Week 3- July 15

So the first few days in Oklahoma have been amazing! Blanchard is such a great place! I'd love to start by giving mom something to think about. I've seen 3 armadillos that had been run over in the middle of the road! Haha the best armadillo is one you can't see, and the second best armadillo is a dead one- am I right? Haha  I really want to see one live! That and fireflies. I wanna see those too!

 

The next biggest area of concern- they feed us very well out here! But let me tell you some of the things that I've eaten that might floor you, so sit down if you aren't already! I've eaten a roast beef, ham, and turkey sandwich, strawberry shortcake, lasagna, beet salad, and some kind of wheat salad thing. The members of the branch here feed us every night, and non members love having us over for dinner too! So yeah, I think I just surprised you more than a little ;)

 

That leads to the next concern. So I've been running 3 miles with my comp every morning! So I'm staying in shape as well. He ran cross country in high school and loves to run, so we'll go run every morning. I do pushups at night. And for P-day we all get together and play 2 hours of basketball!!!!!! So yeah, God answers prayers! haha Oh and our area got a brand new car! It's a 2013 Ford Fusion and it had about 200 miles on it, so it was brand new! Our area is huge and it's never had a car before, so our missionary work will be so much more effective now.

 

This last week has been unbelieveable. I'll try not to leave too much out here. So we were assigned on Wednesday to take a list of records that they church doesn't know if the member still live at the address because the people are inactive. So we went to all the addresses and all of them either weren't home or weren't members anymore. One that wasn't home we left a phone number of the branch president. The guy ended up calling the branch president, which we didn't expect, and came in and met with him for a good 2 hours, and he wants to get active again and he was at church yesterday! That was really cool!

 

Thursday not much happened. We knocked a ton of doors but no one was home. So it was a little disappointing but not too terrible. Friday was district meeting and we asked for some ideas on how we could better find people. We got a few ideas and on the way back we stopped in a town called Washington, and decided to knock some doors and try these ideas. (Blessing 1 of a car) So we parked the car and set some goals. We wanted to Heavenly Gift 5 people, and get 1 set return appointment. Heavenly gifting is when we introduce ourselves and say,  "We're representatives of Jesus Christ and we were wondering if we could say a prayer with you. Is that ok? Is there anything you need that we could pray for?" then we pray and ask if we can come back and share a message about prayer and Jesus Christ.

 

Anyways we prayed and told God our goals and asked if he would help us accomplish them. The first 2 doors we knocked on we prayed with, and the first one set a return appointment with us! Then we had a nice long dry spell of about a half hour. We were so thirsty because it's been about 100 degrees with about 40% humidity. We were on our way to a member's house to grab a drink. We decided to knock one more door and the guy said that he wasn't interested, but he offered us a water bottle! We went for another half hour and there was nothing. We only had 30 minutes before dinner, but we decided to knock 3 more houses. All 3 let us pray with them! The second house told us that they really needed a prayer, and one lady started crying when we offered it. It was so touching to see the love our Heavenly Father had for them, and how we were able to bring so much hope to them with just a simple prayer. So yeah that was an amazing experience.

 

Sunday the weirdest thing happened. We were at church early and decided to go talk to the guest speakers. They're from Norman and so they're in our stake, but not our branch. We introduced ourselves and I guess one of the guys just moved from St. George! Not only did he move here from St. George, he was in the same ward as the Spilkers! He said he loved bringing his kids to watch me and Brandon play basketball. He gave us a referral right then and there-  it was really cool! He said he'd love to come teach her with us too! So yeah that was a cool experience! I guess the guy who used to own the Brick Oven in St. George is in our branch too. Small world! But we ended up getting 3 referrals just yesterday! The branch is starting to be very missionary minded, and that's honestly the best way to find people. So don't be afraid to give referrals! We love them!

 

Well that's most of what happened this week. We gotta go get everything ready for the week. Blanchard is great, the church is true, and God answers prayers! I love you guys and I hope this is a great week! Have fun at the wedding!