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Showing posts from January, 2019

January 28, 2019

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This week has been full of ups and downs. Sister 'Eliesa and I worked hard and got to see a lot of progress in our area, and with the people. On Saturday night we got a call from Sister 'Eliesa's uncle. She started crying, and even though I don't speak Tongan I knew what he was saying. We both started sobbing. Sister Eliesa's father Viliami passed away. He has been sick for a while, and they both knew when she left that it would probably be the last time they saw each other. That night I felt so deeply the pain of losing someone you love dearly. Sister 'Eliesa is the only companion I have had for longer than six weeks. We have a special bond. We understand each other on a very deep level. I love her because she truly is my sister. That night we just cried on the floor and hugged for a while. I felt so much love for her. I felt the love that Heavenly Father has for her. Through all the sorrow that we felt, there was such a strong feeling of peace. She told me h...

January 21, 2019

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Funny: There are several unique things here in Hot Springs South Dakota. One of them being the way people choose to decorate their front yard. It is fairly common to see decorative toilets in yards. I guess when people here have an old toilet, they don't know what to do with they paint it, stick it in their front yard, plant some flowers in it, and call it a day. I attached a picture of it. If any of you were looking for a fun new way to decorate your yard, here ya go! Spiritual: Sometimes one of the hardest things for us to do is get people to come to church. We can invite everyone, until we are blue in the face, and sometimes only 10-15 people will come at all. However, this week there was a tender mercy for us. Some of our investigators that we have been teaching for a while came for the first time! It was such a blessing! We had about 35 people come to our little branch! There is such a special spirit at church. I always feel that love and peace that is only found through C...

January 14, 2018

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Funny: So, there is this burger place in our area called Burger and Bun Co. It is our favorite place. It's not too expensive, and has the best burgers I have ever had in my life! It was closed for renovations for a while, so we weren't able to take sister Haney there until this week. We took her there for lunch and it was AMAZING as usual. Then the branch president offered to buy us dinner that night. You'll never guess where he wanted to take us... Burger and Bun! Sister Haney was so excited to go twice in one day. I promised never to eat again after that day I was so full! I have broken that promise since then, but that's ok. 😁 Spiritual: we have an investigator named Chuck, and he is one of the people here who I believe is one of the reasons I was sent to this mission. He has this sweet wife and cute little family, and he is a very spiritual person, and very close to Jesus Christ. I feel very connected to him, like I have known him all my life. He is so close ...

January 7, 2018

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Funny: As some of you may recall, when I first came to Hot Springs, we had to stay in our branch presidents barn for a couple of weeks. We do a lot of driving in our area, and we will often spend the night in Custer when we have a lot to do there. We often will stay the night in the barn. To get to this barn first you must drive out to basically the middle of nowhere, then drive into the woods, and finally you drive up a relatively steep hill. This was our first attempt to get to it in the snow. The Branch President is out of town, but he told us we could still use his barn. So, we were driving to it and you will never guess what happened.... we got stuck. Luckily being from Utah I know how to get unstuck from the snow. Whereas my companions being from Tonga and New York (neither of which have a license) didn't know quite what to do. We had a shovel in the back and we shoveled the snow from under our tires and we got a bunch of branches and broke them up, and stuck them under t...

December 31, 2018

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Funny: It finally snowed! When I got my call to North Dakota I figured I would be in for a hard winter, but since I am in Hot Springs South Dakota, we just barely got snow yesterday! It snowed a few times earlier in the year, but it was all melted and gone for most of December. This might just be my first Christmas without snow, who would have thought South Dakota would be so nice! : This is the first Christmas I have had where my main focus was truly to turn outwards and serve others. I can testify that giving brings SO much more joy than receiving. There is a boy we are teaching who is only 15, his mom had to be rushed into a surgery on Christmas day, and he was left home alone. That day we felt prompted to go visit them, when we found out what had happened, we went back home got some of the gifts and candy that we had received and gave it all to him so that he could still feel some Christmas joy and love despite his hard circumstances. The rest of the day we spent visiting wit...