Hello everybody!
My title today is, as you might have noticed, an amount of time. To be more precise, it is the length of time it takes for a sweet lady from Georgia to tell you that her husband read a whole bunch of anti material so he doesn't want us in his house so we can't visit her anymore. Yep. And that wasn't even in person. Just on the phone. While it was sad that we won't be able to visit this lady anymore, it also made us laugh that it took that long for her to tell us so.
Well, this week has certainly been interesting! On Tuesday, we had Zone Conference for 6 hours! It was awesome! We talked a lot about finding and what we can do to be more successful missionaries in our particular areas. One thing that President Bennion told us to do is to work more with the mid-teen to mid-twenties age group. Just in the past two days, Sister Thorn and I have had the chance to run into two people fitting that description who both seemed interested in learning more about what we go around telling people about. Young people have an enormous impact on the church now and in the future! Another thing we talked about was how to listen to what people say when we start contacting them and then using that to figure out what to share with them. For example, if somebody mentions a recently deceased family member, that might be a cue to talk with them about the Plan of Salvation. Oftentimes, the Spirit will direct us with what to say if we will only listen to the person we are talking to! There were lots of other things I learned at zone conference, but those are the ones that stood out most. :)
One morning this week, while we were out tracting, we had several interesting experiences. The first door we knocked on was answered by a lady who had previously met with missionaries and had read bits of the Book of Mormon. She wasn't particularly interested in talking with us at the moment, so we kept going. A few doors down, we met a Ba'hai (I don't know if I spelled that right) gentleman who came out onto his porch and talked with us for about 30 minutes. He also already had "several of those books," but did tell us we could come back later and talk more. A little while later, at the other end of the street, we met a lady who actually let us in to talk to her! She told us that she wasn't really sure if she had faith in Jesus Christ because of some very difficult things she has been through. She did, however, have a powerful testimony of prayer. We were able to share the Plan of Salvation with her and talk a lot about eternal families. When we had to go, we asked her if she had ever heard of the Book of Mormon, she went to her shelf and picked one up that some Elders had left there previously! We gave her a chapter to read, set a return appointment, and left. As we walked away though, we realized just how many seeds had been sown by the missionaries who had previously tracted this particular street. That morning, I realized that although I may not see immediate results for my efforts, eventually, something will come of it.
Pictured: Last night this cat went tracting with us for about 40 minutes. He was super friendly and meowed at every door, so we took some pictures with him! 
Also, it was super cold earlier this week, so every time we got back in the car, Sister Thorn had to take a moment to defrost her fingers before driving.
Quote of the week: "Keep on keepin' on and do it more effectively!" (Elder Oaks)
- Sister Houghton
