Good Bye Franklin :(

So first off the news about transfers :) I am leaving Franklin! Sad day- Franklin Ward is just fantastic, but I am also excited for a new adventure!!! Who knows where I will end up, but I will still be a sister trainer leader.... so that narrows down the options of where to go just a little :)

What a week!!!! Absolutely NOTHING went as planned. But I call that an adventure!!!! Sister Bambrough and I kind of thought that this would be our last week together....so we tried to live it up.. make the most of it!! The standard of excellence is to have 20 lessons a week. That would be 120 lessons a transfer. So we set a goal to get 150 lessons this transfer. We were ecstatic with how close we came to this goal! 148 lessons this transfer :))) it was pretty exciting!

We made HUGE progress with Bill this week! He has determined that he will quite smoking and drinking!!! And he came to church on Sunday!!! He met with the Bishop after church this week as well. He told us "Everyone has told me to quit and to change, but I am bullheaded. So I will do it 2 times worser. But when I make up my mind then it happens, because I am bullheaded. So I am getting baptized and quitting smoking and drinking." We were so impressed by his determination. His family's and friend's prayers have paid off and truly softened his heart! We were also grateful that he was willing to make the sacrifice to come to church! He works nights-- and giving up sleep isn't always easy, but he was there :) The converting power of the gospel is real. He also has a baptismal date of September 13th. Happy day! Hopefully I don't move too far so I can come back for it!

Cheyenne was a little down this week. She doesn't want to feel pushed, but still wants to learn more. She is now praying about a new baptismal date. I just hope and pray she doesn't loose her fire. She needs the gospel now more then she ever does! She is so sweet and I love her-- committing to change is hard, but so much easier when we understand and remember the blessings that come from keeping the commandments and following Heavenly Father’s will.

So here are some pictures! Sister Merrill in our ward is fantastic and made us some gluten free, dairy free cupcakes :)

Cheyenne

This week was fantastic!!! Crazy busy, but still so good!! We had two exchanges, a specialized training up in Fishers with the Missionary Department and zone training!! So not a whole lot of time in our own area, but it was still fantastic!!

On Monday, we met Cheyenne, a cousin that just moved in with the Farleys! Sister Farley is bed bound due to her MS. She joined the church last November after her two kids had joined the church over the summer! She loves the gospel and how simple it is -- and had been sharing her love of it with Cheyenne since she had moved in about a week prior. Cheyenne is 18, almost 19 years old. She is working on getting her stuff finished up for her GED and getting a job. She actually had been attending a non-denominational Christian church and was baptized there when she lived up in Plainfield, Indiana. We were able to meet with her several times during the week with the Farley family and share with her the truths that we love. I think the lesson that I remember the most with her is probably the restoration. She loved how easily she could relate to Joseph Smith, the fact that she has been searching for truth, just as Joseph was. As we shared Joseph's experience in his own words, the spirit flooded the room. Actually I am going to share those words now, because the spirit that comes, every time we hear them is undeniable.

Joseph went to a grove of trees to pray to know which church he should join, which church had the truth and which church was God's. This was his experience "I saw a pillar of light, exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. When the light rested upon me, I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said pointing to the other, 'This is my beloved Son, hear him."

I know that Joseph Smith saw our Heavenly Father and saw Jesus Christ that day. I feel the spirit so strongly every time I have the opportunity to share His experience. Through Joseph Smith, a fullness of truth, God's priesthood authority was restored to the earth. We have the opportunity to once again live and enjoy the fullness of the everlasting gospel.

As we shared this with Cheyenne and her eyes filled with tears. She could feel God's love for her through this experience!!! She has struggled with a lot, but she is starting to understand just how much living the gospel of Jesus Christ will bless her. We invited her to pray to know if the things that we shared were true. In our next lesson, a couple of days later she shared with us that she received a confirmation for herself of what she shared. That she knew it was true!! She came to church on Sunday and absolutely loved it!!! She even spoke up in Relief Society! Cheyenne is now preparing to be baptized on Saturday, August 16th. We are so excited for her in this process. She is going to come closer to God then she has ever been before!!!!

I am so grateful for this wonderful opportunity that I have to serve the Lord here in Indiana, that I can teach people like Cheyenne!!!!! She is fantastic! I would not trade this experience for anything. Thank you for your continued love and support!!

