Being a missionary is great!

Hey Loved Ones,

Being a missionary is great. It's no joke that spreading the Doctrine of Christ and seeing other people take it to heart is one of the best joys in life.

My companion Sister Gregerson is so great. We have a ton of fun together. Our only problem is we stay up too late just talking! She has such a genuine interest in people and is always thinking and talking about them. And it shows. I was in the bathroom one time and she was sitting waiting outside. A man stopped dead in his tracks and looked at her. "You...you are a child of Christ?!" he exclaimed. "You're glowing!" and then he walked away. We'd never seen him in our life.

It's true though. Here's a cool story. Sister Ketchum (who Mom got the pic from this week) had us over to make Easter cookies for investigators. She has a daughter serving in Federal Way, who in her own right is a missionary legend. Her name is Maggie. She has a very interesting family she had been working with. It was a family from Iran. They were devout Muslims. Then one day, out of the blue, a coworker started bearing testimony of Christ, but never spoke of it again. They became curious, went to a Christian church, and became baptized. They ended up having to leave Iran within months because of persecution and threats on their life. They moved to Turkey, where the preacher at their Christian church warned them vehemently about the dangerous "Mormons." Again curious, they researched all they could online. They heard that the faces of these "Mormons shine in the dark". Because of persecution and looming danger of Isis attacks in Turkey, they moved eight months later to Washington. Then, very soon after, they saw at a food bank, one of the helpers had one these faces that were shining. Literally shining, so that they could see. They told their youngest son, the only one to speak any English, to go ask him if he was Mormon. He was. He was an Elder, who referred them to Sister Maggie Ketchum. The family wanted to go to the church building first. All through the discussion, the youngest son Qian had to translate. They took them on a tour of the church. When they got to the painting of Christ visiting America, the wife stopped. She told her son to tell the missionaries that there was an energy coming from the painting. They told her it was the Spirit. She asked them what the Spirit is. They told her it was God speaking to her, and asked her what He was saying. She said that God was telling her that he loved her, and what they learned was true. They were baptized last week, the whole family.

We invited two of our investigators to a baptism this week. One was Benjamin. The baptism started really late and he had to go to work before it would even be over. It takes him 15 minutes to get to work from the church, and the miracle was that even though it started late he had exactly enough time to watch the full ordinance, and then he had to step out the door. The other investigator was Terrie Matthews with her 6-year old daughter Mikayla. Mikayla is very funny, very opinionated, and very sassy! She is adorable! The boy being baptized was a ten year old boy named David Percifield, and in typical ten year old boy fashion was silly with how excited he was. As he was coming into the font he was yelling (laughing) "No! No! I don't want to get in that water!" because it was a bit cold. Then Mikalya asked (loudly,) "Why doesn't he wanna get in the water? Is he NAKED?!" We all Lost It. We were all laughing, and I was about in tears. But it was so funny, no one could help it. Then once he was baptized, something got stuck under water and Elder Hoffman had to dive to get it. It was a bit silly. Mikayla was loudly exclaiming through all this she would never be baptized. I worried the Spirit may have gone away. But once Terrie got back to the Relief Society room, she whispered to me, "Now I know I really want to do this." I was in such shock I asked her to repeat it. "Yes," she said, "I know I really want to do this now." It testified to me how strong the Spirit is during these sacred ordinances, regardless of anything else. (;

We talked about how it would be a good example for Mikayla. Sister Gregerson brought them a children's Book of Mormon and asked them to read a chapter every night, and then have Terrie read the full chapter in her Book of Mormon. We felt impressed to promise her that some of the fondest memories she could make with Mikayla would be reading her the Book of Mormon and watching her understand it.

On Sunday they came to Easter service. After church, Terrie told us they were reading the Book of Mormon. She said that they had read a chapter every night, and last night one extra because Mikayla wouldn't let her stop! She said she just eats it up!!! Terrie said that she was having trouble reading the smaller print in the Book of Mormon because of her MS makes her have tremors. It was so cool to see her sincere desire to teach her daughter, and we got her a large print Book of Mormon.

There are so many miracles out there, I wasn't even able to share the half of them. Until next week, I love you all and pray for you.

Read to your kiddoes the Book of Mormon, pray even when you feel grumpy, and feed the missionaries, because spiritual hunger takes its toll in the temporal (;