Monday, May 5, 2014

Forever Bristol!

Dear Family!

Well this has been a pretty good week.... It seems like the days go by SUPER slow, but then the weeks pass by super fast. We've had some super good success this past week though!

 In our phone, there is this person named "Leah...call again." Ever since I have been in this area, we have been calling her randomly trying to set up an appointment. On Wednesday, we called asked for Leah, and the person on the phone said she was not there at the moment. We asked him if he would tell her that the missionaries called. He said he would and then said "Well I'm here though, so you could come see me!" First off, that very rarely happens. So, on Friday, we went and had an appointment with him. His name is Austin and he is 18 years old. We taught him the Restoration of the Gospel and committed him for baptism on June 14th! I do have some concerns still, but I am very excited about him!! When we tried to set up another appointment with him, he asked us if we could call back at the first of the week so that we could teach his entire family, and not just him. (His family was out of town). Needless to say, Sister Neil and I feel very blessed! 

The next super big success that we had was on SaturdaySaturday was one of those days where all of our plans, back-up plans, and back-up back-up plans fell through. Discouraging. Every single door that we knocked on, and every person that we tried to see was not home. Finally, we ended up in a certain part of the town that we don't go to super ton. Sister Neil remembered about an old potential investigator named Alex that she had gotten from before I got to the area, so we decided to go see if he was home. When we first got there, he immediately let us in and we got to talk to him! He mentioned how he had not been to church for about 3 weeks now and how cool it was that we stopped by. We told him that there were no such things as coincidences and he agreed with us. We were able to teach him the Restoration and he accepted everything that we said and said that it all just made sense. We were also able to set a baptismal date with him for June 14th!!  Thiscoming Saturday we are going to go back and teach his entire family the restoration! We are hopeful that we will be able to get his entire family with baptismal dates! If we do, this will be my first family that I will have taught on my mission. I am pretty excited about that!

I know I mentioned this last week, but I still have been getting pretty stressed waiting for my VISA. I got a blessing this past week and it gave me a lot of comfort. Blessings are so powerful! 

When I first got to this area, we saw this lady, Connie, walking her dog so we stopped and talked to her. She gave us her information and said that we would be more than welcome to come by anytime. We've stopped by there a ton because she lives pretty close to us, but every time we've stopped by, she has not been there. On Friday, we were finally able to go and teach her! At first she started to talk about her grand-daughter who committed suicide, she seem to be pretty shook up about that, so we thought that we would share the plan of salvation with her. After sharing it, I don't quite know what she thought. She seemed as if she was just politely listening and what we were telling her was going in one ear and out the other. We left her a Book of Mormon, explained it a little bit, and invited her to start reading it. I'm not quite sure what she thought of it, but I hope that she starts to read it... I know that it can change her life for the better and bring a ton of happiness and peace! 

So, I mentioned last week how we do service at the Salvation Army. Most of the time we are all behind the counter dishing out food. This past week, the manager lady there decided to spice things up a bit, so I was out in the table area where everyone eats, peeling potatoes. I didn't mind one bit, but I sure got to meet a ton of interesting people. There was this one crazy guy there. He was definitely high, on drugs, and who knows what else. He came up and introduced himself to me and said he was the devil, Jesus, and then no good. As our conversation continued, he told me that things would not work out between us (me and him). I wasn't quite sure what he was talking about, so I just asked why. He got real serious, and said in a quiet voice "because people are jealous of us!" Oh boy. Conversation continued. Then, after a while, he asked if I had any tattoos. I told him no and he exhorted me, with all the energy of his soul to never get a tattoo. I told him I wasn't planning on it, and he just kept telling me not to do it. This guy was definitely unforgettable and provided a nice stress-relief conversation for me! 

Well, that pretty much sums things up here! I am really loving being with Sister Neil! We work very well together and are great friends. I really feel like I can talk to her about anything that is bothering me, and that is very nice. This past week we found out that we will have another transfer together! We are definitely being blessed in this area and it is wonderful to be receiving so many blessings! 

I love you all tons! 

Sister Beth Spencer

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