<3 Sarah

Fourth of July and Ferrett Kisses

What a crazy week!!!! Happy Fourth of July!!! I am so grateful to live in a country that has so much freedom! I am grateful to live in a country where we have freedom of religion! A restoration of truth would not have been possible without a country where we could worship how we chose to!  We actually got special permission from our mission president--mission wide to stay out until 10:30!!! The afternoon and evening of the Fourth was our preparation day and we were encouraged to spend time with members. Sister Bambrough and I were super lucky and we got to go to two barbeques and then we also got to see fireworks!!!!! It was a pretty awesome day! We played kickball and football... in our skirts ;) things got a little crazy, but its all good :)

Things have been a little rough with some of our friends who have been learning about the church.  Some of them decided not to see us anymore and others have gotten busy or have different priorities now. We wish they could all see how much happiness the gospel could bring them now and in the future.   It is hard to see people choose to things that won’t bring them eternal happiness, BUT Bill prayed out loud for the first time in our lesson on Saturday!! It was so awesome :) We had talked about the pre-existence, that we lived with our Heavenly Father before we came to this earth and that He is the literal father of our Spirits. We talked with their entire family about how the way to remember this relationship is to pray!! God wants to hear from us. Will, Artie and Heather were all able to share ways that prayer had blessed their life! Apparently that was enough to touch Bill so he said the closing prayer. Heather's jaw literally dropped!!! It was amazing! It was huge step forward for Bill!!

We also were able to meet with the Velasquez family this week and met their pet ferret. Kind of gross. Okay super gross... I let it lick my face........... but hey I got ferret kisses on my mission ;)

Thank you for your prayers and your continued support!!! I appreciate it :) 

<3 Sarah

Chocolate

This week was pretty crazy!! We were super busy, as usual! Though crazy busy weeks make for some pretty good stories :) so that is a plus! We were also able to commit quite a few of our investigators to baptism this week and hopefully will be able to work toward their dates (though nobody came to church-but you have those weeks). We are excited for the fourth of July--we get to email today and then we have most of the Fourth as the rest of our Preparation Day- we are pretty excited!!

So this whole no dairy, no gluten kind of makes eating chocolate impossible (unless your mom who is fantastic sends you some ;). But anyways, chocolate has not been a part of my diet for some time now. The elders who are serving in our ward were doing their service at this food place. They ended up coming home with gluten and dairy free chocolate, so, being the sweet elders that they are they brought us some chocolate. This was about Wednesday. On Friday, we still had plenty of chocolate left, and for some reason, I felt like I needed to bring some chocolate with me when we were going out to work. Weird. Or at least I thought so, but for whatever reason, it sounded like good idea to me :) (I mean 90 plus degrees outside- lets put some chocolate in my bag and see if it doesn’t melt!) So, Sister Bambrough and I headed off to this big barbeque thing downtown. We parked a ways away so we could talk to more people as we went. The first person we talked to was a girl on the side of the road. She looked like she wasn’t too much younger then us- cute girl and she held her phone in her hand. We said hi and walked up only to see tears streaming down her face. We introduced ourselves and asked what was wrong- it turns out her car broke down and her boyfriend has just broken up with her in a text message. And what did I have in my bag to share with her... CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!! We got her phone number too and should be meeting with her sometime this week :) Thank goodness I was so silly and brought chocolate with me :)

The other cool story from this week happened on Wednesday. We had an appointment with Jacob. Mick met us there to help us teach him. Turns out Jacob wasn't home. They had had a family emergency and he had left with him mom and his baby sister, but his little brother Levi (13) and little sister Sadie (15) were still home. They were headed over to the park so we walked with them and then sat down and taught the Restoration. The spirit was so strong as we were able to testify of Joseph Smith. To testify that he had been called as a prophet of God and that priesthood authority had been restored to the earth!!! At the end of the lesson both committed to baptism and are set for the same date as Jacob! It was awesome, cause we still got to teach with Mick and Jacob totally needs his family's support. We followed up with Levi a few days later and we asked him why he wanted to be baptized. He said "I just want to be clean and know I am doing what is right" Needless to say, it was an exciting day in the park!!

A few other exciting things that happened this week:

-Got to watch the Work and the Glory for our ward missionary movie night

-Went to Columbus for a stake correlation meeting with the stake president, President Cleveland and the zone leaders (pretty exciting)

-Taught English classes with the sisters in the Indy 1st ward on exchanges

-Had chocolate-- thanks mom :)

-Jeanine got a blessing to help her quite smoking :)

Have a great week!

Sarah