Life is Good on the Bay. 08/03/2015

Morro Bay is just swell. I love serving here! We have seen so many miracles this week. As I've already written about, we have been really focusing on using the members and gaining their trust. Hna Young and I have spent a lot of time visiting each member of the ward council and sharing our testimonies of Jesus Christ. We have been teaming up with the Elders to teach different families in the ward the missionary lessons in order to strengthen their conversion. We have only been doing it for about two weeks I think, but last night one of the families we are teaching decided to invite another family over that they are friends with. We taught them the restoration and they were so excited! The members bore very powerful testimonies, and the spirit was so strong. We committed the family to take the lessons after, and they said, "Yeah we would love to, but probably in this setting. We like coming over to our friends house because we know them and everything." Which is perfect, because that is the perfect setting that we want! 

We also challenged a member that supports the Spanish group a lot to share her testimony in sacrament meeting (in the English ward) of missionary work. (This was inspired by the zone conference with Elder Grow.) Her testimony was very powerful, and inspired many others to get up and share their thoughts about missionary work. We ended up having more people at the Spanish group that night there to support the Latino members than I have ever seen before in this area. There is still improvement to make, but we are seeing so much progress just from a few weeks of focusing on working with the members! 

Hna. Young is awesome! We are working hard and enjoy studying together every day. She is really smart, and I always learn a ton from her! She loves the people here so much, and invests so much love into each person that we meet. She really has charity for them, and for me!

I have grown such a strong testimony of the family unit this week. I have been able to study and see the different roles that each individual plays. I have learned so much of the importance of being married in the temple. It is the reason that we come to earth! Without it, the earth, and the very atonement of Jesus Christ would be "utterly wasted." We come here so we can prepare to gain eternal life. And that is possible through the incredible gift of being able to be sealed in the house of the Lord. I challenge you all to have that as your goal! And if you don't know what I'm even talking about, ask the missionaries! They can help you. :) 

So here's one of the funny stories I can think of from the week:

So first off, a few weeks ago, the Elders and we were helping a family in the ward move. The family is super awesome! And they are a little off.. So we were packing up boxes in one of the rooms. All of a sudden, this HUGE EXPLOSION occurred. We all turned to Elder Pace, where the explosion came from, and stared in silence. Then, we all busted out laughing in realization that his pants had just totally busted open. Like 5 inch long hole...The Sister we were helping didn't realize what had happened and she said, "What did you fart or something?" (It actually reminded me a lot of Graham because he had an impeccable reputation for having that same kind of luck with pants.) Anyways, fast forward to this week. We were now helping the same family move. They were loading up the Elder's trunk, and the Sister shoved her plunger and toilet bowl scrubber into the back. Right into their box of copies of the Book of Mormon... When they lifted it out, and lovely pool of toilet water covered the tops of them. Ga-ross! 

Anyways, I hope you all have a fabulous week! Remember to go to church, say your prayers, and read your scriptures! (CPR!) :)

<3 Hermana Ricks