"Little Cat" from the Juarez family wanted to wear my tag
for a bit and then show her dad that she wants to be a missionary someday!
The plan if salvation chalk drawings (more below)
I hope everyone had a beautiful Easter! I had the most
beautiful one yesterday in Columbia Tennessee! We were at the mission office
yesterday morning bright n early to meet some of the other missionaries in the
choir and drive over to Columbia in the mission's giant shuttle! It was fun, I
sat next to Sister Jarvis and she had a kazoo and a shaker and played Praise to
the Man and Nearer My God To
Thee- it was awesome and I couldn't believe how amazing
it sounded! At one point Elder Harris jumped in with his harmonica, it was
magical!
Well my BFF Hermana Knecht was in the choir too so we got
to spend the whole day together which was such a blessing bc we've never served
by one another! We sang in two sacrament services and it was so beautiful.
There was such a reverent and sweet spirit during both services. We were able
to go to both wards as well and I fell in love with both of their Relief
Societies. There are so many amazing woman in the church and I am so grateful
for the blessing we have as sisters to have Relief Society. We ended our
evening at a Presbyterian church and that was such a neat experience. No one
from the Presbyterian church came- which I thought was so weird bc if they were
coming to perform at our church then we would definitely all be there to
support
them!- but we had many members there and other
missionaries with their investigators and it was lovely. During the middle of
the performance, I was completely overwhelmed with the Spirit, I was
overwhelmed with the love that my Savior has for me. The songs we had been singing
for weeks finally came to life for me and I just started weeping during one of
the organ pieces. I just sat reading the words to our last hymn, I Know That My
Redeemer Lives, and I just felt this cleansing power come over me, I felt my
Savior take all of my weaknesses and all of my bad feelings from that day and
make me new and make me stronger.
It's a hard thing to describe and it was a very sacred
experience that I will never forget. Needless to say, I hope no one was
watching me during our last song because I just wept while trying to mouth the
words so it would kind of look like I was singing and not having a spiritual
breakthrough! Afterwards we had a really fun drive home with our Zone Leaders
and then the Assistants- it's so fun being with missionaries sometimes. It was
nice to truly feel a part of the mission and feel unified with other
missionaries.
This past week has been so so wonderful! We had so many
incredible lessons with some people that we really love! There's the Albarenga
family that is so awesome! There's about 4 adults living in the house and one
of their little boys and their friends from Honduras are always there as well!
Tuesday we read from 3 Nephi 11 and compared it all to the Bible and it was so
amazing to see them warm up and realize that the Book of Mormon is the word of
God too! It truly testifies of Jesus Christ and nothing more! People here in
the south are so afraid of anything that's not the Bible- even the Hispanics,
it's crazy! God has more for us people! He loves us SO much that He gave us
MORE scripture to help us better understand His true gospel. Anyways, Thursday
with the Albarengas was so fun bc they didn't know what an Easter egg hunt was
so we brought some eggs and taught them how to
play- they loved it! It was super fun. Their pastor was
coming by that night to study with them and we waited for a whole so we could
join.
Finally he called and said he wasn't coming so Jose
looked at us and said, "well, we have you here!" And so we shared a
beautiful Easter message and the Spirit was so strong. Their friends were there
too so we taught 7 people! They all were eating it up and they all had their
phones out to video us singing Yo Se Que Vive Mi Señor (I know that my Redeemer
lives) As we were leaving Jose was like, well are we going to see you tomorrow?
And we were like, YA! They invited us to his wife Maria's baby shower and we
had so much fun getting to know all of their church friends- they're the ones
who threw her the shower- when we left one of them asked us to come by her
house! We were like, "of course!" and got her info. I love this
family!
We also had a super fun lesson with Elvin on Saturday! It
was a perfect sunny day so we went and bought chalk and taught the Plan if
Salvation on the tennis court! He loved it and it helped him understand all of
it! I love using visuals because I am such a visual person myself, it really
helps people understand more when they have something to look at. Elvin ended
up going to church yesterday even though we weren't there, and he loved it!
He's the best!
Elvin taking photos of our chalk drawings of the Plan of Salvation lesson
We had a lot of really crazy experiences with following
the Spirit lately. We were knocking on former investigator's doors and I felt
like we needed to go to Walmart and after I told Hna Schmit and she thought
about it, she felt like we needed to too. So we went to Walmart and as we were
walking in the bus pulled up and I was like, "Uh Hna, I think we need to
get on the bus!" She was like, "Are you serious?!" So we prayed
about it and got on the bus! We met some really cool people that day and I feel
we did what we needed to, we just followed the Spirit and I know something
amazing will come out of that whether we see it soon or not.
Cool story about a previous story I shared about
following the Spirit....remember when we got on the bus to look for an address
we knew didn't exist and ended up walking down the street and gave a random sad
woman a hug and met two teenage boys? Well, we went and visited the address
that the boys gave us and no one was home and just as we were about to leave, a
car pulled up. It was their mom Anna! She immediately invited us to come in
with her and shared a lot of what's been going on in their lives. She's a widow
and has one son, Angel, who has been going through a rough time. Her other son,
Miguel, is actually not her son, he's from North Carolina and had no where to
stay when he moved here so Anna took him in and calls him her son.
Well we had an amazing visit with Anna and she basically
said she was an answer to her prayers for Angel and she wants us to visit him
and get him involved in our youth programs here. She told us to come back
Sunday to see both boys. Well, we text Miguel the next day to see what time we
could come by and he told us that Anna didn't want Angel involved in :/ we were
almost in tears and decided that we would fast on Saturday. Well, Saturday we
fasted that they would contact us or we would know what to do and went to
volunteer at the pantry again (which was awesome!) and 30 minutes before we
were going to break our fast, guess who text us?? Angel!!!!! He wanted to see
how we were doing and we ended up setting up a time to go see him tomorrow!
Fasting is so powerful! Miracles are real! I definitely do not fast enough!
Also, remember that crying lady we met in the thrift
store a few weeks ago? We finally found her at home! Her name is Irma and she
is crazy but I love her! We had an incredible lesson about the a Restoration
and she was super receptive! We are going back Wednesday with a member!
Anywho, those were our crazy amazing stories this week.
Sorry it was a lot! We are both staying here together one more transfer! I'm
not going to troll mountain, woohoo! We are super excited to see what Heavenly
Father has in store for us here!
I just want to share my testimony once again that I KNOW
Jesus Christ lives. I know with all of my heart that He has restored His true
gospel and church to the earth. I am so lucky to be a representative of Him and
His church. I love the gospel, it is the only thing that gives me peace and
hope in this life.
Even though Easter is over, I invite you to watch the
Because of Him video, it's under 3
minutes and is super powerful.
I love all of y'all so much! Have a beautiful week!
Hermana Knight
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