This week was so fantastic!!!
Missionary work is so rewarding. I am LOVING it. I've never felt sweeter feelings.
Like I said, this was a special week for me. So much good happened! I feel acclimated and now that I hardly feel stress and my work and ability to teach is improving! I told this to Emily but I woke up at 3:00 this morning to use the bathroom and when I got back in bed I couldn't stop smiling cause I was so excited to be a missionary again today :') The people I meet here and talk to on the streets are SO special. I can feel a little how Christ feels towards them all and when people open up and talk about their life it's unreal how special the moment becomes to me. Also when I hear someone pray for their first time EVER.
For example, last night me and my companion ran into a lady name M. She was moving out of her apartment to get away from her psycho ex-husband who gives mormon's a bad name by being a bad one. Well we talked for a few minutes and she opened up her life story to us. We didn't have much time but I really felt strongly that we didn't meet by coincidence so I told her that it was by no coincidence we had met her and then I told her I felt like I should share a scripture with her and so I did and she got really happy and invited us to eat dinner with her in the next few days!! We found out she'll be living out of our zone though so it wouldn't work but she's going to start praying again and hopefully go back to church! (I don't know if she was ever baptized.)
CRAZY story: I was on exchanges this week with one of our zone leaders and I went out to his area. While we were biking around talking to EVERYONE, we heard some man a few blocks away screaming at his wife the most vile things I've literally ever heard in my life. Me and the zone leader looked at each other and decided to confront the man. It wasn't hard to find him cause he was screaming so loud. When we found him he had cornered his wife at a bench for a bus stop and was yelling at her how she was an idiot and was stupid and was worse than dirt and how he was going to abuse her. We went up to him and asked him what he was yelling at her for. He screamed that she had forgotten the address of where they were going to and she was so stupid for it. My companion told him that he was out of line and his wife wasn't and idiot but he was an idiot. HE GOT SO MAD. (How could he get madder than he was before??? :S) He got up in my companions face and yelled, "I'M GOING TO PUNCH YOUR F*ing FACE IN!" (We were on the sidewalk of a super busy street so a punch would lay my companion out into the road.) As calm as anything my companion said the coolest thing ever. He said, "Sir, I'm a representative of Jesus Christ. You'd better think about what you do." The guy shut up, got on his bike, and left. Seriously we missionaries are protected when we are on the Lord's errand. We tried to talk to the wife after the husband left but she didn't want to talk. A minute later a bus came and she left her bike on the sidewalk and got on the bus and left. My heart nearly broke witnessing how this daughter of god was treated. It doesn't take too much to see that she has probably been treated that way her whole life.
I wish I could tell you all about everything that happened this week. My testimony has specifically grown in these areas: Christ is the only foundation that can bring true peace. Joseph Smith was called by God to restore his church and gather Israel for the final time. We live in the last days and with the missionary effort that is bursting forth we know that the second coming is nigh. To be a missionary at this moment is unreal. Any analogy I try and think of just doesn't do it enough justice. It's so much better than if I was playing in the final game winning seconds of the super bowl.
I love all of you.
Have a great week. Know that I'm doing better than amazing :) Heavenly Father is so good to us.
Love Elder Janis
I forgot to mention the most important thing this week!!!! On Saturday I had my first baptism! M was baptized!! I wasn't super involved in teaching her but it was still so nice to watch her make that covenant!
THANKS to everyone who prayed that her fathers heart would be softened! Because it was! In fact he even was willing to be at the baptism and give the closing prayer!
J is letting us visit him again too.
H and J are getting married this saturday and getting baptized the week after (June 8th). They are so awesome!! They're following the word of wisdom perfectly and have so much faith!!!
(The pic in the apartment is of me, my companion Elder Carter, Elder Latimer, and our district leader Elder Egbert)
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