Date
November 5, 2018
Area
Sikeston, MO
Companion
Sister Dixon
sikeston is magical
HEY ALL. THIS WEEK WAS REALLY, REALLY GOOD.
Each week we set goals for our Key Indicators. We set a goal of having 3 people on date to be baptized, 3 people we are teaching at church, and 2 new people to start teaching. Sunday nights, we send in our goals & actuals and we KNOCKED OUR GOALS OUT OF THE PARK. We currently have 6 people on date to be baptized between now and December 8th (!!!), we had 3 of the people we are teaching come to church, and we found 3 new people to start teaching! This is seriously the best I've had on my mission so far. It was SO exciting to see how much the Lord blessed us this week. We invited 7 people to be baptized within 3 days and we saw the biggest blessings come from it. I have the strongest testimony of putting our faith into action. We'll be giving Heavenly Father a White Christmas FOR SURE. Sikeston is THE PLACE TO BE.
On Sunday, there was a North America East Broadcast. So all of the states in the East/Mid-West listened to a broadcast from SLC for church. We wanted so badly to have people we are teaching there to listen to the inspired messages from our church leaders. One of the girls we are teaching was running late and hadn't been to our church before. Halfway through the broadcast she called us and told us she was outside Walmart in her blue car, her phone was at 2% and she had no idea how to get to our church building. Before her phone died, we were able to tell her that we would send someone to come find her. We pulled out a returned missionary in our ward and told him the situation and just said a major prayer of faith that he would be able to find her, without him even knowing what she looked like, and with all of the MANY cars parked at Walmart. 15 minutes later she was sitting right next to us listening to Elder Holland's crazy strong testimony of welcoming others to be part of our church. How this returned missionary was able to find her with all of the hundred of cars parked at Walmart, we have no clue.
JORDAN GOT BAPTIZED THIS WEEK. We have been working with Jordan a lot these past couple of weeks to feel ready to enter into the waters of baptism. He was SO ready and the Spirit that was felt during the baptismal ordinance and his conformation was so strong. He suffers severely with social anxiety so he was scared out of his mind to be the center of attention. When he stood up to be confirmed in front of the whole ward, I could tell he was nervous, but he looked at us and gave us THE FATTEST smile - it was too sweet.
Side note- we filled up the font for Jordan 2 hours before his baptism to make sure it was ready for him. We went to check on the water and it was crazy full, so we turned off the water to find that IT WAS COLDER THAN ICE. So we said, this is great. We had to take pitchers and dump out as much water as we could (took 5ever) and then get the water to the hottest temperature it could get. No one said anything about it being hot or cold, so I guess that's a good sign?
We went to go take our car in to get it's tires rotated and oil changed. We thought it was going to be free because our mission has an account with Firestone but the guy came out and said, "that'll be $90" and we said, well crap. We called our Mission Vehicle Coordinator and then realized that he was in a meeting until 2 and it was only 10:30. So we were stranded inside Farm & Home Supply listening to REALLY GOOD country music - not by choice. We weekly planned the best we could and tried not to feel apostate listening to music RIP.
We were going around trying different potentials Saturday night and we talked to this one lady, invited her to come to church and set up a return appointment. Everything seemed super good, but as we walked away sister dixon said, "well, she's high" and I said WHAT. Literally talked to her for a straight 15 minutes with out even realizing she was high out her mind, I'm an idiot. Note to self- when people's pupils are bigger than their head and their home smells LIKE TRASH, you smile and walk away.
SPIRITUAL THOUGHT- we had Zone Conference this week and it was so inspired. I literally had so many prayers answered. President Bateman talked a lot about how hard missions are. He had us draw 3 boxes and write, missions are hard, I can do hard things, and hard is good. He then had us check off each box and said, "you've already checked it off, so what else." Basically just telling us to accept that it's hard and move along. We talked about how hard things are sacred because it creates holiness. We can't spend our time looking for the easiness- easiness is fatal, hard gives life. Because I've felt pain and because I've felt how hard a mission can be, I know joy and I know happiness. We can't wish the hard things away, we have to work through it and that comes through faith. Faith is real! And it comes as we believe in something. Faith HAS TO HAVE SUBSTANCE. We have to have faith in Jesus Christ.
I learned another really cool thing about sacrificing things to the Lord, but for the sake of this email becoming a novel, I'll save it for next week- stay tuned ;)
I LOVE YOU ALL
all the love, sister beal
pic 1: zone conf with my bff sister alder, LOVE HER. #carefulnotcasual We had exchanges this week and ask me if it was the best day of my life- you already know the answer.
pic 2: stuck @ Farm & Home
pic 3: Jordan's baptism! (our bishop doesn't know how to take pics so this was the best one we got lol)
pic 4: after doing a Facebook video chat lesson reading the Book of Mormon