Email September 8, 2014

Hey my peeps! Alright so me and Sister Fillmore have been talking in these ridiculous English accents all week long and it's so hard to talk normal again haha. We were in a lesson with Ryan and it was towards the end and Sister Fillmore was like "the church is true. Right?" but she said it in an English accent and so Ryan said "Right" in the same accent and it wasn't until he said that, that we had realized she said that in the accent haha we were laughing pretty dang hard. So we've been trying to talk normal but it's soooo hard for some reason haha. We've also been spending way too much time together that we say the same things now haha spending 24\7 with someone is not good haha. The weather hasn't been too bad here, it's been a little hot but not that bad. It's also bipolar, so we were going to knock on this less actives house that Sister Fillmore has knocked on in the past and they haven't answered. So it looked like it was about to rain but it was sprinkling for a bit and then stopped so we went to the door and I'm not even kidding, the second we knocked on the door it was like a down pour! It just started pouring, we were soaked in like 2 seconds but the lady runs to the door and says "Come in, come in!" haha so we went in and the power went off and everything it was crazy! Anyway we talked to her for a while after that haha she probably wouldn't have let us in if it didn't rain haha, that was totally Heavenly Father. Okay so Ryan, oh my goodness this kid gives me whiplash! I swear some lessons are awesome and then sometimes we're absolutely terrified for his baptism. So we will have some lessons where the spirit is super strong and some lessons where everything is bad. So we had this lesson a couple days ago that was absolutely amazing, we were planning on teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost etc. but he got a call from his grandpa saying that one of his relatives had passed away and so he had a bunch of questions about the spirit world and temple work and everything. But the entire time we were able to tie the gospel in so well and the spirit was super strong and after we were done he said "Sorry we didn't have a lesson." we said "actually we did, we talked about everything we wanted to talk about today." he was like "Seriously?" we nodded and he was like "See it's things like that, that make me believe the church even more!" haha it was so awesome! He was also talking about how he wants to do temple work for his dad who committed suicide when Ryan was 6. He was also worried about how he was going to miss ONE week in JANUARY! haha this kid is incredible. He walked us out to our car so we were walking through his apartment complex and a lady had made dinner for the entire complex because everybody that lives there is like a family it's cute, anyway she got mad at Ryan because he didn't come get a burrito and he was like "I'm sorry but I worked late today and then I really had to meet with my missionaries." ahh it was adorable haha, it made us smile, the kid was GLOWING! Then we had a lesson with him about the law of chastity and that was rough haha. and today we taught him about tithing which is another sore subject for him because he just lost his job, but we had this awesome object lesson about faith and I think he understood it better. Hopefully it works out because I will not baptize someone into inactivity I absolutely WILL NOT. I have total faith in the kid though so we're going to do everything we can to help him. I love him to death, please pray for him! We're seeing him as much as we can before his baptism, we invited him to dinner with a membertomorrow night. He'll make it I just know it! We're also teaching this adorable old man named Jerry, he's like 80 something and he has the most adorable toothless smile ever! We met him tracting and talked to him for a while, we talked about the plan of salvation and he started crying when we talked about the spirit world. We took a member with us the next time we saw him to teach him about the Book of Mormon and he dressed up just for us haha. He was telling Sister Clawson how he let his life go to waste but there was something that stopped him and he pointed to us and said "These two ladies." Ahhh we died! He also came to church yesterday he loved it haha ugh you guys, this is the cutest old man in the world! He's totally getting baptized haha! We also are working with this less active, Max Chapman, he's like 60 and he's super shy guy. He's been less active for a long time, years, and he prayed for the first time like 6 months ago. He only comes to sacrament meeting, we have to take baby steps with him but yesterday he got up in the middle of sacrament meeting and bore his testimony, IN FRONT OF A CROWD! Max Chapman bore his testimony, you know the guy who wanted to be partially active his whole life and hide in the corner so no one can see him ever, yeah that guy. He cried! This is a guy who didn't have a testimony a couple weeks ago! He made us cry the whole time. It was funny because when he got up and started walking to the front Sister Fillmore and I were like "What!" and Ryan was sitting next to us and was like "What?" haha he thought we were weird but it was crazy! Sadly no updates on the Armstrongs because Sally had to go to the doctors for something and she keeps trying to leave the house during the night so Brian has to stay up until like 4 in the morning to make sure she doesn't leave haha. They haven't gotten sleep so we haven't been able to see them. But we saw Brian last night and mowed his lawn for them haha. He wouldn't let us at first but we insisted. We mowed at like 8 so it was dark so we couldn't see that well haha but he was happy we helped. I also was doing so well on not having to eat seafood until last night... we had dinner with a member and she fed us salmon. Gross... but I ate it haha anyway sorry this is really long but I love the people here so much ahhh my heart just explodes for them! And that's just for a state, I can't even imagine what Heavenly Father feels like haha. Anyway I love you all have a great week! Sister Gordon