Haha (Tiffany here: I got a text from someone I know in his mission telling me about this experience and he's commenting on it.) when I was in their ward I was noticing in myself that I was becoming very selfish about my ties. Like, I REALLY liked some of my ties!! But I also knew how powerful it could be for some of the young men to receive a missionary tie to help them think about a mission in their future. But the tie couldn't be just any tie! It had to be one they would want to wear! So I told God I would give my best ties away if he would provide for cool ties to find their way to me so I could give them to youth in the wards. The night I gave those two ties away was the same night the missionaries we live with came home with a bag full of really nice ties from a kind member who wanted to bless the missionaries. I gave 2 sweet ties away and got 7 sweet ties back. :)
I had one of the most spiritually powerful experiences this week!!! I was on exchanges with a missionary who has only been out for 3 months and we were walking around an apartment complex in his area looking for an address and I saw this older lady walking her dogs and I immediately knew God placed her there so we could go talk to her. We talked for a minute about her dogs because people love talking about their dogs and then we told her we had a beautiful video about why we celebrate Christmas and we wanted to show it to her. Her name was Mary and she said, "That's funny you say that because just before coming outside, my good friend who is a Jehovah's Witness showed me a video about why I shouldn't celebrate Christmas! It really upset me because I love Christmas so I prayed to God and told him that all I want to do is do what he wants me to and if he doesn't want me to celebrate Christmas I won't. So then I came out to get my mail and here you are telling me you have a video about why we celebrate Christmas!" And then Mary started to cry. She invited us to come into her home to share the video and we had a powerful lesson. It was my privilege to recount the first vision to her and it was the most powerful experience I've had yet testifying of the first vision!! The spirit was so strong and Mary felt it. Even though she is older she has a very open heart and mind and because of that she can recognize the spirit. I will be following up with the missionaries that serve there to find out how she progresses :)
On Saturday we were out and about pretty early to do a service project and we saw this guy on the corner of Priest and Broadway on his knees with his hands clasped together like he was praying but he had his head up and his eyes were open looking at the people driving by. About 3 hours later we saw him again as we drove through the intersection but he was just standing there. Later in the afternoon as we drove past again and saw him we decided to park and go talk to him. As he saw us walking towards him he took off across the street to the other side just before the light turned red. We took the opportunity to give a Book of Mormon to this guy named Juan (yeah, another Juan! Haha it sounds like I'm saying "another one"). #Caringforthejuan. Unfortunate
Well we had transfer calls last night and I'm staying but Elder Maughan who has only been here for one transfer is stepping down to be a trainer somewhere else in the mission! I'm going to miss him. I'm glad to still be in this area because there is so much work left to do! This coming week is shaping up to be a very very busy one! I won't be emailing until Tuesday next week since we are doing a mission conference all day Monday. Start thinking of a time on Christmas we can Skype! We'll have 30-40 minutes to talk.
I love you all! Have a wonderful week!
Love Elder Janis
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