Happy Mother's Day!!! I'm so sorry I wasn't able to talk a lot yesterday. It was SOOOO good to hear from all of you.  I love knowing that my family is being faithful and obedient. I was studying in Alma today I read about the stripling warriors.  I love this story so much. Why? Because it's true!!  The miracles that surround me are the result of being faithful and exactly obedient.  And the reason I can be faithful and obeident is because I do not doubt that my mother has a testimony of Jesus Christ, a love for the Savior, and a desire to raise her kids in righeousness.  Mom, with all of my heart thank you for giving me a reason to never doubt that this gospel is true.  I look up to you so much and hope to be more like you everyday.  Your charity, service, and patience is inspiring. 

 

This week was full of heartbreak but also full of so much joy!  Crazy how life can be such an emotional rollercoaster haha First off let me explain something about doing service here in Staten Island.  Yes we do help sisters in the ward with their gardening and moving and unpacking and such... but we also do some pretty insane and totally wicked things too!!! Like last week when we cleaned out the crawlspace of a house.  I had no idea crawl spaces even existed haha it's the space between the floor of a house that has been completely ripped out and the actual foundation of the house. if that makes sense ha anyway, so we get the lovely opportunity to jump down into a 3 foot space (sometimes smaller) and clean out dust, dirt, old magazines, garbage from the ocean, and even some dead organisms... gross! It's actually a lot of fun!  We also scrubbed the mold off of wood frames in an old flower shop that was wiped out by the hurricane.  Full body white jumpsuits, purple gloves, and masks.  It's a very stylish look (picture umpa-lumpas haha) I will send some pictures so you can get an idea of what to go buy at Home Depot for your next service project!

 

Okay, enough sillyness...We were so blessed this week in many ways.  First, we had a dinner appointment with a member and his nonmember wife.  Her name is Maria and she is such a faithful lady.  She expressed her trust in God and was willing to let us come teach her later in the week! I have never prayed and studied so much for a single lesson.  But I knew that her husband, in-laws, and so many others have been praying for her to become interested and now is the opportunity for  that to happen.  The lesson went wonderfully. When the spirit is the teacher, the lesson becomes God's lesson,  not my companions lesson, not my lesson, but God's lesson.  And that's all we can do as missionaries.  Please pray for her!!!  We are looking forward to meeting with her again this week.  We tried to throw together a YSA activity this week and tried to contact over 50 YSA's in Staten Island.  Only one showed up.  But through this experience we were able to set up an appointment to meet with a less active, found a referral of a street full of families, and enjoy the blessings that come as we followed the promptings of the Spirit. The Lord comprehends so much more than we can.  I truly believe that.  I also gained a stronger testimony of that as Brandon's baptism was once again postponed.  His mom is still sick and called me friday just before the lesson to express her concern that Brandon wasn't ready to be baptized.  Through so much prayer and studying and pondering we decided that we needed to prepare him a little more.  I bawled like a baby when I got off the phone with him after telling him that we were going to wait on his baptism.  But by small and simple promptings the Lord blessed us with comfort and guidance.  We visited his mom on saturday and then stopped by on Sunday to talk to Brandon.  He said a prayer with us before we left and the spirit once again testified that everything would work out.  It's incredible how much we NEED the Holy Ghost in our lives.  Sister Jorgensen and I had the great opportunity to give a workshop about keeping the sabbath day holy at our zone conference this last week.  I was reminded of how truly important and essential the sacrament is.  I am so grateful the Lord loves us enough to give us a chance to rededicate, recommit, and restrenghten our desire to follow the Savior. All of our questions and concerns about life can be answered as we make the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism (or the sacrament), and receiving the Holy Ghost), the focus and path that we follow.  It's a lifetime process of enduring to the end but it brings continual peace, joy, and guidance.

 

So this upcoming week is transfer week and I'm SO excited!! I will be staying in Staten Island with Sister Jorgensen but we will be getting an additional companion!! This sister was called to the Brazil mission but hasn't received her visa so she gets to come out here with us! Which means I will have the opporunity to have an additional hour of study time called language study and I think I'm going to try to learn Spanish! How exciting?!  I'm really looking foward to it!  We also have a mega-zone conference this saturday with Elder Koeliker of the Seventy!!  I'm so stoked! Well I must be going, but please know that I love you, pray for you, and hope you are all finding peace and joy in your life.  Keep being the valiant and true stripling warriors that you are:) 

 

Love, Sister Meyer