Sounds like it's been an eventful week at home!!! I've been praying for all of you and mom I've been worried about and praying for your health all week, even before I knew about what happened! I'm glad that I opened the dearelder.com e-mail because it definitely contained a lot of info I wanted to hear! I'm so glad there were so many blessings this week. I'm still praying for you and I hope that things only go up from here.

 

I might be a few weeks behind on the latest but this week I got letters from mom, dad, and grandad about the flooding and all that everyone is doing there - I was so touched to hear all the amazing stories and service that is being given especially by members of the church in calgary. What amazing opportunity to bless the lives of others and show the world Christ's love! Thank you for sending all those details. I hope everyone is ok! I didn't realize how bad it was until I got more details! Wow.

 

Madeline sent me an email about the wedding - I'm so excited for them and wish I could be there so badly! I hope all the planning etc is going ok!

 

Rachel, did you have a good birthday? Did you get my birthday letter? Emma, how does it feel being 11? :)

 

This week was a week full of hard work and unexpected miracles! We have been working hard to get tons of contacts so that we can find more people to teach in this area that was just split. Although none of the people we contacted have become investigators (yet), the Lord blessed us with two new investigators that were placed in our paths by miracles! Victor lives at his aunt's house who we are also teaching and when she wasn't there we asked if we could come inside and teach him. It turns out that he has been taught by missionaries before and has stayed in contact with them and has been watching church videos and attending the English ward by himself although he doesn't understand much. It was amazing! We got to know him a little bit more and he committed to read the Book of Mormon and to be baptized on July 27th! The Lord has been preparing him for awhile now and it was a miracle that we found him.

Another blessing was that while we were visiting a member of our branch, their son's girlfriend came over and they invited her to sit down and listen. It turns out that she has a lot of sincere questions about the church and really wants to learn more. After answering many of her questions, we gave her two pamphlets to help her learn more and a Book of Mormon. Afterwards we were worried we gave her too much to read, but we texted her the next day and she said she had read both pamphlets already! She has a soft and teachable heart and is truly searching for the truth. She felt the spirit when we taught her and I am so excited for her. We are meeting with her on Friday to help her understand the Book of Mormon better and to help her understand how it can bless her life. It is such a blessing that we can teach her in the home of members who she is so close with!

 

I hope I didn't sound too negative about tracting last week - it's still hard but it's getting better and the Lord has blessed us so much for our work and for stretching ourselves. We also had lots of fun this week and I wish I had more time but I'll just give a few tidbits :) On 4th of July (Rachy's bday!) we went to an English members BBQ - a lady and her Asian husband who is so cute and awesome. He was taking pictures of us and saying, "ready, set, cheeeese!" it was fantastic. Last year apparently the Mongolian sisters had a water balloon fight and so they casually tried to get us to have a spontaneous one too, but it didn't really work haha :)

 

Also, we had "break the fast" yesterday with a bunch of old people from the english ward, one of whom was in charge of everything and kept giving us compliments in this manner: "How was the dinner?" "it was fantastic, thank you so much for putting it on!" "No, YOU'RE fantastic!"

or

"I love general conference, it's great." "Did you just say general conference was great?" "Yep!" "No, YOU'RE great!"

 

Haha anyways, I'm doing well, I love it here, I love my companion and I love you all!!!! I'm praying for you all and thank you for your prayers too.

 

Xoxoxo

 

Hermana Vance :)