April 16, 2012

Hello Family!

We're pretty much going to email on Mondays now as much as we can. We
have a limited amount of miles and it takes a lot to drive to Sallisaw
on Mondays, which is why we got permission to email on Tuesdays when
we're in Sallisaw. We've decided it's worth the sacrifice, though, and
we'll save miles somewhere else. Next week we have Zone Conference on
Monday, though, so we'll be emailing on Tuesday.

This past week was very, very good. Our branch became a ward on
Sunday!  That was very exciting.  They've been struggling to became a
ward for years now, and Sister Bullough and I are very lucky to be the
missionaries here now that it's happened. There's a Bishopric now and
a lot of changes in callings. We had a lot of investigators come, and
it was cool for them to see how the church works.

Our investigators are doing well. Sister Johnson is doing great with
not smoking!  It's been such a struggle for her, but her testimony of
the Lord's love and the help He gives has grown very much. We're
looking at having a baptism next week!

We met a lot of new people this past week and several of them were
families. A lot of them have been looking for a church and were very
open to learning. We're excited to see what happens.

We met with a Baptist pastor at his church Friday morning. It was a
little on the intimidating side to talk to him, and he wasn't
incredibly open, but it was a good opportunity to share our
testimonies of the Restoration with someone who influences a lot of
people in the community.

We met an inactive member a couple weeks ago who hadn't been to church
in years. He wasn't raised in a strong LDS family and his records were
never moved when he moved. We met with him last night and he's excited
to come back to church and to bring his kids and start doing Family
Home Evenings.

I love you all so, so much!  I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,
Sister Monson