August 12, 2013

bob! and family!!

wow wow wow! thank you so much! i got two, count em, TWO boxes from you this week! thank you so much! i loved every bit of it! my companions do too, but not like i do. the half way box cracked me up so much! it took me about... 15 seconds after opening up the box and seeing all the half things to figure it out. thank you for remembering :) i havent really done anything for my marks of being out. but i will tell you how a sister missionary can know if the first half of her mission has been a success: if she can find (ON her nine month mark) a very pregnant woman who will take a picture with her. this happened to me! i was so happy! she even let me poke out my belly for the picture. it was such a good time. so that is how i celebrated :) and of course with the box you sent. i am so thankful for the letters that everyone sent. thank you so much! the whole thing is so cute and fun. and i am so thankful to have the copies of the book of mormon with the testimonies. those are so great!!

ah! so this week has been a week..... of....       

MIRACLES!

wowie!!!!

i will start with monday.

the time was 8:45 pm. the air was humid. the feet were walking. a small girl in a sequin dress ran up to us and started asking us questions. her mom was not far from her. thanks to the little girl, who's name was abigale, we had the opportunity to explain our purpose, which every missionary wants to do. while we tried to put it into little girl lingo, her mom gave some clarification "they talk for god, honey."  abigale- "do you know about jesus?" "yes, we do" "teach me about him!" she insisted, as she sat down in the street and fixed her happy eyes on us. wow! it was great. we went back the next day and had a lesson, as well as an adventure through the forest. throughout the lesson, her mom, who is named angela, kept saying things like "ask them when their service is....   ...remember when we talked about where spirits go? ...   they are busy working for the lord, they cant stay too long..." all in such a gentle and kind way. wow angela is prepared for us and she has been preparing her little girl for us. it is so amazing!

wednesday: allow me to preface this with an explanation of one of our investigators. his name is anthony. he has 5 kids under the age of 18. he has been raised baptist and he is ver, ver close to his mom who might as well be a black woman from the south, she is so baptist. so he tells his mom he is looking into the church, to which she is hesitant about. but he defended us and the book of mormon and even convinced her to let us meet her. ok. back to wednesday!!!!

so we go visit anthony's mom, sharlene. we talk for about 25 minutes. in that time we were able to talk about the book of mormon and the contents of it, some of our basic beliefs and her family. about 15 minutes into our meeting, she stopped and said "ok i have one question.... .....   why dont more people use this book? i mean, why doesnt my religion study it along side the bible? i mean, it is so good and it goes along with it, why isnt it used by everyone?!" WOW!! oh man we were so surprised and so happy! it was an amazing time with her. she wants to see us again and you had better believe we feel the same way.

thursday: so the preface to this one- ray. he is the one we found on the street during me and s herrick's first week. he has come to church since then and we have also found out that he has a cousin that he has never met that lives in our ward. he is the sweetest old man. he also has some learning disabilities, so we usually take our time getting though the  lessons with him. we were worried that he might not be grasping anything. he is kind and wants to learn, but it didnt seem like anything was quite getting though. so on thursday..... we show up to his little apartment where him and his cat, bebe live. after a couple minutes, we ask him if he remembers who joseph smith is. he explained who he was!! and we didnt even help him! wow it was so amazing. also, he said the opening prayer!! the only other time he has said a prayer is when we helped him think of what to say, wrote his words down for him, then asked him to read it. so this was huge that he said a prayer, on his own, on the spot!! ah!!! we were so happy! we probs could have sung loud enough for you to hear us!

after that, we went on over to anthony! we talked about the visit we had with his mom. he was so happy to hear about it. then we read 2 nephi 29 with him and helped him understand it. he asked so many great questions, we even ended up explaining the 12 tribes and all that. he was so stoked after we read that chapter. he just thought it was the most amazing thing. "i need to find like... an hour every single day to just study this thing!... ... i mean, i have learned more in the 15 minutes you ladies have been here than in the hour long service i used to go to." oh man. that guy is so great. he has a new found love for the book of mormon. is it so exciting! i helped him see the comparison of lehi and his family starting out their journey to him and his family. when he brought up their "adopted daughter" i responded with "hey thats perfect! they adopt someone named zoram!" hahaha he thought that was great. at the end of the lesson, he said a totally inspired prayer. he was asking heavenly father to help him and his family and asking for help with getting his family interested in the gospel. oh it was lovely. this next week, we are planning on teaching his whole family (with his help! how fun!) the restoration. wow! i am stoked!

saturday- so we are not allowed to write other missionaries within the mission boundaries- not even sister to sister or elder to elder. but grandpa (thankfully) sent a letter to my old address, which s cloward got, forwarded to me, but first.... she wrote on the envelope "i love you sisters buxton, herrick and mayle! ken is getting baptized on the 11! (he is going to the temple on the 17!) love, sister cloward. family!!! did you read that!?!! do you know who that is????? ken!! ken is the man that s cloward and i found in his garage, told him about the book of mormon and he read it in less than a week!!! and now he has been baptized and he has recieved the gift of the holy ghost! wow!!! ah!! i am just so happy!!!! 

ok i have a couple minutes to tell you a great story! bonnie and lexi! bonnie is the mom, lexi is the 13 year old daughter. we went to visit them saturday. during our visit, bonnie recounted something that happened to her the other day. the jw's had come by her house! they were telling her about the end of the world and all that. she said she turned to lexi and said "i dont think they are with the sisters.." so she looked back at them and said "one minute" she ran and got her book of mormon and came back and showed it to them and  said "this is what we do here!" and they turned around and left her alone. hahahah she totally defended us and the book of mormon! it was great! hahhaha

sorry i have to go! i love you family! thank you for all the love and funny stories and all that. thank you thank you thank you!!! i love you all!

love, your missionary daughter/sister/aunt wanay/ sister buxton :)

p.s. keep being righteous!!!