The Best Mother's Day Present

The kids had been saying, Sunday is Ruth Day!! Indeed it was and we are so grateful that we got to see her beautiful face and hear her voice!

Stories from Ruth #35

I have seen a lot of miracles this transfer. We are teaching a lot of solid people and a lot of people who actually take time to read the Book of Mormon. Harvey reads parts over and over again until he understands it. James read Alma 40-41 like we told him to and then read the whole introduction and up to chapter 4. Chris is in Helaman after reading it for a month. 

To me it is wonderful to see so many people who read and love the Book of Mormon. This week James was just telling us what parts of the bible to Book of Mormon makes clear and really enjoys it. Harvey is reading it and intensely searching for answers. He really learns from everything we teach. It gives me a lot of hope, because he lets the spirit teach him. He was never christian but he is willing to act and learn more than any investigator I have taught on my mission. If he has a question he asks and he seeks for answers and understanding. Lately I have begun to lose hope in people. I felt like no one wants to know the truth. People feel good but they do not want to change. They are comfortable within their sins. Seeing Harvey, Denise, and James, has really changed that a bit for me. I know that if they are not baptized now, they will be at some point. They will all read the Book of Mormon and they will all receive that witness of its truth. President Keiron was baptized after 9 months. Sometimes conversions are not immediately seen, but we are seeing them change.

It is hard most days I feel like Moroni who says that he prayed for them but had no faith because of their wickedness. Harvey especially has helped me to realize that people will seek to change and seek truth. No one who met with the elders for a month would keep meeting eith the missionaries who they did not know, six months later if they did not feel that it was not in part true. If they did not feel that this is where God is. Not in some other church but here. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Denise has not responded to us this week, but she has exams and is moving, but I am still worried. However, I have faith that if she is not baptized now, she will be later.

This Week at Our House #18 More Company at Briarhovel

John's parent's did an Eastern state tour visiting their many children east of the Mississippi that coincided with John's sister being sealed to her husband. We got Grandma and Grandpa Robertson Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. They left right after Sacrament meeting this morning. We were happy to see them. It has been two and a half years.

1. John continues to work and work and work. And still no job, but he is getting his business going and his first product-- a computer game-- is nearly finished. He got to test it on his dad and decided to make it easier. John's dad also brought him two old phones that are new enough to test his games on and that is very important as our old phones are too old.
2. I really enjoyed visiting with my mother in law. She was very patient listening to all my little opinions and she took me shopping and bought us needful things and things for my garden and a gas powered lawn mower. Both Grandma and Grandpa helped me with my garden and taught me how to plant corn. 
3. Ruth's investigator had a dream that she needed to be baptized. This was huge because one thing the missionaries have trouble with understanding that not all baptism into all Christian churches is the same. And in one week, I get to talk to her!!!!
4. Kate thought about going home with her grandparents to get her mission stuff done in Utah, but John said no. He does not want her to leave early, so she has to wait until our ward stuff is straightened out.
5. Johnny's game is coming along well. He now has levels and bosses. He has worked harder on this than anything I have ever seen him work on. I have been thinking that I need to look up contests for him to enter his game in.
6. Adam enjoyed his Grandpa a lot. He followed him around and talked to him. I think Adam likes a lot of the same things as his grandpa.
7. Rachel enjoyed her Grandma and the new chicks and still got in plenty of time for reading and lego play.
8. We got some more chicks. I went to a garden nursery and they had 3 and 4 week old chicks. I was so excited. We had 3 of the 5 original day old chicks die. I had looked up how much it would cost to get 4 week old chicks online and it was $20 a chick. The ones at the nursery were only $3. Anya was excited because her chick was one that died and we got an older one that looked very similar. Anya then said a prayer of thanks that we were able to afford older chicks.
9. We gave Joseph a 4 week old chick that already has most of its feathers. Joseph named it gold eagle because it's light brown and has big wings. Joseph also enjoyed his grandparents, especially playing games late at night and working in the garden.
10. Joshua loves his chick too much. He wants to hold it constantly. I hope his little chick can survive him. We have talked to him a lot, but he doesn't listen very well.
11. Arwen really enjoyed meeting her grandparent's again. She was young enough when we moved, that she did not remember them at all.
12. Suzy enjoyed her grandma. One of things both grandma's noted about Susan is that she changes her clothes several times a day. I think 4 to 6 times is her average. I think she really likes clothes. Tonight we had some interesting, intense, and stormy clouds that scared Susan a lot. Adam and Joseph went closer to them, and Susan was running after them and crying and telling Adm to get in the house and stay in the house. 
13. Sam had a fever most of the time his grandparents were here, so he was not his cute self, but I am glad that got to meet him.

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Stories from Ruth # 34

This is my favorite email from Ruth so far:

 

This week has also been full of miracles! Last pday we spent it with the Braintree elders and Jess Tofpik (a return missionary from Brazil in our ward) and went to Preto which is a lot like Tucanos.
The Lord loves to test our faith. Sister Strate and I felt promoted to talk to the dudes in the skate park. So we did. We walked into the middle of the skatepark and started talking to this guy with a skateboard and his friend actually came up and was listening. Then he told us that he beleived in God although most of his other friends did not. He was super chill. We did not end up meeting with him, but he was very interested and invested in the conversation.

