Good morning y’all!! Today Troy is on flash flood warnings and tornado watch. LOVELY! Watch out, you may see the Troy sister missionaries in the next General Conference if a big tornado comes our way haha! I loved your emails and I'm still dying laughing about the Rabbit situation in our backyard! That is hilarious! I can picture it all so perfectly! Congrats to Joe Dredge and Taysom for marriage coming up!! Happy for them!!
It amazes me how much can happen in just ONE WEEK! I was so grateful to have General Conference this weekend, we needed the spiritual recharge! They call Conference weekend Super bowl Sunday for missionaries! EVER SO TRUE! I'll start with the bad news before I dive into all the amazing things that happened this week! Nick and Ram both dropped their baptismal commitment dates. :( It was really stressful all week dealing with it, trying to decide if they were ready, if they felt ready, if they were keeping all the commitments, the planning and organizing of the actual baptism, interview set ups and much more! One day everything was all set and perfect for Nick but not for Ram and then the next day it would switch and Ram would be on board but not Nick. Needless to say it was INSANE!! Then General Conference came and both of them felt the spirit SOOO STRONG. They both know it’s true and testified that this is the true church. They were all excited about their baptism but when we really nailed down the fact they needed to officially stop drinking coffee and tea, THEY FLIPPED! We were like, oh boy…we've gone over this 100 times. Anyways, they are not willing to give a cup of coffee each morning up for the BLESSINGS OF THE RESTORATION OF THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL!! To us all who experience these great blessings it’s crazy to think that one would ever put a cup of coffee before that but for them their testimony must not be strong enough yet! I have faith that as their testimony of the Savior truly deepens they will see the necessity for living the Word of Wisdom! I'm grateful for the whole situation because at least now they can see the seriousness of making and keeping sacred covenants! So no baptisms for a while, but that is okay!!!
EVERY SINGLE SESSION OF CONFERENCE WAS AMAZING! I could type for the rest of my P-day explaining all my favorite talks, quotes, songs, and feelings but I'll just point out a few :) I lovvvved Elder Holland’s; every word he spoke was just so powerful! I believe he could say anything on that pulpit and it would be powerful!! Of course it was awesome he gave sister missionaries a shout out in the beginning! I loved his passion for defending our faith and as a missionary it was so motivating to keep going even through all the rejection! There will always be rejection and the truth will always be opposed but that proves how true our message is! I promised myself that morning that I will declare this message for the rest of my life! I loved M. Russell Ballard’s talk on FOLLOW UP :) I loved how he challenged everyone to get a copy of Preach my Gospel and he told how powerful it is when parents of missionaries email their kids what they are learning! I was so grateful that my parents already do that!! Bishop Stevenson's talk was probably my favorite as he related life to the Olympics! How we trained before, are performing now, and will have all eternity to look back and see how we did! This is our "4 minutes"! BOOM. SO good!! I loved Elder Hales talk on obedience and how obedience in certain things, however hard it may seem at the moment, are preparing us for obedience in future things as well. He gave the example of how the Savior’s obedience in Gethsemane prepared him for the obedience He would need on Calvary. I've been studying a lot about that time in the Savior’s life in “Jesus the Christ” so it was piercing for me to hear! I LOVED when President Monson expressed how God has given us a portion of man-kind to love. Right now, He has trusted me to love the people of Troy and how humbling that calling is! I loved Lawrence E. Corbridge's strong testimony of Joseph Smith as well. The MOTAB (Mormon Tabernacle Choir) was on fire as usual! I loved "Let us all Press on" and "Child’s Prayer". I saw Brother Gunn in the choir which was fun! I also saw tons of my friends from high school in the Orem institute choir! Every time I watch conference it feels like I'm stepping back home for a few hours! It was so awesome knowing y’all were watching the same thing as me at the same time! The new Sunday School presidency that got called...is it our Devin Durrant??? I was curious! We got Chick Fil A in between the Saturday sessions so I got to use my gift card :) We watched conference at the church and it was mainly the missionaries and our investigators which was fine!
We had LOTS of great stuff happen earlier in the week as well! One night we had a get together at "Milky Moo's" to get ice cream and then we went outside under a pavilion downtown and sang hymns and bore our testimonies! The spirit was so strong! It was really stormy alllll day long but that night it was perfectly clear! We had 11 girls at our dance and yoga class last Monday which was AWESOME!! Back in business :) We gave one of our Thai investigators a BOM in Thai and she LOVED IT! She was reading it to us and smiling from ear to ear! It was so cool to follow along in English while she read in Thai! The Book of Mormon is true in that language too :) She then took us out to eat at the "Saga" which is like Troy's Cannon Center! Brought back so many good memories!! We taught Soumalia (the atheist) and HE PRAYED!!!! It was awesome!!!! We also got Kyle to watch Conference and he was addicted! He so knows this church is true!! We got to teach a kid named Jack this week. He grew up in a part member home (mormon/baptist) but after his parents got divorced he never went back to our church. He came up to us a few weeks ago and introduced himself and FINALLY WE TAUGHT HIM! He is like the most popular kid on Troy so he brought like 4 people to the lesson with him and then during the lesson 4 more people came! It was the coolest thing!! People just kept gathering as we taught the Restoration! Lots of them were very intrigued and we are going to teach them all again!! President Eyring’s message on how young children are more close to the spirit than we realize was ever so true because Jack totally remembered primary songs and how to pray. It was really cool to bring that spirit back to him!!
So even though there were some lows, it was all out shined by the MANY MIRACLES we had!! :) What an awesome week and especially weekend as we got to listen to our Prophet and apostles!!! SO BLESSED!! So grateful to be a missionary right now! So grateful for our eternal family <3 I know that families are the treasures in Heaven and I LOVE MINE!!
Got your letter this week! Congrats to Brinlee on getting into BYU! How FUN!! Tell her to live it up!!! Krystal, the Chinese investigator, is just an exchange student for a year so she goes back to China for good in May! We had a sweeeeeeeet lesson with her on my exchange! It went awesome!! Question, what are the conversion stories on Mom's side of the family!? I'd be interested to learn!!
Well gotta go email some more! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!! MISS YOU SO MUCH!!! Good luck with the rabbit and have a marvelous week!!!! :) <3/ Sister Lauren!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ON SATURDAY ERIK!!!!
The sister trainer leader's were here for a day this week to do exchanges with us!
The Crew
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