April 14, 2014

Can I just say, the weather has been absolutely insane here? We went from being in the 80's yesterday to having the craziest thunderstorms I've ever seen/heard yesterday. Last night, as we were driving home from our dinner appointment, you could literally see a huge black cloud in the distance and as we drove into it it started pouring rain in solid sheets. And the thunder was so loud it sounded like gunshots! I like storms, but when you spend the evening jumping out of your chair every time the thunder booms I'd say it's a little much.

We had a great week of goal reaching though! It's amazing what a difference it makes to set specific goals for the weak. Every week we strive to teach 20 lessons, 60% of those with a member present, but I have never achieved that before. This week though, our zone leaders challenged us to reach that goal as a zone. So Sister Obeta and I called just about every woman in our branch asking them if they would take some time to come out teaching with us. It was amazing how many of them were willing to come with us. They have become so personally involved with the missionary work in the branch that you can really feel the spirit of what the apostles are always encouraging wards to do. The missionary work in Huntsville belongs to the whole branch, not just to the missionaries. Almost every active family in our branch has a friend that is meeting with the missionaries right now. It's so cool!

Donna has started reading the Book of Mormon. We found out last week that she thought it was just the "Mormon edition of the Bible", so we explained that it's actually a completely separate book, but that the two books complement each other as far as the principles that are taught in them go. We showed her the cross references in the Book of Mormon that showed Bible scriptures you could look up to see how they went hand in hand. Donna was so excited about it and didn't realize we wanted to give her a Book of Mormon for free so she kept trying to ask how much it was and pay for it. You can tell she is really starting to feel how the things we teach bring peace into her hectic life.