Overwhelming Happiness :)‏

Hello!!

My oh my, what a wonderful week we had! It was full of happiness, miracles, and the beauty of God's creations! Sister Borchardt and I have been praying extra hard that we will see some great success, and those prayers are DEFINITELY being answered! Miracles are happening all over the place! First of all, we hung out with this couple on Monday night who are part member. The husband, Ahron, is 19 and a less active member, and the wife, Mikalii, is 20 and not a member. And they have a 4 year old son named Malachi. They are the coolest cats around! We taught them, and by the end they were inviting us to go rock climbing with them for "next" Pday (today). We said we'd love to! We planned on it until we looked it up in the white handbook and it specifically says NO ROCK CLIMBING. We were sad. But it's okay because we might go to the Ape Caves with them next week anyway. We are gonna play indoor soccer for Pday today with the zone, so that should be fun. :) Anyway, that family is super cool and I love that we are able to teach them and be their friends! Life is good!

On Tuesday night, we had our Bible Study class that we teach. We taught Mark chapter 3 this time, and after class, one of the women came up to us and said she had some more questions for us and wanted to know more about our church. !!!!! Sister Borchardt said they have been teaching this Bible Study class for like 9 months now, and no one has ever asked if they could learn more about our church until now. It was super exciting for the both of us. 

On Wednesday, we had exchanges. I stayed in our area with Sister Fitt, and Sister Borchardt went to Salmon Creek with Sister Schmoekel (who was in the MTC with me and is now an STL). We had a pretty busy day, but the highlight was probably when we did service for a newer investigator named Barbara. She is 69 years old, living in downtown Vancouver who has books upon books upon BOOKS of genealogy. She just wants to get it all computerized and nicely put together! She is SO excited to learn more about our church and why family history seems to be such a big deal to us. We got her all excited to come to a family history meeting in a few weeks, and she even asked for a Book of Mormon to read about the genealogy in there. We told her about Lehi and the plates that they needed because it was all their family history, and the trials they went through to obtain them. She was very impressed, and is excited to read it! We are seeing her again tonight, so I am very anxious to see if she read any of it.

Thursday night, we had a miracle lesson with Erica and her girls. Erica's Mormon ex-boyfriend was there, and the lesson was amazing because of his presence. The girls are too comfortable with us I guess, because every time we tried to teach, they were loud and crazy and not taking the lesson seriously, but whenever Jared spoke, he commanded their attention, and they obeyed. All in a very loving and filled with the spirit sort of way. It was amazing! All three of them were definitely touched by the spirit, even Guddi! It was seriously so cool. I love the power of the priesthood!

Friday, we had dinner with the Steinegal's. I adore them. Ya know how as missionaries we aren't allowed to hold babies? Well, there is no rule about not holding baby animals! They have a new puppy that is just the sweetest thing! Look at her! Her name is Bobette. :) It reminded me of Mishae and Beauty and the Beast. Haha

Saturday was the best day of the week, I think. Well, Saturday and Sunday together were pretty spectacular. We taught a grand total of 8 lessons on Saturday, and they were all AMAZING. It was Sister Borchardt's half birthday, and the day after her 15 months, so she wanted to celebrate somehow. However, she had been pretty down, so I thought that day would be a good day to go enjoy some of nature's beauty! We drove down to the Columbia River, which is the border of our area, and took a bunch of pictures, talked to a ton of people, and enjoyed the one day of the sun that we had all week! Here are the pictures from that day:

Aren't those fun? The park was BEAUTIFUL and the river was glowing that day! Oh man, I just loved everything about it! We didn't have a dinner appointment that night though, and we only had like 20 minutes to eat, so we were forced to go to McDonalds... Yummy... :P But hey, the rest of the day rocked, so it was all good. 

Sunday was amazing too! Gary, the member who recently returned to activity, received the Melchizedek Priesthood on Sunday, and we got to be there to witness it. It was beautiful. Both Sister Borchardt and I cried a little bit. Knowing where Gary was before all of this, and where he is now, I just have gained such a strong testimony of true conversion! There is nothing we can't do! God wants us to be with Him, to follow Him, and to sacrifice worldly things to do so, and it is ALWAYS possible! Not only is it possible, but it makes you so much happier. I've been able to see that in Gary as he prepares to go to the temple. I am so excited for him!

I forgot to tell you about the Vagabonds! For the past couple of weeks, there has been this big RV that comes to the church and parks in the parking lot, looking to cause trouble. They've been asked to leave on multiple occasions, but they just keep coming back! We haven't run into any trouble with them yet, but we are nervous to be at the church alone! They egged the church, and now some of the little entryways stink like rotten eggs! No good. No good at all.

That was the only not so good thing that happened this week, everything else was grand!!!! We taught 31 lessons this week, which is crazy because this area hasn't seen more than like 19 since before I got here, and a previous investigator of Sister Borchardt's from Gresham messaged her and told her she is getting baptized on Saturday! Saturday is going to be SUPER busy because we are having President Snow from the 1st Quorum of the 70 come to the mission and he is speaking to us until about 2, then we have Alexis' baptism in Evergreen at 4, then Sister Borchardt's investigator's baptism at 7 in Gresham. CRAZY! I am so excited. More and more blessings! 

In a nutshell, the changes that are happening here on my mission are all amazing and wonderful. This area is changing from difficult to progressing, my favorite holidays are here, people are having changes of heart and coming to the Gospel, and the leaves are pretty!

"I saw a bird, and Sister Borchardt caught my reaction . . . I hate birds!"

I love my mission so much you guys. I don't think I have ever been this happy for a consistent amount of time in my entire life. My outlook on everything has changed, and I am just floating on cloud 9 all the time! I hope you are all as happy as I am, or at least somewhere close because this is magnificent! I love you all! 

Don't forget to pray!

Love Always,

Sister Guilott

"A puzzle of New Orleans!  Love you Daddy!"