Hello Family!!!! Happy Fourth of JULY!!!! I will miss being with
you at the parade! We are allowed to be with members during the
festivities, so we are going to stay with the Launchbaugh family. Their
backyard is the ocean, and 30,000 people line it on the 4th! We are
excited. :) Thank you so much for the Fourth of July package as well!!!
Hna Young and I loved our t-shirts, and we decorated the apartment! We
are going to wear the shirts on the 4th. :)
Okay I spent the whole time writing President this week, so I'll just copy what I told him...
Morro
Bay is doing great as well. We have two kids we are teaching, Alejandra
and Luis, and they came to church yesterday! They had so much fun! They
sang, "I Am a Child of God" for everyone in sacrament meeting. We
taught them that song a few weeks ago, and they sing it constantly!
Everyone was really good to them at church, so they had a really good
experience. We are trying to get their parents to be more interested. We
keep telling them that the message is for families, but they haven't
wanted to come to church themselves yet. Hopefully soon!
Also,
I went on exchanges with Hermana Killpack this last week! She is from
Firth and she's SO CUTE! We saw so many miracles! We had a list of new
move-ins that the ward council had given us. There were about 15 people
on the list, and so we decided to look at the list and pick some people
to visit. One of the names stood out to Hermana Killpack, but the city
he lived in was really far away from everywhere else we were working
that day. We decided to go anyways, not even knowing if he would be
there. When we pulled up to the house, we saw a car backing out of the
drive-way and so we hurried and ran up to the car. The lady said, "Can I
help you?" We asked if a William Sheppard lived there and she said, "Oh
no, I don't know him." We asked if they had just moved in and she said,
"No, we've lived here for 3 years." So we went back to our car, and she
left to go wherever she was going. We looked at the paper again to
double check the address, and sure enough! It was right. Hermana
Killpack again was very prompted that we needed to go knock on the door.
So we did, and a man answered the door. We asked if a William Sheppard
lived there and he said, "yeah..." and so we asked if it was him and he
said, "...yeah... you must be mormon's cause you have the tags. ." We
asked him if he was a member of the church and tried to shake his hand
and he stood there stiff and just said, "That's what they tell me. But I
try very hard to make sure they don't know where I am." We found out
that he had lived there for three years, but the ward had just barely
received his records because it was on the new move-in list! We started
talking to him about random things, and found out he had served in the
Navy. When we asked what he did in the Navy he harshly responded,
"Killed people." The spirit again guided Hermana Killpack, and she began
to cry and explained how her grandpa had served in the Navy, and she
thanked him for the service he had given to the country. This softned
his heart (not enough to WANT to talk to us, but enough to actually
converse with us.) We later found that he has two granddaughters on
missions for the church in south america. He doesn't know where, and he
doesn't talk to them, but he found out from their dad that they are on
missions. We also talked about his job (he makes vitamins, and he warned
us that taking Biotin will make our hair fall out rather than help it
to grow..good thing! Hna Killpack and I have both been taking it!) When
he mentioned that someone sent us there to find him, Hna Killpack was
able to explain how we were actually guided there. That his name was the
only one she could see out of 15 other names on the paper, and that we
knew we needed to see him that day. Towards the end we asked if there
was anything we could do for him. He responded, "I would say leave, but I
felt bad the last time I said that." Right after his wife pulled back
into the drive way and he said, "However, that's my wife and she hates
Mormons, so you better leave right now because she has really mean
dogs." He then lifted up his hand to shake ours. We were able to tell
him that we didn't know why he was so bitter against the church, but we
promised him that the church would still bless his life if he would
choose to come back. His wife then chirped in, "If you ever step foot on
this property again, we will call the cops!" (Ooooo scary.)
Later
when I explained everything that happened to the ward council, they
looked on his record and saw that he had been ordained a 70 at one point
in his life. It reminded me of zone conference and how important it is
to save these inactive members who have made covenants with the Lord,
and who did know at one point in their lives of the truthfulness of this
message. It also reminded me of Hna Newland, and how much she wants her
family to re-activate in the church. I know those granddaughters of
William Sheppard have probably been praying really hard that the
missionaries might be able to go and find him! And I'm sure that's why
we were guided there that day. And that he needed to meet Hna.
Killpack!
I don't know what will end up
happening with him. And as it turns out, he actually lives in the
Elder's area (which I did not know because I am still getting to know
the area!) But I know that we were walking side by side with Jesus
Christ that day, and I know that Heavenly Father cares about each one of
his children enough to set up something like that for any one of them.
That was one of the biggest miracles I have seen on my mission so far. I
wish I had more time to write out all of the little miracles that led
up to that one, and explain exactly how much we could see the hand of
God guiding us that day! But I was able to witness God taking the time
away from the 99 to look for the 1 lost sheep.
I love you all! Have a great week and a happy fourth!! Be safe and don't drink, it's not smart. :)
<3 Hermana Ricks!
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