Hello Everyone! Can you believe Christmas was almost a week ago! Time sure is flying! I hope you all had a wonderful Christ filled Christmas! I know I had a really great Christmas.
It was soooo good skyping hope and having a little surprise on the other end! BRYCE AND CANDICE ARE ENGAGED!!!!! I am assuming everyone knows by now so I don’t feel bad about getting excited!!! WAHOOOO!!!!! I tried to convince them that April of 2015 sounded nice but I guess they aren’t having it! Bummer! Oh well, it’s great to know I will have another awesome Sister in law when I come home! I was so happy that I got to see Grandma and Grandpa Bartley and Franzen, Amanda and Nick + the kiddos (ps I love love love the pics of Khloe and Lennox!!! Lennox’s cheeks!!!! She is soooo big! I love those girls) I was bummed I didn’t get to see Heather and Keith + the kiddos but I am sure they are doing well.
So my Christmas was kind of quiet. I slept most of the day due to my kidney stones. We went to our ward mission leaders home for skyping and then we went to a family named the Renchers. They were very sweet and fed us so well! They gave Sister Thompson and I Towels for Christmas! So sweet! We went back home after that and slept the rest of the day away. Like I said it was a very quiet Christmas.
On Thursday I went back to the Doctor and it was not fun at all. Basically I have Kidney stones in both kidneys and there are several. They are too small to blast and should not be causing this much pain but the doctor thinks that I may have passed a larger stone this last week and that my body is irritated still. So He gave me a new pain med to help me out and thankfully it works! So we got out and worked! The meds give me a lot of energy which is great!
Our investigator Jonathan Tengbeh got baptized on SATURDAY!!!! So Jonathan… I met Jonathan (Jon-a-tin) in October with Sister Mullins. He moved here the third week of September from Sierra Leone, Africa. He left his pregnant wife (She had the baby three weeks after he moved here, a little girl named Mariathan (mary-a-tin)) and came to the Americas to try and build a better life for them. We would go and see him every week and teach him about the gospel. He seemed semi-interested but our teaching pool was small so we kept going back. We got really busy however and didn’t end up visiting him for two weeks! He called us out of the blue and asked where we had been! He missed us sharing the gospel with him! So we went back and he has been on Fire ever since. He is the best/worst part: The family he was staying with started persecuting him for meeting with us. Instead of having a roof over his head, he chose to continue meeting with us and learn about his savior Jesus Christ. So he became homeless, we couldn’t allow that to happen so we worked with the ward and got two different families to take him in for a time. They both fell in LOVE with Jonathan. He is the most kind hearted person you will ever meet. As we continued to meet with him we discovered that he had an amazing testimony of the Book of Mormon and Bible both being testaments of our Savior Jesus Christ, and that the plan that our savior has for each one of us is true and that Families can be together FOREVER! He has now sent missionaries to his wife and Mother in law and they are ecstatic about having the gospel in their lives. This man has brought so much joy into my companion and my life. We love every single time that we get to meet with him! His baptism was such a special event. Everyone cried, Including me! The Spirit was so thick and you could just see the joy of taking our Saviors name upon his face. He was so happy! His wife is so supportive as well. She sent him an awesome African outfit to wear after his baptism. He told us “I want to wear this after my baptism, I want to look like a changed man, I want to look like an angel” AND HE DID!!!! He is such a sweet example to me and I hope that my testimony and continue to grow and one day be as strong as Jonathans. I know that he came to the USA to get a job and such but I also have a firm testimony that he was meant to come here to bring the gospel to his sweet family back in Africa.
I want you to all know that I have a testimony that this Church is true. I know that is blesses families! I have seen it in my family and I am seeing it work in Jonathan’s family right now! I know that we have a loving heavenly Father that has given the scriptures to help guide us back to him again someday. I know that the Book of Mormon AND the Bible are both testaments of our Savior Jesus Christ, and they both help us be the best disciples of Jesus Christ that we can be. I Love my savior, I love my family, and I love my mission. In the name of my Brother and Friend, Jesus Christ, Amen.
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