Happy Valentine's Day

Hello Everyone-


This week was.... interesting. On Tuesday we had a WONDERFUL Zone Conference at the JSM (Joseph Smith Birthplace memorial). It was fun, because S. Hatch, S. Amuli, S. Page, and I all drove up together. We learned a lot about the spirit, and working with members, and best of all MORMON.ORG!!!! Oh my gosh, if you couldn't tell from my e-mail last week, I LOVE Mormon.org!!!!

EVERYONE NEEDS TO MAKE A PROFILE AND CHECK IT OUT!!!!!! It is so good. It can be used as a tool to help non members, less active member, struggling members, ANYONE!!!! It really is better than facebook!!!!!!!!!!!

The rest of the week was a little sad. All of our investigators that we did have dropped us, and we met a lot of less active members who said they want their names removed from the records. :( That is so sad to hear!!!! As an active member, and someone who can't even imagine life with out the gospel, it is SO hard for me to hear people say they have joined a different church, or that they want their names removed. How could you go from having the Fullness, to something that only had bits and pieces of the truth???? The hardest is when they say, "Oh, there is no hard feelings towards the church, but we are leaving it!!" HOW?????? And I'm not just saying this because I am a missionary. I have felt like this my whole life, but I am faced with it even more now that I am a missionary!

Well on the happy note, we have laughed a lot this week. We were finally able to meet some of the active members. We got a dozen red roses from a member, and on Wednesday morning we heart attacked President Wilkey's office. Then we found out from Sister Hatch this morning, that he saw it Friday night, after a long, hard, tiring week. He said it really helped him, and was just what he needed! It's nice to live in the same area of the mission office and mission president, so that we can do nice things for them in return for all the nice things they do for us!

Oh, this last week when we played scrabble with the old ladies for service, we had a cool miracle after. We finished the game a little early, so we shared a scripture with them. Normally, I guess the sisters would share something from the Bible. Well we didn't know that, and we picked a scripture from the Book of Mormon. I was kind of nervous, because all the ladies are Catholic, and so is the worker. Well it ended up being a perfect thing. I have this feeling that the worker will some day investigate the church. She sat down and listened to the scripture, and then said, "I don't really know anything about the Mormon church, tell me a little about it. What makes it different?" So we were able to teach her a little about prophets. She took it well. Hopefully over time we will be able to teach her a little at a time, and she will some day accept the gospel!

Another cool experience from the week came as we were preparing for and teaching a convert of almost 2 years. His name is Paul. He was baptized 2 years ago this May. Three months ago he was in a car accident and broke his femur. After that we wasn't able to come to church for a while, and then now he can only stay for sacrament meeting. We had briefly meet him at church, but didn't know much about him. As we were planning for his lesson, we couldn't figure out what to teach him. We kept thinking of things, then didn't like it. All of a sudden we said, "Let's teach the Christ-like attribute of Charity and Love." We planned our lesson and moved on. When we got to the lesson and started teaching it, he just loved it. He kept saying how it was such a good lesson. He thanked us and said that it was exactly what he needed to hear that day! He also said that he hadn't really been reading his scripture lately, but because of how good he felt during the lesson, and how good reading from the scriptures felt, he committed to reading his scriptures again, everyday! It was amazing to see how the Lord helped us. We were struggling, but as soon as we let the spirit guide us, we planned exactly what he needed to hear at that time.

It's great to be a missionary here in the NHMM!!! I love my Savior, and am so grateful for all that he has done for me!!!

Happy Valentines day!

love, Sister Rankin