Miracles, miracles, miracles!

THIS IS THE BEST WEEK EVER! Seriously. I know I say that almost every week, but seriously. It is. I'll explain why.

Ray is getting baptized! I am SO excited. I always have to contain my excitement when I'm over there because he is a Nigerian bachelor and I don't think he would really appreciate me being overly excited. So I just freak out after we teach him because I am so happy. He is such an example to me of someone who REALLY gets what it means to be a Christian. He just gets it. He lives it and he loves it. Everything we teach him he is already doing or is willing to follow it because it is God's will. He gives his life to teach and serve others, even when he wasn't going to any particular church. Everytime we teach him I come out feeling taught. Anyway, he is getting baptized November 3rd and we are so excited!

Tim is getting baptized on Saturday! Yay!!!! I can't wait to hear how it goes, and I am really sad that I am missing it. It is so strange to care about someone so much that I haven't even met. I just wish I could be a part of the whole process as he gets to know his new ward and recieves a calling and all of it. I am excited to see pictures though.

About a week ago we had this bomb lesson with a guy named Willie and we were so excited about it. It was literally the ideal restoration lesson. We got to know him, taught him, asked him questions and taught it in a way that applied to him. At the end we invited him to read the Book of Mormon and he was so excited! And of course we were so excited, because honestly that never happens. You rarely get a chance to just have this perfect lesson with everything taught in order and have the investigator get it and love it. And then he disappeared. We went over for our next lesson and he had a job interview or something. We tried contacting him a few more times and nothing. So naturally we thought he dropped us. We went over this week just to be sure and he was SO excited to see us. He was like "sorry for not texting you back... I love it when you text me though because it reminds me to read." What?! I guess he had a lot of family stuff, but we are teaching him on Saturday and I am so excited! Total miracle. I need to stop being so surprised when people actually want to talk to us haha... I guess I am still getting used to this whole rejection thing. I don't mind being rejected but it always takes me by surprise when someone is actually interested in talking to us!

Speaking of rejection... I used to have a total fear of rejection. I wouldn't really do things if I thought I could fail at them. Mild perfectionism coming out in me I guess. I have had to get over that real fast being a missionary. People don't like us all the time, okay, a lot of the time. I have had people look at me like I am going to come in and rob their house! For the most part I feel like I have gotten over that fear of rejection. Its not about me. They aren't rejecting me. They are rejecting this message that I have to share, they are rejecting who I represent, which is Jesus Christ. And that is heartbreaking. It makes me really sad. As a missionary we have this wonderful opportunity to see people for who they really are, and who they can become. I knock on a door or see this family, or person, or anyone and see their potential. When they aren't interested in learning more it just makes me sad. This gospel has been the most important thing in my life, it has the power to change lives, to change hearts. It is such a blessing to go out and share it each and every day.

Anyway. I'm not going to bore everyone with all the details, but we taught some other awesome lessons, that hopefully I'll have time to write about next week.

We have a mouse in our house. It is SICK. Seriously. I don't mind the mouse itself... I've never had a problem with rodents. They are cute and fluffy and everyone knows how I feel about cute and fluffy things. We caught one but there is at least one more. My main beef with the mouse is that it lives in our vents and now our whole house smells like a mouse cage. Not okay. So any advice for killing a mouse. This one is smart. It ate all the peanut butter off the sticky trap and then ripped itself off. Crazy. The new house is great though. I have my own bathroom! And its a nice bathroom. I have never had my own bathroom before!

This week the weather has been crazy and I am pretty sure it has been making my blood pressure totally wacked out. I haven't been feeling really well and its been really hard to handle it. I was feeling really bad on Sunday and just frustrated because I don't want my health to affect my ability to work. I don't know how to manage it, or how to make it better, so I just felt really helpless. I've realized though that all of our experiences in life help us to better rely on the atonement. I was frustrated because I didn't have enough faith. I want to be better and I wanted to be better right NOW. But what I realized is that our timing is not always God's timing. The experiences I have had this year with being sick have made me rely on my Savior. They have helped build within me a deeply rooted testimony that his atonement can help cover anything. I am still building and relying on that testimony. I have already had experiences where I was able to testify that I know that the atonement is real! We have real power when we rely on it. And it isn't just for helping us repent. It is for everything. It is for helping you know how to love more. It is for helping you get through stressful times at work, and at school. It is for helping us know how to raise our families. As we rely on the atonement we learn to submit our will to the Lord. We humble ourselves. And after we give him our will, he makes us something better than we could even imagine. I know that all of my health drama is just a small part of helping me become who he wants me to be.

I love you all! Thank you for all of the wonderful mail and letters from (Ashley, Canon, Maryn, Chelsea Paxton, and Mama). I loved seeing all the pictures from Alison's blog! So fun! I am sad I missed out on the party, but we are too busy here!