So last Monday we went on a district hike to this place called Gomez Peak. It was really fun! A good workout for sure, and a good sign to me that I need to start getting in better shape haha it kicked my butt! But the view at the top was gorgeous! We were able to see all of Silver City. It was great to get to know the other missionaries a little bit more(: We had FHE that night with the Young Single Adults branch and it was really good to get to know them a little bit better. We played apples to apples and that was a blast! Got to know people's sense of humor a little more and just get to know them in general. I am really excited to be serving here and helping to build up our generation! It will be a challenge for sure though.
Tuesday we spent some time baking cookies to pass out on Campus with one of the couples missionaries, Sister Hannigan-Ewing. We have a "hot cookie Friday" every Friday a the Institute and people can come and just eat as many cookies as they want until they are all gone. We hadn't been having very good success with people other than the members coming so we wrapped up about 100 cookies, put a little flier on them that had our Facebook page, address, etc, and walked around campus passing them out and letting everyone know! It was a little awkward at first, as we were just walking up to people our age saying 'Hey would you like a free cookie?" It is going to take a little bit of time for me to get used to working with younger aged people. I realized I had never taught anyone over the age of 30 until I came here! A totally different kind of work, but I am excited to see what adventures it brings! Anyway we spent about 2 hours passing these cookies out, and were still left with about 30 (which we ended up mostly giving to the elders haha). A member of the YSA later told us that someone had gone onto our Institute Facebook page and posted "Cute girl missionaries passing out free cookies on campus today. Thank you Joseph Smith." Oh goodness. Well lets look at the bright side here 1.) She looked up the Facebook page which has all our activities and other fun things posted and 2.) she didn't just crumple of the flier and throw it away! We also went to contact a referral we had received from the Elders of a Spanish woman. When we got there her son invited us right in and she was so excited to see us! She had met with sister missionaries about a year ago, so that is how she recognized who we are. Her name is Elvira and she is the first Spanish investigator we have had here in at least 3 months! We are pretty excited about her(:
Thursday we received some bummer news. We got cut on miles we are allowed to drive with our car. We are pretty worried about staying under miles as we have to do exchanges every week and it takes at least an hour to drive to the areas of the other sisters. We also have a pretty big area of our own. So we officially decided that we are going to have to be biking sisters. We are going to borrow some bikes from members and just hope that the hills don't kill us haha. I was pretty stressed about that, but then Heavenly Father gave us a tender mercy. We were walking around and met this man named Gordon. We started talking with him a little bit and came to find out that he is Vietnam veteran, a baptist, and has cancer. We were taking for a while about how prayer has been a blessing in his life, and then both of us had the feeling we should say a prayer with him. So we asked if we could say a prayer with him, and he looked around, and then said sure! It was a really powerful moment. The spirit was so strong as we could feel the love that Heavenly Father has for this man. I even started tearing up a little bit (I have become such a softy!!). We weren't able to get his phone number or address, but we know that he felt the Holy Ghost and that is was exactly what he needed to brighten up his day, and ours!
On Friday, we did exchanges with the sisters serving in Thatcher. My first exchange as a sister training leader! Itis life after death and that we do have purpose! SO grateful for Heavenly Father's plan for us. was a TON of fun. I went to Thatcher to spend the day with Sister Halle. She is such a sweet girl and has such incredible desires to increase the work. She is actually almost done with her mission (in 4 weeks) but she is going just as strong as ever! It was a little weird to be back in the Gila Valley, but I loved it. They are biking sisters, so it was good practice! Lots of fun and really exhausting. We were able to talk to a lot of people about the plan of salvation. We met one guy that doesn't believe in anything after this life. That we are just thrown here and it all ends when we die. That just broke my heart. I am so grateful to know that there
Sunday was a crazy day. We gave talks in the Spanish group. I was assigned to speak on Eternal Marriage and surprise surprise... I started tearing up haha As I shared my testimony of eternal families with that small group, I could feel the spirit bear testimony of how blessed we are to have not only the knowledge that there is life after death, but that there is family after death as well! Whew! Such a blessing. After sacrament meeting, the 1st counselor of the ward came up and asked how our talks went. We said good, gave a quick summary, and then he said "good! Now just translate them back to English and you can give them in the ward next week." Well... we get blessings for giving talks right? haha We had dinner with the Mower family. He is the young men's president and she is the 1st counselor of the young women. They are such a fun couple! We were talking about holiday season and they invited us to come cut a Christmas tree with them when the time gets closer. WHOOP WHOOP!
I just love this area so much! As you can tell, lots has been going on! I feel so blessed to be trusted by Heavenly Father to help the people here and am so excited to see how the work is already progressing so much! I love this gospel and this work! Hopefully y'all can feel the blessing of it in yours lives as well! Keep on keeping on and remember that you are loved!Love,
Hermana Lundquist