Sept 16

Check the new address for Sister Judd!

Also, her birthday is Sept 25- I'm sure she would love a letter for her birthday! Other things she might love are nail polish/makeup type things, fast food or store gift cards, stamps, church music CD's, pictures, or food treats! 

Hello All!!

How are you all doing? Things are wonderful over here!

Another wonderful week down!!

Not much exciting happened this weeks. It was a week full of meeting and service.

We had first transfer training meeting all day Thursday. All the new missionaries that came last transfer came together and we had lessons taught to us by our President and his wife and the Assistants to the President. It was amazing!! The best part was probably being able to see all my friends from the MTC. It was an exciting reunion since I havent seen any of them since the day we got here. We all had fun stories to compare and it is so great to all be able to be doing the Lords work!

We have helped people move 3 times this week. I have been packing up boxes and carrying things up 3 flights of stairs all week. And it was fun! I love being able to be of help to people 24/7. Service brings joy!!

Things are still coming along with B. Her parents hearts are still slowly being soffened. She is so strong!

So I havent yet mentioned the best part of my area yet. The Baptist Seminary student housing. Yes, a place where all the people learning how to become baptist pastors or teachers live. A place where we arent very welcomed with smiles.

Well we taught a young couple this week that live there. They are Evangelical and know TONS about Mormonism. They just moved there and contacted us to meet them. They wanted to have us over for dinner. They asked us if we wanted ice cream or jello for dessert. No joke. We also brought a side dish of funeral potatoes at their request. Well we got there and they were very very nice people. They basically are just interested in individual people and why they choose to be LDS. They have met with tons of missionaires before and have tons of gospel books all the way from Preach My Gospel to a Triple Combination. They asked us tons of questions and told us a lot about their religion. Toward the end they started to want to bash. We dont think their intention is in the right place so we are being very careful with them. We are going to meet next in a member home and then see if we will be able to continue teaching them. Our purpose as missionaries is to invite people to come unto Christ by helping them receive the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. If they arent truly interested in coming closer to Christ through us our time is better spent teaching someone who we can really help. Its an experience everyone in this mission should experience and I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Fathers plan!

So something else we did this week. We had about an hour before a dinner appointment and didnt know what to do. Since we cant knock doors we decided to go to the grocery store. We were going to try and contact people. Well its a little bit harder to talk to people in the grocery store than you would think. We moved our efforts outside to try and help people with their groceries and taking carts back. After about 45 minutes and no one wanting to talk to us we were getting a little discouraged. Thats when we heard "hey, hey! I know you!" We turn around and its a 15 year old girl in the car waiting for her mom while she is getting the food. she goes on "Hey I know you from friendship!" We walk closer and turns out the girl thought I was someone she knew from school but she was mistaken. Oh well! The converation was already started! She appologized for thinking I was someon else. We then told her who we were and what we were doing. She was very interested so we gave her a book of mormon and our card. We dont know what will happen with her but we were happy to get one more Book of Mormon out there! We then went and talked to a worker that had just gotten off and was waiting for a ride. We were just having a normal nice conversation with him for about 5 minutes. When we told him who we were he walked away from us not saying a word more.. Oh well.

Me and Sister Fullmer are just fabulous. I am so grateful for her. Sometimes I think we are having too much fun doing this because we are always laughing. This week we changed things up in our apartment. We have basically the nicest apartment in all the mission. Its a huge 2 bedroom apartment. Well we decided this week we wanted to move our furniture. So we moved our beds into the living room, put our couch into the dining room and table into the bedroom. So basically we never even use the 2 bedrooms. Its great. Its just one of those thigns you can only do as a missionary.

I love being a missionary! Everyday just gets better and better! I can feel the Spirit working through me! Heavenly Father has a plan for all of us and He is in control! He knows exactly what He is doing. Rely on Him, have faith in Him. Talk to Him in Prayer. He is at the door knocking waiting for you to answer it!

I love you all. Thanks for all your support.

-Sister Judd