Thanksgiving was Great!!

It's December!

I'm so very ready for this Christmas season - I've been listening to Christmas music since June. It's crazy to think about what was going on this time last year. I was in Logandale, about a week away from coming down to Vegas for the first time. What's even more weird is thinking about what the holiday season will be like this time NEXT year...there's a lot that's uncertain, but one thing I'm sure of is that I'll be happy and with my family.

 

This has been a crazy full week! Thanksgiving was great; no, we didn't win the Turkey Bowl ( :( ) but we had a lot of fun regardless. We beat the first team, but the second team we played was Las Vegas zone (who made it to the finals) and we lost 6-5 in overtime. One of their zone leaders is a missionary I came out with who happens to be a BYU receiver, so I don't feel too bad about losing (or about throwing him a fat interception). We had a good time and ate a lot of food afterwards, so it was a successful Thanksgiving by all accounts.

 

As far as proselytizing goes, this was the first double digit lesson week this area has had for a loooooong time! We've been teaching a ton and it's been amazing. A couple of days this week, we had an appointment at every hour - being that busy is incredibly satisfying and exhausting. It feels great to collapse on your bed after a day of going from teaching appointment to teaching appointment.

 One woman in particular we had been trying to meet with for a couple of weeks. We texted her the day before to ask her if the lesson was still on, and she told us it would be a waste of our time because she doesn't believe in organized religion. We were bummed - she seemed so promising and so excited to learn. We texted and asked for one chance, but she didn't respond. We felt impressed to go by and leave a DVD a member burned for us called "Intro to Mormons", which talks about our origins, temples, service work, etc. Before we left it in the door, I wrote a little note saying that we were glad we had met her and her daughter, and that we know it's easy to be skeptical of organized religion, but that this particular religion was organized by God. We left the DVD and didn't think about it for the rest of the night. We woke up the next morning to a text from her saying "I watched your DVD and it's beautiful. Can we meet tonight?". It was an amazing confirmation of what the spirit had told us to do - we met with her and have another appointment this Wednesday.

 

This work is full of miracles and our lives can be full of miracles if we just pay attention to what the Spirit is trying to tell us. When we follow promptings, great things happen. I've seen that this week for sure.

Keep going strong and I'll see you in a couple weeks!

Jesse