Over a month ago there was this 17 year old boy the elders were teaching who came to church to church twice and then had to be referred to us, because he is in our area. A little before they referred him he disappeared. No one was able to get into contact with him. Then we received our smartphones and whatsapp! We were able to get into contact with him! He told us he had seen our messages but had not been able to reply because he did not have data which whatsapp does not require. We asked if we could meet him and go over the Book of Mormon with him which we did. He also came to church with us on Sunday and enjoyed it. He gets along really well with the youth and had a lot of fun. It was wonderful to see.    

On Friday we taught Denise and at the beginning of the lesson she we talked about Alma seven and she had read that and some more pages. She felt like it was pointing her to come unto Christ and a new beginning. She then told us how for a while she had not been studying the bible like she should and then we brought the Book of Mormon which was familiar and new like Alma 7:11. Denise began to tell us that she had had a dream a few days previous and she told us she said this was going to sound crazy since she had already been baptized but she felt like she needed to be baptized again. We told her that we were planning to invite her to be baptized that lesson and she was speechless. At the end of the lesson we invited her to be baptized and she said yes. We talked about prophets and she loved it. She said prophets and apostles were beautiful. She understood the authority. And she was told about priesthood blessings. Esther early on felt impressed to speak on Lehi's dream, so we did. We told her about Lehi's dream and she loved it, wrote it down, and her baptismal date, a scripture from d&c (be still and know that I am God), and Neal A Maxwell quote ("God does not send thunder when a still small voice is enough"). Also she asked Esther to send her conference notes about revelation. Esther taught her about the holy spirit and how we can the gift of the holy spirit with us all the time after we are baptized. Sister Strate and I taught about baptism and the relevance of the sacrament and how vital it is.

 

This week my spiritual thought is about the armies of Helaman:
Alma 53:20 "And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all—they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted.
21 Yea, they were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him."

If we want to live with God again we too need to be valaint, for those who are not valiant cannot dwell in the kingdom of heaven. In the bible it talks about how we need to be valiant in Christ's name if we want him to declare ours before the father. We need to seek to know him and become worthy enough to live with him and the father again if we are to declare his name. We must and can become that perfect and worthy to be taught directly by him and must be if we are to be like him, for we cannot be like and cannot declare the name of a person we do not know.

This Week at Our House #17 Company Comes to Briarhovel

 We had a huge rainstorm on Monday night through Tuesday afternoon. Our whole yard was flooded. I switched  around school so the kids could go out and play in the rain. They had a blast and I had a lot of laundry the next two days. My mother, sister, and niece came on Friday. My sister brought me a lot of homeschool stuff and old books that she is not using anymore. My kids have really loved looking through the books, building a periodic table puzzle and playing with a human anatomy 3-d model with inside parts. On Saturday, we went with our company to the beach. It was nice to have company come and join us at our little home.

1. John continues to work very hard and through the night. He is also really pushing Johnny and Adam into learning and writing their own computer games.
2. John and I ended our two week diet. I lost 10lbs and he lost 15lbs. Now we are trying to maintain the weight loss. Hopefully we will be able to do that. I spent probably 6 hours getting the lawn mowed. There is a lot to mow and it is a lot slower with a corded mower, but we were pleasantly surprised that we had enough cord to stretch through the majority of the yard. The corded mower made sense when we had a tenth of an acre, but it is terrible on 3 acres. I enjoyed having my mom and sister here. They were only here for about 24 hours, but it was nice to see them and talk to them.
3. Ruth really likes her new companion and seems to be quite happy in her current area. I realized that in two more weeks, I will get to talk to her again. I am so glad about that.
4. Kate loves and protects her 3 little ducklings and they love her. When we came home from church they were real excited to see us and chirped and jumped around excitedly and then they cuddled up on Kate.
5. Johnny's doing well with his little game. One day this week, he said, "Look, I got my bad guy to chase me." The next day, he said, "Now my bad guy can kill me so I actually have a reason to run from him," and the next day after that, he said, "now I can kill my bad guy." His graphics are pretty fun too.
6. Adam is finally reading music. He plays the piano well. He seems to have a natural knack for making music sound good. My piano playing sounds very mechanical, so I love it when my kids preform so naturally.
7. Rachel is the Dominion champion of the family. That's a very interesting card game. Try as I might, I cannot beat her.
8. Anya stayed with me while I mowed collecting all the cut grass as part of the game she was playing. She said that she was pretending there were tiny people collecting wheat that was mowed down for their food and roofs of their houses. In the end, I had a lot of dead grass to put down around my potato plants.
9. Joseph loved the periodic table puzzle my sister brought. He enjoyed putting it together and talking about and thinking about the elements. He's still talking about the elements.
10. Joshua has really liked the model of the body my sister brought. He studied the pamphlet that came with it and worked pretty hard to put all the organs in the right place. Now he is excitedly looking through books about human anatomy that my sister brought. 
11. Arwen still colors everyday and goes through coloring books quickly. 
12. Susan loved playing out in the rain and then the puddles that lasted a couple of days after the fact. She was always trying to sneak out to get wet.
13. Sam continues to get into everything and to climb on everything. He seems to get better at it everyday.

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