Prayers are ALWAYS answered!!!

October 08, 2018

Prayers are ALWAYS answered!!!

Hello Hello wonderful people!!!

It's been another great week in Virginia!! I hope you all enjoyed General Conference!! I know I sure did!! There is something special about watching Conference on a mission!! Yes I missed hanging out with my family and eating treats all day haha but I absolutely loved sitting in a chapel full of other missionaries listening to the words of the Prophet. I had so many questions answered and felt the spirit so strong the last two days! I am so lucky to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!! It was an amazing conference and we were so spiritually fed!

KLARKE AND SAMANTHA MIRACLE

Oh how I love this cute family!! They are just the greatest! They are going through a really hard time right now and struggling to find happiness. We hadn't seen them in a while because of the trials they are having. We usually only go visit them on Sunday nights because that is what works best for them. On Friday morning as we were planning our day we felt like we should go visit them. We thought this was a little strange because we never visit them on weekdays. But we did it anyway!! We went to their house and knocked on the door but nobody answered, so we rang the doorbell and a few minutes later Samantha opened the door! She was excited to see us and welcomed us in. We talked to her and her little girls for quite a while! She really opened up to us and told us of the struggles she is having. I felt inspired to show her the Mormon Message "Mountains to Climb". After we showed her the video she started balling. She went into her kitchen to get a tissue and came back saying "This is Crazy, This is so so Crazy!". She went on to tell us that right as we knocked on her door she was praying to God asking over and over what she needs to do. The reason it took her a few minutes to answer the door is because she was praying at the very moment we knocked on her door. It can't get more direct than that! We were a DIRECT answer to her prayers and she just continued to thank us. She also told us that when Klarke was younger he had some interest in the Book of Mormon. She told us how grateful she is that we came into their life at the hardest time and everything is coming full circle. When we left she called Klarke and told him what happened and a few minutes later we got a text from him saying "THANK YOU SO MUCH!". This was definitely one of the most spiritual experiences I have had and it was a huge testimony builder to me that prayers are always answered and the Lord's timing is perfect!! Klarke even came to the church yesterday to watch the first session of General Conference with us! They are so cool!!! PRAYERS ARE ALWAYS ANSWERED!!!!!!!!

BEN'S BAPTISM INTERVIEW

This week Ben had his baptism interview and he's good to go!! Wahooo!! The one thing he struggles with is drinking tea. We told him he really needs to try to stop drinking tea if he wants to get baptized. We talked to him about how nobody is perfect, and we all will struggle with different things but all Heavenly Father asks is that we try our best and repent when we slip up. When he walked into the church for his interview he had a big coke in his hand! He just pointed to the coke and looked at us haha! We were so proud of him!! I told him he can drink all the coke he wants and according to my dad a coke a day is healthy haha! He is so so excited for his baptism! We went over a couple nights ago to see how he was doing! He told us the main reason he wants to get baptized is so that he can get sealed to his wife Emily! How special is that! I remember the night he decided to get baptized a few weeks ago we were talking to him about the temple. We were telling him that making the decision to get baptized would make his life so much better. He said that he's married to the love of his life so it couldn't get much better. I looked at him and said well if you get baptized you can be sealed to her forever. This was the moment he decided that baptism was the right thing to do! He's the coolest!!

V.R.M CHRISTMAS CHOIR

So as a Virginia Richmond Mission we have a Christmas choir that is getting featured on the radio and recording a C.D. There are only about 30 missionaries in the choir and they randomly selected the people who are in it! And guess who they chose to be in it? Yup, Sister Cunningham and I! Haha don't get me wrong we LOVE to sing!! But we aren't exactly good! We are pretty excited about it though! We practice once a week for the next month and then at our last practice the radio station is coming to record us! I love singing Christmas music, so it's a good time:)

ZONE CONFERENCE

We had zone conference this week and it was so much fun!! I love being around so many other missionaries all day!! This zone conference had three different workshops where we did role plays and practiced teaching. We spent a lot of time finding scriptures we can use with people we teach and working on door approaches! It was so much fun and I learned a lot!! One of the Assistants to the President did a little role play with $100. He was trying to give it to someone as a gift but was nervous about it and kept pulling back. Who wouldn't want $100 right?? We related this to baptism. We listed all the blessings that come from being baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Who wouldn't want all those blessings?? We shouldn't be nervous to invite people to be baptized because it will bring so many blessings into their life! It was a great day of learning and practicing!!

OUR NEW LITTLE FRIEND :)

Haha so a couple nights ago we were sitting in our car before an appointment. We looked out the window and waved to a little 10 year old kid! And he started dancing haha!! He did all of the "Fort night" dances....I don't even know what fort night is but he taught us all about it! HE WAS HILARIOUS!! We rolled down our window to talk to him and we ended up talking for like 15 minutes! His brain is all over the place haha!! He told us that he is the inventor of fort night and we need to play it! He told us we can play it on our "mobile" and he gave us his username so we could play with him. We just went along with it! A few of the other funny things he said were "If you celebrate Halloween you're going 👇 (He pointed down and waited a few second then said down.), its the devils holiday. But I'm going up because I don't celebrate Halloween", "I'm a noob so I don't have any friends but i'm a savage", "I have 100 followers on my YouTube channel", "There are killer clowns here, you better watch out", "I'm getting 10,000 V-bucks on December Twenty-five", "Do you know what December Twenty-five is?.....Jesus's birthday!!", and "My BFF is slender Man". He was so so funny and talked to us about the most random things! Haha I love the crazy people here in Virginia!!

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT

With Conference this weekend i'm sure all of you are full of spiritual thoughts and feel a stronger determination to do better! I LOVED so many of the talks given this weekend!! A few of my favorites were by Elder Gerrit W. Gong, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and Elder Henry B. Eyring! I also Loved when our wonderful Prophet spoke about the full name of our Church and the importance of using it. One of my Favorite quotes from this weekend was from Elder Gongs talk. I loved when he said that One of the miracles of the Atonement of Jesus Christ is that regardless of our shortcomings and human weaknesses, the grace of the Savior will ALWAYS be sufficient to help us become better than we were before. It is through our imperfections that we come closer to Jesus Christ, conditional upon us relying upon Him to strengthen us. I'm so grateful for the Savior and His Atoning Sacrifice for me. I'm so imperfect and have so many weaknesses but through the Savior I can make those weak things strong. What a blessing that is!! This week I would encourage each of you to strive to make your weak things strong through Jesus Christ. He is waiting for you with outstretched arms and so willing to bless you if you just let Him into your life!

Thanks for all the Love and support!! I love you all so so much!! Have the best week!!:)

❤Sister Stringham❤