Want to hear the story of my week? Monday we went to Family Home Evening and SHAY CAME!!! She brought her mom and 2 sisters and they all enjoyed roasting s’mores and hot dogs and we all sang to Shay for her birthday. We also had Emed come. (He's from Egypt!! The sister's met his friend Morad at the Parthenon, and we went to Roma's where they both work to sing to Morad, and we met Emed and he is a Young Single Adult and he feeds us for free every time we go to Romas!!) Emed got his first taste of a s’more. He's been in America for 5 years but never had one! He looked at the marshmallow and poked it and said, "what is it?" So we were looking at the ingredients and I told him basically it's a sugar ball. He asked if you could eat it raw, so I handed him one and he took a bite and yelled "WOW!!!!" Hahahahaha and then he loved the s’more too!!! He was so funny! I kept joking that once he ate a s’more he would be a true American.
Tuesday night we met a man named Bob. He was outside playing with his dog (He's an older man) and he started to talk to us. He found out we were Mormons and told us about how his friend was Mormon. So we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said it was the greatest gift we could have ever given him! We were supposed to see him on Sunday evening but he wasn't in town. He loved our note that we left on his door though. He texted us and told us we had planted a seed! So we're planning on seeing him tomorrow evening.
About Carre... We absolutely love her! She is the type of girl I would hang out with and we always laugh and enjoy ourselves. But she isn't reading from the Book of Mormon and focusing on the content of it. Her questions are dealing with the logical side of things. I had a cool experience with her though. I felt very strongly that I needed to challenge her to pray about it again. I told her she couldn't have any doubts in her heart or any desire to prove it wrong. Just a sincere desire to know if it was true or not. In Moroni 10:4 it says that you can pray and ask if it's not true... so I told her to do that because I know that the spirit will do it's job and she won't be able to doubt it. She gave us a challenge though... To prove the Book of Mormon using only Bible verses. We took the challenge. So we've got a few ideas but nothing is set. I wish I could have your suggestions... but since I can't because we're teaching her on Thursday... just pray for us and wish us good luck!!
We met with Vicki again and committed her to baptism on the 22nd. She said she would like to be but she wanted to pray and be sure about it. We also met a girl named Derrika while we were tracting. We gave her a Book of Mormon and prayed with her and she cried! We were able to see her again last night. It was Derrika and her friend Amanda who had a little girl named Ca'maya. Amanda said she wasn't religious and I felt she had the attitude of "I'm stuck here so I have to listen." They were both listening and we talked about the priesthood and repentance and prophets and baptism and it was so awesome!! Then we reached the end of the lesson and Sister Giles whispers "do you want to... " and she laughed and smiled indicating INVITE THEM TO BE BAPTIZED! I was so nervous and I got scared and thought "maybe if I pause long enough she'll just do it" But she didn't and so I asked if they would both be baptized by the priesthood authority... well I asked right as Ca'maya was making a fuss. They didn't hear me!! But Derrika looked like she was thinking so I just sat there.. And it was very awkward and they both just looked at us confused... so Sister Giles said "will you....... be baptized?" Derrika shook her head no. She said she wasn't ready and she wanted to pray. Amanda said yes! She really wanted to be!! It was so awesome! We set 3 baptismal dates this week!!!! Too bad none of them are Young Single Adult. But it was so cool! And then once we left, we went to pick up the sisters and they were talking to 3 Young Single Adults on a porch who were all very interested! I think Heavenly Father must have been saying "Sister Rokovitz, I'm here. We've got this. See. This is why you're here! Keep going!" It was insane!!! God is the best!
During the week we were trying to contact a former investigator and we met a girl named Savannah and she let us in to talk about the Book of Mormon. All she knew was what South Park taught her.. bad idea. So we started to teach the restoration and she had a lot of good questions. It was awesome... but then we got to the actual restoration and she stopped us and said she had to go and literally pushed us out the door. It was weird. Hopefully we'll be able to meet with her again.
My testimony has definitely gotten strong this week. I haven't had any doubts and I just keep getting stronger. I can do this! I have really learned what it means to humble myself and to rely on the Lord! It's amazing!!! I'm trying to do better. I have found that I am just loving to study more and more!! I am really getting into the Bible and the Book of Mormon. I'm going to read every word in the scriptures. I also bought a dictionary so I look up words I don't know and highlight them as they relate to the gospel and then I write them down to study and review later. It's really helped!
I am excited for more miracles, not excited for the transfers to be over because that means Sister Vandenberg will be going home. I love you all so much. I couldn't do it without you. Then again... I wouldn't be homesick at all if I didn't have you. Hahaha but homesickness just means I have the best family ever. Keep it up! Wish us good luck with Shay. We asked her last week to pray about a baptismal date and we didn't get to see her this week. So hopefully she got an answer. Oh and also we get to go in at 6 pm on Halloween and just study forever!! YAY!!!
Have a great week I LOVE YOU!!
Love Sister Rokovitz
