"Sometimes God requires us to sacrifice."

Opening an area/getting double transferred into an area while training has not been my favorite mission experience, by any means. It's really hard when you spend so much time finding everyday, and 90% of the work rests on your shoulders. It's especially hard coming from an area where we had scheduled lessons with investigators and recent converts all the time, and my companion was a much better missionary than I was.

Although it's been difficult, Heavenly Father still shows his love for us every day.

On Monday we found this wonderful lady named A, who is from the Dominican Republic. She is really sweet, although she is just getting into the Bible, and was slightly overwhelmed by the message of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. But she is letting us come back this week to tell her more about Christ's Atonement :)

Tuesday we might a guy named J, who was willing to talk, but didn't really hear the things we said. He said his girlfriend might be interested in listening, and she'd be there on Saturday. Later that day, we sorta talked to a guy named L. L's deaf, so we wrote to him. We wrote to him about the Book of Mormon. He seemed to be excited. We asked if there would be a way to reach him, and he invited us in to show us how his phone works--which is more like Skype. To demonstrate he called his preacher...who did not look happy to see us, but it was pretty funny. When we went back on Saturday, L was happy to see us, but his wife was not. It's hard 'cause they're both deaf, but only L can talk. She was mad 'cause he was talking to us and she didn't know what we were all talking about :P I hate tricky situations like that. And there aren't any members in the area that know sign language.

On Wednesday we met a strange but awesome man named T. He runs a garden community share thingy in a little town just north of here. He told us when we met him that he didn't do things that were normal, but he does things that are right. An example is letting his ex-wife live in a house he owns with the man she cheated on him with. Not a normal thing to do, but that kind of forgiveness is incredible. We got home a little late that night to find a pumpkin, watermelon, and two zucchinis just outside our door, that were from him. 

On Thursday, we met with a less active member of the branch. She served a mission several years ago, but her life's gotten kinda crazy. We had a great meeting in which she tearfully said that she was sure that God had sent Sisters here just for her.

Also on Thursday, we called S. She is half-way through 2 Nephi, and she has been comparing the Isaiah chapters to the ones in the Bible (so she's realllly reading :D) She told me she didn't think she ever be able to leave her family or friends in her church, but then she kept hearing my voice in her head telling her: "Sometimes God requires us to sacrifice." People don't have those types of concerns unless they know the message is true, right? She said we could come by and pick up the Restoration DVD on Friday, and we talked more then. We expressed how our favorite parts of the Book of Mormon are in Mosiah and Alma. She is excited to keep reading :) 

Also on Friday, we met with a part-member family. They have a really cool dog that's half wolf, have German Shepherd. 

Saturday we came back to meet J's girlfriend. She was outside when we came up. She told us that she wasn't really interested, because she found her faith and that when people get to be in their 50s they've pretty much decided what's right for them. We got to know her a little bit and then told her about the Book of Mormon. She had seen the picture of Christ in the America's before, but didn't realize that the Book of Mormon is a record of the people there. She got really interested because it lined up with some stuff she'd learned about Israelite artifacts in South America. She requested that we come back next Saturday, if not sooner.

We've talked to a lot of people the past couple weeks, and although many of them are not ready, it's been cool to see some of them be closed off, and then really warm up as we just get to know them a little bit. For example, there was an atheist woman named M, who knew God wasn't real because of things people had been able to do to her. She was very closed off and mildly angry. As we talked about families she softened, and still did not want to talk about God, but was very uplifted by our conversation.

This next week, we're looking forward to zone conference tomorrow, and exchanges on Thursday. 

Much love,

Sister Bowen