Sister Chamberlain: Miracles

Quote of the week:

"This Christmas, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love and then speak it again." President Howard W. Hunter

So I am going to start with the miracle that happened last week that I didn’t have time to email about! So last week on (oh gosh now it is two weeks ago huh?) so two weeks ago while Sister Cook and I were on exchanges here this man named Richard came walking up to us on the street while we were looking at the map (I was still struggling to get myself around here but I am proud to say I know Staines pretty well as in semi decently I guess as in SISTER GREEN CANNOT LEAVE ME!!). He asked us if he could have some of our books and leaflets and we said of course and asked what made him approach us and ask. He told us he used to go to church and we just assumed he was less active and we invited him to the ward Christmas party and church. Well we found out that he actually wasn’t a member of our church he had meant church of England. Anyways he is seriously like your picture perfect investigator it is insane. We ask him to come to any activity he’ll be there early dressed up, we taught him word of wisdom on the second lesson cause we knew he smoked and he was so excited to give it up and hasn’t smoked in 4 days now. He came to a baptism on Saturday and called us afterwards and goes can I be baptized next week instead of the week after. I sometimes think he works for the church and they are testing us to see how well we work with him haha. Heaven sent is all I have to say about that.

Another cool miracle. President gave Sister Green and I a referral. Long story short President was talking to a man from D.C. who had a friend living here that had gone to Georgetown with him and asked us to drop by a Chinese Book of Mormon for her. Well we go to the area and she lives in the same gated community as the Holts, the family that we lived with for a week while our flat was incapacitated. Well I don’t know if I told you this but after a couple of days of living there the security guards recognized us and just let us waltz right in like we owned the place no trouble at all. Every time we would waltz pass I would say "we’ve got the power!" And guess what we still do!!!! I feel real cool. But it made it so easy for us to stop by and see this referral. Sadly she wasn’t home but we can keep trying by! Super random and silly to be excited about but it’s fun.

So Sister Green and I had that teach with President the other week with Lucia and I just about died with nervousness and I don’t really know what was wrong with me but something must have been when I agreed to having him come on another teach. I am grateful that I said yes because now we have a whole family that is preparing for baptism but I was SO nervous. I am intimidated by authority haha.

Our district really wanted to do a Christmas "He is the Gift" based finding so we decided we would all go to the high street and draw with chalk and carol and who knows what else. Well we get there and boy oh boy were we out done. There was this huge African church there rapping about Jesus doing the "kingdom" step. Haha it may sound silly but to be honest it was pretty sweet and they were really talented. So we decided to go caroling door to door and it was awesome!! People were so kind. It was so weird to me that they are happy to stand and listen to us when they think we are collecting money (everyone tried to pay us we would have made loads if that was what we were doing) but as soon as you say no we don’t want any money we just want to share a message about Jesus Christ and how he is the gift they turn off completely. Oh well.

Sorry one more thing! So we got a call yesterday and I was just a crying cause guess what?!?!?! So there was a man in Bath named Viv who was married to this amazing woman named Anne. Anne joined the church in the 60s and has been super strong ever since but Viv just hasn’t been interested and always told us he enjoyed the time when Anne would leave him alone so he could make his model planes. I sent you a picture of his model planes and us I don’t know if you remember. Anyways we really tried to help him and just be good friends with him but he just couldn’t be bothered. He always told us he knew it was true but that he didn’t want to change. WELL HE GOT BAPTISED ON SATURDAY!!! The Bristol zone leaders called Sister Steffensen and I because I guess after us the missionaries stopped working with him. Then Anne brought him to Bristol’s stake conference and there was a seventy there that said something that just clicked and he wanted to be baptized. So they worked out the interview for him and was baptized a week later!! SO HAPPY!!!!!!!!! Such a blessing.

Well I love you all so, so, so much!! Talk to you soon! Have a fantastic week

Love, Sister Chamberlain