Faith + Hard Work= Miracles!

"Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven" (Praise to the Man)
This phrase rings true of my area!!! We are seeing many blessings as we work hard...and we are working hard. Something that's great about Sis. Felten is that she wants us to be better at things...to keep progressing. We are using the Spirit more in every aspect of missionary work and it's been so effective. Sometimes when we go tracting it doesn't feel like success is coming but then we get some solid referrals from others who ARE ready to hear the message to the gospel. It's like for every door we knock something good comes out of it whether we see it as we walk around or later in the week. Here are some of the blessings or miracles we've seen:

 Marcos: a new investigator from BOSTON!!! He's lived here for a couple years and I think the missionaries tried to contact him before but he wasn't prepared for it yet. He gave them the run around...but he's so prepared now. He has M.S. and it's caused him to ask a lot of life's tough questions...and he's worried about life after death. His wife is a member who hasn't been active since baptism! So we're teaching both of them. They have so many questions and we're willing to answer them but it's all about line upon line...they won't understand certain things if they don't understand something before...so it's important to go slowly. :) The first time we met with him he told us not to give him our number or he'd cancel the appointment...but when we got there on Friday at 6pm we came into the house and he said "I've been looking forward to this all day!" WOAH....dude...he's so prepared. Then we talked about knowing God loves him and how he can recognize that...the lesson was so powerful. The Spirit was so present...and I know he could feel it. He's a talker so sometimes he goes on about stuff (we don't care) but during one of those times he said "I'm looking for salvation...I need to be baptized..." and then kept talking. We're like WOOT...I think he'll get baptized next transfer...he just needs to understand everything first. We're stoked about him. THEN we went to his ward yesterday and he came to church...he sat with the ward mission leader and then met the bishop afterwards and then went to the rest of the 3 meetings!!! He loved it all...and felt very welcomed and loved. It's amazing. Then we had another lesson last night and talked about prophets...and next time we'll talk about Joseph Smith. He asked is Joseph Smith died of old age...we told him no...and he said "if there's a man preaching about how you get get back to heaven and how you can be with your family...why would they kill him...that don't make sense to me." I wanted to say 'it doesn't make sense to me either' but I didn't...I'm truly greatful for Jospeh Smith!! :)

Hayden (10): He's been taught by missionaries since April...and he's finally getting to church more...and yesterday his dad asked if could be baptized in October...umm YESS!!! We were stoked.

We were going to the church parking lot (we had to use the bathroom) and ran into a bishop in one of our wards...he gave us a solid referral for 2 kids!!!!

Levi (9): he's so excited for us to come over and thrists for knowledge. It's awesome. He wants to be baptized so he can get a gun...we're changing that...ahhaha

Karim and Troy: Karim is from Peru and has been taught before I got here but her husband (who is from Utah) wasn't interested....well he is now. Last night we had our 3 meeting with both of them and he said he'd read and pray about the book of mormon!! He already started reading chapter 1 of it...and the intro. He's excited to keep learning. :) It's been a good refresher for Karim too. :)

There are many more....but I'm just so excited. The work is moving forward...and I know it's because we have shown Heavenly Father that He can trust us with His children. :)

I love this work. I love all of you! Keep being amazing. Missionary work is so important....BUY A PREACH MY GOSPEL and READ IT...such an inspired book. Love, Sister Page