeting. and I see someone from the back who looks like jan, and I see a man standing next to her, and I am like NO WAY. IT IS NICK! he came to church! So a new gospel doctrine teacher was called, and nick really likes him, so he just came for gospel doctrine but we were still so happy! he actually did sit in the foyer for part of sacrament meeting though! I was sooooo happy to see him there! so we normally go over sunday nights, but we had to go to pittsburgh yesterday, but we still ended up being able to be at nick and jan's for a little bit afterwards, and we talked about chapter 6 (we didn't have time to read the next chapter) but nick read it!!!! and he said: "okay so this week I read chapter 7?" he is getting a greater desire! I am so happy! and he wants to read on his own now!

we didn't get to see cicy and nora this week (chinese investigators) because we had to go to pittsburgh, and we see them on sundays at around 4. but we asked president johnson about it during dinner, and there is a sister serving here from temple square who is chinese! so we are going to call her and see if she can call and talk to nora and cicy! 

we have been seeing lots of less actives! we are excited! on new years eve, our dinner appointment got cancelled, so we made a goal of seeing as many people as possible haha! but we had miles left over, so we decided to go far out into one of our areas, and the first family we tried to see (the gima family) let us right in! we talked to them, and shared a thought with them. so they are awesome. they have two girls, 11 and 12. and we were confused why they weren't coming out to church because they seemed to know a lot, and when we shared a scripture from the book of mormon, they had a lot of spiritual thoughts to add! so we were confused. we talked to brother popa (ward mission leader) about it on saturday, and he told us that they used to come but apparently there was some drama in the ward, and so they stopped coming a few years back. but I guess they didn't use to let missionaries in, so he is excited that they are willing to talk to us. and they invited us back and everything! so we will try to work with them. we tried a few other families on new years eve, but nobody else let us in, but it was awesome to see the gima family!!!

geocaching was awesome! we found 2 of the 3 that stephen beers told us to look for! 

so we called them friday because we wanted to see if we could stop by saturday night, and his wife, lisa, told us that he was sick. I guess he had plans friday night but decided that he wasn't going to go out because he didn't want to get other people sick, and so she asked us to call next week to see if he felt better. But we told her that we went geocaching and we are excited to tell him about it next week, and when he heard that, he wanted to talk to us on the phone! so we told him, and he was so excited! so we will see them this week for sure. we are so excited because we feel like we have a pretty good relationship with him, so we are hoping that we are able to help him come back out!

we have a new investigator! her name is sherilyn. so she was actually taught already  by some sisters in cranberry (a city maybe 40 minutes from here). so the missionaries first tracted into her about a year and a half ago, and they taught her all the lessons, and she had a baptismal date. they helped her stop smoking. and she was going to get baptized, but then she said she had a really creepy dream about evil spirits or something and so she just cut off ties with the church. then about a year later, she started going to some other churches, and she thought about the sisters a lot and just knew that those churches weren't right. so she called them and asked if they could teach her again. so she had another baptismal date, and I guess her boyfriend (now ex boyfriend) was really anti, and so she just stopped contacting the missionaries. but they broke up, she moved into our area, and she said she wants to finally get baptized. we are nervous that once we set a baptismal date, something else will happen, and she will get freaked out again. but she said she wants to actually go all the way this time. she is 23, and has a 4 year old daughter, haley. But she said she knows the book of mormon is true, and she has a good knowledge of everything. and she told us she knows that as she gets closer to baptism, satan works harder on her to get her to take a step back, so she wants to get through it! we are hoping that she can finally get baptized! we teach her again tonight, so we are excited!

this week has been awesome! We have worked really hard and have been seeing success! we are doing a lot of tract 5, so I am getting a lot more experience tracting. we even tracted 5 at this one house, and we probably walked at least half a mile. the houses were so far apart!!! but ever since we have started working our whole area (it's huge, so it's hard to work it all with the miles) and have been trying to work starting from less actives and then tracting 5 if they aren't home, we have been seeing a lot more success. we are excited with the way things are going!

It's awesome here! I am learning a lot! I miss you guys! I love you guys! you are all awesome.

hermana davis