1. Ann is doing so well - she's such a different person from the Ann we talked to today to the Ann I met a month ago. She is happy and she laughs, she's let go of a lot of bitter resentment she's held for years and has found a lot of peace and healing through Jesus Christ. We love her so much!! Her interview will be tomorrow, and her baptism will be on the 30th.. she goes out of town on Monday morning so when she gets back we'll have a baptism! We are so excited, we love her so much!
2. We met a man the other day who wanted a blessing. We called one of our senior couples and he came, but in the meantime we got to talk to him. He was a little... different. But super sweet. He said some funny things, but to make a long story short we ended up reading Exodus 39 with him at his request (look that chapter up.. it's a good one haha) half way through he stopped us to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and then picked up where he was. So it was definitely one of the more interesting contacts of my mission - but what stuck with me the most about him, was that at the end of the chapter we asked what he had learned. He said he had learned obedience. He reads because he has been asked to read - even though he doesn't understand everything that's going on. I really liked that. I think that obedience is a great lesson for us all to learn, after it obedience is the first law of heaven. It's not always easy - in fact it's rarely easy. But by being obedient to God and to His commandments, we receive so many blessings.
3. Being in summer, this is officially motorcoach season. Motorcoachs are seriously the funnest thing ever! A motorcoach is a group of 20+ people who come to Temple Square and want a tour. Unfortunately the Spanish speakers don't really come in flocks like that, but the Mandarin and the English speakers do! When you have 31+ people, your tour will be contacted by another companionship of missionaries - their job is basically to help hand out materials at the end, hold the flag, and help however you can. You don't need to know the language of the tour to contact it though - we've contacted a lot of Mandarin motorcoaches. It's so fun though! Even though I have no idea what's going on.
So the other day, we took a motorcoach of 25 people from Atlanta, Georgia and they were a congregation from the African Methodist Episcopal church (AME they called it) and they were the cutest group!! We told them about the Book of Mormon and about how it's all about Jesus Christ and about how God is no respecter of persons and that He loves and visits His children in whatever land they're from, and they were so enthralled with it. 23 of them took a copy of the Book of Mormon - including the minister. And it was the sweetest feeling because I really believe that most of them will read it. We asked them at one of the spots if any of them had ever had an answer to a prayer - they all started clapping and Amening.. we had a lot of fun on that tour :)
4. Our mission President's wife lost her parking pass the other day, she enlisted some of us to help her look for it and we scoured the basement and the offices and we just couldn't find it anywhere. Eventually it was suggested that we pray - so we prayed and literally less than 5 minutes later the parking pass was found in a place that had already been searched. We offered a prayer of gratitude to our Heavenly Father, and we left. But it's stayed with me how important and meaningful our prayers really are - I know that God hears and answers prayers. Not always immediately, but answers do come.
I love you all, and hope you have a great week! Next week we're having a special event so we won't have Pday on Friday - it will change to Monday for the week. But will go back to Friday after that... so basically I won't be writing you on the 23rd, but I will on the 25th and the 29th. So talk to you then!
--Sister Black
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