Dearest family and friends,
We had a pretty eventful week, with all the storms and zone conference, it has been pretty crazy! But, we're safe and we are supposed to have good weather for a little while now. At least the next week or so. :)
So, we are working with a girl named Darian. She was baptized almost 2 years ago but has gone less active since. She is 16 and is working on getting her license so she can drive herself to church. We've been trying to work on her personal progress with her, she really wants to do it. So we picked Faith Value Experience #1 to work on for now. She has to pray every morning and every night. She said that she does fine on her night prayers but she has a hard time remembering to say her morning prayers. We asked if we could send her a reminder text and she agreed. So we've been doing that all week and this morning we sent her the reminder text and she texted back and said, "I already did! I beat you to it! :P" It was pretty great to know that she is now remembering to say her morning prayers. Prayer is SO important!! It is the way that we communicate with our Father in Heaven and he wants us to talk to him! Sometimes it can be hard to remember to do and seem like a menial chore that we have to do, but it's not. It can be a sacred and spiritual thing if we make it that way. :)
We met with Thaiwanna again. We did the cup display with her and her daughter and her cousin. She really liked it! She thought it was cool how we have the same set up that Christ did when He was on the earth - 12 apostles and everything! She didn't make it to church yesterday. She wants to bear her testimony on Fast Sunday because she says that the church and us, the missionaries, have helped her so much to find her faith again and to become a new person. Since we had Ward Conference yesterday, next Sunday is our Fast Sunday so we'll see if she comes and bears her testimony. :)
This week we started teaching a kid named Ian. He is 11 and he has some mental disabilities so we are still unsure if he needs to be baptized. Because of his disabilities, some of his actions, he's not really accountable for them so we'll see. He is a really sweet boy though! He lives with his grandma who is a less active member. She used to come all the time and stopped coming because Ian started acting out in church and she was embarassed by it. But they came a few weeks ago and Ian did alright. They were going to come yesterday but Ian was having a bad morning. So hopefully next week! :)
We had our last lesson with Bro. Russell. :( He left town on Saturday. He went to stay with some family in another part of Oklahoma and then later this week he is getting on a train to move up to Maine. We are going to get the missionaries in contact with him so he can find the church when he gets there! We will really miss him. He always made our week. He's hilarious and we enjoyed teaching him!
Thursday was our zone conference in Tulsa. That was also the day that there was a tornado in Broken Arrow - just out of Tulsa. At the end of zone conference, as we were saying "Amen" for the closing prayer, a huge thunder sounded! President Shumway got up and said, "What a way to end a meeting.....now, all of you go home quickly because if something were to happen to the building with all of us in it, I'd be in HUGE trouble!!!" (because of all the missionaries). We went outside of the building and there was this huge wall cloud headed straight for us and it was raining really hard. It was kind of scary. I was going to send some pictures via email but I forgot the cord that hooks my camera up to the computer. Maybe next week. :) Friday's weather was also really scary and the Parkes' weren't home so Sister Hatch and I were kind of freaking out. We did a tornado drill and hid in the hallway. Bro. Parkes came home and we were still in the hallway just being silly and he just laughed at us. :) We love the Parkes!!! :)
Saturday was pretty good! We went up to Wagoner and saw a few people. We had received a referral from a member for a guy named Jerry. The member had met him in the grocery store. So we had set up an appointment with him and when we got there, he said he had something come up and so he needed to reschedule. So we talked to him for a few minutes about himself and we gave him a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet. He is really searching for truth!! Some of the things he was saying was like he was a member without actually being a member! It's crazy when that happens!
We also saw Winnter. She now has a baptism date of June 22nd! We are so excited for her and feel like she is really ready for baptism! I'm just worried that they'll stop making the effort to come to church after she is baptized. But, having the meetings in Wagoner will definitely help them out!
Well, I think that's about it for this week! We met with more people but I don't have time to talk about every single one of them. :)
Just know that I'm safe and that Heavenly Father is watching out for all of His missionaries! :)
Love you all! Thanks for all your support and concern!!!
See you soon then!!
Love, Sister Ashley Pahl
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