oh hey family :)
thank you for the email. i definitely enjoyed this weeks
update :) i am happy to hear erin will probs pop sooner than september 25. just
make it august 30th to let me know you still love me, even though you are
having a baby long before i come home! august 30th sounds perfect :)
so in the little town of penacook, which is where i live,
there is a wonderful man with some tattoos on one arm, a nice round mid
section, evenly tapered hair, and a small black chihuahua that sits on his
shoulder. i see him occasionally as we drive by, but i hadnt been lucky enough
to see him while walking by. he is great.
on tuesday we went to contact a less active member of the
ward who we had never met before. his name is jeffrey bowe. as we are walking
to his house, a small black chihuahua comes out to bark at us and show us how
tough he was. then a man came out who said hi to us. he introduced himself as
brother bowe. hey thats a great sign! he then picked up the little dog and put
him on his shoulder. oh HEY!! its you!! you are that guy we see from time to
time! hows it going?! hahaha! it was such a delight to finally get to meet this
man. he is so cool. he told us that he used to be into some pretty heavy drugs
and he was even a drug dealer in l.a., but then he found missionaries, who
taught him the gospel. he gave up his lifestyle and got baptized. this was just
four years ago! as we talked more with him, he obviously had a strong testimony
and a desire to be better, as he has not been active as of recent. he told us
of some of his troubles and told us how difficult things are for him without
making it a pity party. i told him i had just watched a video on mormon.org that said
"we should not demand something unreasonable from ourselves, but we should
demand progress from ourselves." (or something to that effect) he gave me
a high-five and told me that made his day. we talked for just a few minutes
with him, shared a scripture, had a prayer and left. i saw a little tear making
its way down his cheek. its amazing how 4 people can come in contact with each
other for just 5-10 minutes, and during that time feel the spirit, love each
other and have more motivation afterwards. man! i love it!
did i ever tell you about the morning we went for a run and
a woman put her head out her window and yelled to us that there was a bear in
the hood? man oh man. i love that woman. i want to BE her some day. she has a
beautiful home with lots of hand made decorations. she has 10 projects of
different mediums going on all the time. she wears a bandana on her head. she
tames wild cats. she is so gentle and kind and she loved her savior so much.
she has a heart of gold!! i love her!! but anyway. this week we finally had an
actual lesson with her. we taught her about the plan of salvation. she was so
sweet and receptive. i love teaching the atonement! i mostly just wanted to
tell you about how amazing she is. :)
ok. get ready for this. a miracle is about to be told. we
were on our way to a lesson with a member from the ward who's name is brother
shepard. he is an amazing man who has had a crazy crazy past but converted at
25, got married, has a beautiful family, and his wife passed away a couple
years ago. he is just 51 now. he is top notch. so anyway, we were walking with
him when suddenly we hear someone yell "hello" to us followed by a
"where are you going?" we look around to find a man on a ladder
painting a house. we walk over and talk to him. his name was craig. he was
friendly but then told us he didnt want to talk too much about religion because
we have such different theology. he then explains that he believes christ is
the savior and that he is god. yes, we do to :) he was a little confused as he
saw that our view of christ was the same "latter day saints are
jehova's witnesses, right?" doh! hahaha another person confusing us for
jws. hahahaha i told him we get confused with them all the time. he said
"yeah, me too!" hahahahaha! meaning they confuse him!
hahah
that little exchange cracked me and my comps up. oh it was funny :) but anyway,
we talked for a couple minutes longer, but he still didnt want to agree to a
return appointment. so we went on our way and about 45 minutes later, we were
making our way back the same way. he called us over again and asked to it with
him during his lunch break the next day. happily we agreed, and met him the
next day. he is a wonderful man who basically is part of a bible study group,
so he loves the bible. he still thought we had drastically different views, so
a lot of the meeting was him explaining how we are different and us explaining
that we have the same beliefs as him. i think he was pleasantly surprised to
know of our similarities. he ended up showing us a bible verse asking us to
pray to know the truth. he basically pulled a moroni's promise on us! hahahaha!
so s herrick layed down some sweet, sweet testimony about how she will continue
to seek truth by praying and she invited him to do the same. we then showed him
moroni's promise in moroni 10:3-5. after we read it he said "well that sounds
familiar! hhahaha!" it was great :) i think we are making progress with
him, but we still need to really teach him a pmg lesson. i believe that will
help big time.
i think you must be praying for me a lot, because i have
been so blessed for my whole mission. we are always so busy. we always have
people to see, places to go. thank you so much for your prayers and support. i
am the happiest and most blessed missionary in the field.
ok. do you want proof? get a load of this miracle- we were
going to contact another less active. we usually park in her dooa yahd
(driveway). but hey, a little something very softly told me to park over by the
beach of the lake. so i did. on our way over to the house, a sweet middle aged
couple was loading their canoe into their vehicle. they called us over-
"hey what are the name tags for? what message are you trying to get
out?" wow! a request to state our purpose? i will take it! so we go over
and we didnt even say 2 sentences before the woman interrupted us by saying
"do you have any literature you could give me?" to which sister mayle
gladly gave her a book of mormon. she was so happy to receive it. i asked her why she wanted it. she told me "i have
been doing some soul searching. i need something" wow!!! we talked for a
few minutes and she told us about some reasons she is searching and some trials
she is facing. much of it was about relatives passing. i shared 2 nephi 9 :3,4
with her and marked alma 40 for her. she was so thankful and so sweet to us.
she gave us her number and we went on our way.
family. its a mission of miracles! it is a gospel that gives
hope! it is a knowledge that brings us back to life! i love this gospel so
much! i love it! thank you for everything! keep being wonderful and happy!
i love you so much! have a
wonderful week and be sure to give birth on august 30th!
love, sister wanay buxton who will share the birthday of her
first niece!
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