Letter 1/11/10

Dear Family type Peoples,

This week has been interesting. You could say that we’re having growing and improving experiences…a long with growing pains. We have seen a lot of progress with the ward and our investigators, especially as Sister Halladay and I are trying to improve ourselves even more. As we’re making changes in our personal lives, we run into bumps along way, however we have seen many miracles. 2 Basically happened yesterday.

One miracle was Ktristina. She has met with the missionaries for over a year, and when I came Sister Halladay promised that we would not mention baptism until she mentioned it first, because Kristina felt like we were pushing it on her. The bishop and his wife had been and continue to fellowship her and finally after all this time Kristina has a solid date to be baptized. We feel she is ready or will be ready for that day.

We’re slowly building up the ward. For as long as I’ve been here and longer, we’ve had lists of people to go visit from the Relief society president. They were people that probably were less receptive to us than they would have been to actual members in that ward. People who’re less active, inactive, new and they haven’t heard of before, etc. Just as we would finish one list of people, most of them saying they’re not interested, she would give us another list work on.

She gave us another one yesterday, but most of them were duplicates from the other lists. We had planned the night before to finish them all then take them over to her house and report on the results. We did finish and headed over to the relief society president’s house and started talking with her. I don’t know her as well as sister Halladay, but she was 100% more response, receptive and help etc. It was amazing to see the change. We hope that things will go like this, if not better from now on.

Other miracles that we’ve seen are the fact that many people that we’ve been trying to contact for…since I’ve been here and longer have been home when we’re been by this last wee.

One such family are the Eatons. The wife is a member who comes to sacrament then goes to her husband’s church. We met the husband one day when we’re stopped by and set up an appointment. It was very awkward. Like whoa, we basically just jumped into teaching without getting to know them first

Amazingly and thankfully they gave us a second chance and we were able to go back Sunday (last) night. Before Sacrament Sister Eaton came up tot Sister Halladay and gave her some tips. We took those tips to heart and the second lesson went 110% better, even though he still inst’ very open with us. It will take time, but I see good things happening with that family.

I really appreciate your prayers. They help a lot and I know they are answered. J
Love you all! Be happy and know that God loves you!

Love Sister Sarah Durtschi.