# 8

Hello all,

Another week in the warm Las Vegas!! In the Warm Springs stake.....and boy is it starting to get warm!

This week was full of firsts for me. I gave my first "training" in our stake missionary meeting. Sister Harrison and I led a discussion of how we can help our members see their role in missionary work. We had the coolest object lesson! Our amazing relief society president went out and bought flashlights for all of the missionaries in the stake for this lesson. We turned of all the lights and handed everyone a flashlight and then told them they could only turn it on if someone shared their light with them. So I started by reading a scripture about light, and that made my testimony "shine" so I turned on my light, then I shared it with my companion who then shared it with one of the missionaries sitting down, and then they shared their light with everyone else. So by the time we were done everyone's light was shining and the whole room was light! It was really cool! The spirit was very strong! 

We had a ton of amazing lessons with week!! We met with the Tenny's a family just coming back to activity, and we were planning on having a lesson about the plan of salvation....but her son in law was in town, he is a strong catholic...and very closed minded. So as we tried to give them a lesson he came in the room and started telling us all why we are wrong and what the "true" meaning of the scriptures are and how we have a fake bible and all this stuff. So after a while of that we decided it was time to excuse ourselves because nothing will be accomplished with the spirit of contention! He later told sister Tenny that he had "schooled us" we knew he thought he had "won" but it doesn't really matter, because I know the truth and I know what I believe and I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet. 

But then right after we had a lesson with my favorite investigator, EDVIN! His lesson was amazing!!! It was the most spiritual lesson I have ever been a part of! Edvin and Lucy are amazing!!! Their faith is so strong because of the things that they have been through! I can’t wait to see his be baptized, and their goal is to go to the temple a year from now, so hopefully I will be able to be there for that too!

The other first's that happened this week were dropping......We had to "drop" one of our golden investigators, David. We had another lesson with him with a young couple from our ward and it was a good lesson, but the whole time the spirit was whispering to me that he was not ready. He loves the spirit and the gospel but he doesn't accept the church as a whole, he isn’t changing at all. We all came out of the lesson feeling that way. I think one day he will be ready and he will remember everything we taught him and it will finally click, it’s just not the time now. So we will continue to invite him to things, but unless he asks to have us come over we won’t be meeting with him anymore :( because we are on the Lord's time and I know that there will be someone else who we need to focus our time on. We also go dropped by an investigator that same day....Bob told us he is happy for us but he doesn't want to take the lessons, he is fine where he is at. ( it feels like I dumped someone and got dumped all in the same day...ahahah)

Antoinette is moving!! Her husband needs surgery, so she is moving out to Texas to be with him. We are happy for her though, she still want to meet with the missionaries, so we will send the missionaries there her info, and hopefully she will keep taking lessons!

But Wendi!! She is doing amazing!! She told us her full story, the day before we came over she was getting ready to kill herself. She had given up, and she was tired of being in so much pain all the time! But she decided before she did that that she would try one last, thing. She went onto Lds.org to the chat section, and said "I need strong LDS friends" so a girl responded, they started talking, and then she sent in Wendi's information to have the missionaries come. And we showed up the next day. She has changed so much from that first day, she has a light about her and she is happy again! She started reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning 3 days ago, and she is already in Jacob!! That’s almost half way through! AND she told us that on Saturday when we met with her he husband (Robert, who fell away from the church right after getting baptized years ago) was listening in on our lesson and he asked if we could come over for dinner on night and stay after so he could talk with us!! I can’t help but smile! Wendi was about ready to cry! We are so excited!! 

And now it’s time for another week! I pray we will be able to find more people to teach to make up for all the people we lost this week!

With Love,

Sister Loveless

(I’ll send pictures next week....I left my camera at home..)

#7 The Lord knows what we need!

Well, this week has been one of the hardest so far! But it’s also been one of the most rewarding! This was our First week serving in both the Warm Springs (WS) and Las Palmas ward! The Elders left us a pretty great area, we love our new ward! 

On Tuesday we went and met all of our investigators in Las Palmas (LP), and they are amazing! 

Edvin has a baptism date. He is going to be baptized on May 19th, because He is getting marries on May 12th to his Fiancé Lucy who is a member. Edvin told us his conversion story, He used to hate the church, he would make fun of the missionaries, he had anger issues and he said that he would "never join the Mormons" and this was all why he was dating Lucy, He had been going through the refiners fire, and after a while he humbled himself enough so that one day when Lucy decided to go to church on mother’s day he said he would go with her, and then he said it was okay if the missionaries came for dinner, and eventually he agreed to take the missionary discussions. And now he is preparing to get baptized and their goal is to get sealed in the temple a year from his baptism. Edvin is the sweetest man in the world, we love going over and teaching them, the person he has become is amazing, and he is almost done reading The Book of Mormon! 

We also went over to meet a less active family in the Las Palmas ward, they have a son on a mission who is coming home in July and he told his mom that he wouldn't come home until she had read the Book of Mormon. The Elders told us we needed to go over and meet with her and help her keep reading. She loved the Elders and she had told them that she was afraid to get new girl missionaries. So we went over and started visiting with her and her young daughter and by the time we left she was so excited to have us in the ward, and we set up a time every week to go over and help her study and read! 

