Simple Hello

Alright, so let me tell you a bit about this week eh? First of all, we have a new Sister in Rawlins. She is a Spanish sister. Her name is Hermana Mondragon She was born in Mexico but grew up in Calif and Texas. She is super sweet. The first day that she was here she made us breakfast and lunch. She made delicious tortillas and then for lunch, homemade quesidillas. (spelling.) Those were sooo good! She is always serving us. Also, the other day I walked out of my room and there were sticky notes all over everywhere with the Spanish words of different objects:) She is teaching us Spanish! haha. Also, this week, I have gotten a lot closer to Sister Waite. She is awesome! We are like two peas from the same pod. haha. We've just had some really neat conversations this week and we think a lot alike. I'm so grateful that she is still here. 

Guess who came to Colorado this week? Elder Quentin L. Cook! It was a super neat meeting. We had to leave on Friday night to go to Laramie so that we could leave super early on Saturday morning to make it to Fort Collins. I am pretty sure that we had the longest drive out of all the missionaries:) But it was a fun little road trip. The sisters here in Rawlins are just great. I am so blessed to be around them. We made it to Fort Collins and got to listen to Elder Cook, Elder Christensen, Elder Baxter, and Elder Rhodes. All were really neat. They also wanted to shake all of our hands before the meeting started. It was so neat to be with the whole mission and get to hear from an Apostle of God. One thing that he wanted us to take back to the members is this: "You succeed when you invite, no matter what the outcome." The success in missionary work comes when you invite others to use their agency and choose this gospel. Invite your friends to church, to activities, to hear the missionary lessons. If you get rejected, it's ok. It's all about inviting them. He made a wonderful promise to us at the end that hit me hard He said, "Everyone you love and hold dear will be blessed by your decision to serve a mission and what you are doing right now." He has promised that my loved ones will be blessed and taken care of. That means you, my wonderful family and friends. It was so powerful to hear his testimony at the end of our Savior Jesus Christ. He truly is an apostle of our Savior. The spirit bore witness to me of that. 

One miracle story of the week. As you all know, this next Saturday, Galilea is set to be baptized. She needed to be at church this week in order to be ready to be baptized. We had double checked the night before to make sure that she would be there and she said yes. The next morning she text us and said that she needed us to come pick her up. So we started walking from the church to go and get her. Then we get a text on our way that says, " my mom doesn't want me to get baptized, and I can't go to church today." Talk about tough! But we kept walking to go get her. We stopped and said a prayer right before we got there and then knocked on the door. At first Galilea said she couldn't come because her mom needed her there and that she was going to have to move her baptism to November when they were going to have a lot of family there. We talked for a bit and it seemed like she wasn't going to come, said goodbye but right as we were about to go, I felt like I needed to say hello to her mom. I leaned my head in the door and said hello as she was sitting in the living room She then came over and started talking to us. She then told us that Galilea could come to church with us if she wanted. So Galilea got dressed and ready and then we headed to church. On the way she told us that her baptism would still be ok for this Saturday, her mom had just told her. Her mom is very up and down so we keep praying that it will all work out this week. But it was a miracle to see her heart soften and her let her daughter come with us. So Galilea's baptism is all set for this weekend and we pray that if it is the right time, it will all work out. Just a lesson learned, a simple Hello to someone can change the course of life. Follow even the little promptings with things as simple as saying hello:)

We also taught a man named Gary this week who is from Jamaica. He is a super neat man. He has a strong relationship with God and we found out this week that he used to be a youth minister for his church. We taught him the Restoration and he said that it didn't seem strange. He thought it could happen because that is how God works. When we introduced the Book of Mormon, he started apologizing because he said that he didn't know if it was true but that he really wanted to know and he needed to pray about it. I laughed to myself because that was nothing to apologize for! We invite people to find out for themselves and ask God to know for themselves if what we are teaching is true. We don't want people to just take our word for it, we invite them to make their answers personal, to give them ownership over their testimony by experimenting on the word! He is truly searching for the truth and I know that he will receive answers. 

Here is a small and simple miracle. There is a Less Active lady that we have taught for a couple weeks now. She hasn't been to church in 20 years. We talked about prayer last time we were there and invited her to pray over the upcoming week. We came back this week and she said she had prayed once this week. That is one time more than the last week! This week we invited her to pray one more time than she did this week. We also read Alma 34: 17-27 with her. She said, "I haven't thought much about prayer until you two started stopping by every week." The Lord is please with any step towards Him. Even if it is a little step. 

I love you all!!! Thanks for all you do to support me and all you have done to help me become who I am today. Stay strong! Try one little thing this week to come closer to your Heavenly Father. He is pleased with any step closer that we take.

Love,

Sister Young

Sister in Rawlins, WY