Now here is an amazing story! Are you ready?! We got a referral from Salt Lake for a woman names Wendi. We had no information of her other than her address. So we went over on Wednesday with one of the Ladies in our ward, Sister West, and knocked on her door. After standing there for a while she finally opened the door, she stood there with a walker, looked at us and then said "well I thought you would have at least called first. Come in, Come in!" As we sat and talked with her we found out that she was born into the church, her mom was a convert but her dad wasn’t. Her mom was her best friend and she had died a little while ago. Wendi has had a hard life, she suffers from fibromyalgia, depression, PTSD, abuse, and is bipolar. But she is the sweetest lady in the world. She fell away from the church when she was young and then about 14 years ago she went back to church and her husband got baptized. He had a bad experience and stopped going to church so she stopped also. She hasn’t been to church in 13 years, and now because all of her health problems she can barely leave the house. As we talked with her about the temple, we told her she would see her mother again, she is watching out for her from heaven now. She started sobbing; then as we talked about the power of the atonement and how all the pain that has been inflicted upon us and that we have caused ourselves could be washed away she began crying harder. We met with her every day this week read scriptures with her and slowly helped her to see how the Savior love and the Atonement will be able to help her, no matter what! We found out that it was actually her friend who had requested the missionaries to come visit Wendi because she knew that Wendi had been humbled by her trials and was at a place where she would be willing to listen and ready to change! We invited her to come to church and she said she would think about it, so when we came by on Thursday we told her that we had it all worked out so that we would have a ride and everything would work out so she could come. She said that she didn't think she could do it. So I asked her what was stopping her and after a moment she said..."clothes" with her fibromyalgia she can wear clothes that put pressure on her skin at all because when there is pressure on her skin if feels like she is being stabbed all over her body; the only clothes she can wear are sweatpants and a baggy shirt. So I told her I had a solution. I brought her one of my dresses that was just a loose flowy fabric. And it fit perfectly! I told her that it was hers but she could only wear it if she went to church! And on Sunday she was there! She stayed all 3 hours even! 

Sunday was crazy it was the first week we had both wards so we were running back and forth like crazy between the two! But we are excited about it!! Tons of other stuff happened this week but this is all I had time to share! I love you all!

Love 

Sister Loveless

Letter #6 From Las Vegas

Hello World,

I had my first transfer this week!!!! Exciting stuff!! Sister Harrision and I will both be staying in the Warm Springs Ward (I love this ward so much, the members here all hold a special place in my heart, i really didn’t want to leave)! BUT we will now also be covering another ward, the Las Palmas Ward! We are excited!! WE will be double transferring in AGAIN because we are replacing the Elders who were covering that ward, so we are starting fresh with this ward too! Just like we did when we came into the Warm Springs ward! It will be a fun challenge! It’s really nice though because at least we will be in the same building for church, and only 1 of our 5 hours of church overlap (7 hours if you include the other meetings)!! Sundays are going to be full and amazing!! Funny story though, we saw the Bishop of the Las Palmas ward last week (before we found out that we would be switching out the Elders) and this is how the conversation went..... "Hey Sisters! What ward are you in?"

"We are in the Warm Springs ward!" 

"They have Sister Missionaries too?!? What did we do wrong?! Why don’t we have Sisters?!" 

Little did he know that the very next week his wish would be granted :) He gets us!

This week has been full of all sorts of wonderful things!! For family night we went over to Lanee and Malu's house and we watched the hour long version of the restoration DVD, It was amazing!! We got to talk all about the saints and their experiences, and I got to tell them all about Nauvoo! They want to go and visit so bad! So I told them when I get home we will have to make a special trip!!

We were out walking around when we got a Text from our investigator David! Sister Harrison started reading it out loud... He said "I have decided I want to get baptized" We read that and started jumping up and down!!! Then sister Harrision said wait there’s more..."But I don’t want to have to go to any one church. Can I do that in the Mormon church?" So we asked if we could come by and talk with him. We went over the next day with two brothers from the ward that had a chance to explain to him the unbroken line of priesthood authority! And we were able to have a powerful lesson about the purpose of baptism and that gift of the Holy Ghost that comes with it! It was a great lesson, he is progressing!

We had a lesson with a part member family in our ward who's sons had just gotten baptized right before we came into the ward, and they invited one of their friends to come over, His name is Franko! He is 11, and he is amazing! We watched the 20 min, restoration DVD and he loved it, after the movie he said "I want to get baptized today!" We said you have to come to church first! so he said "okay if I come to church on Sunday will you baptize me there?!" He is so fun!! We will hopefully be meeting his parents this week! He came to church on Sunday with the Welch boys (his friends), and Sister Tenny (the mom of the welch boys) got permission from his parents so he and his twin brother who came to church with him could have lessons with us!! We are so excited! They are amazing!!

Well I’m out of time again! But I have to remember to write about our new investigator Moises next time!! He is amazing too!! I love the work, it is sooooo amazing!!!  

And here is a picture of most of my zone from this last transfer!! This was the day we found out about our "Transfer Doctrine" as we call it here, because we get a paper that has our fate on it and we have to come pick it up!  Super fun! 

Love ya!

Sister Loveless!!