Gratitude for the Members

Dear Family and Friends,

Wow another week.  I hope everyone has been enjoying the summer time in Utah!  We have been very busy this week.  It has been so helpful to have the members help.  We were able to contract a lot of less active and were able to find a lot of part member families, which has been really good for us.  We had some wonderful tender mercies happen this week.  We went to one of our areas, San Francisco (no it is not in California I know that is what you were thinking), we had been there a lot before, but people would always tell us that they weren't interested in the church and the Mormons.  But this time was different because we had Sister Manjares with us, who is a stellar ward missionary and she knows all the people that live there.  She started introducing us to all her friends and would say "Oh there is someone I want you to meet."  It was so crazy to see the different reaction to us.  They were more inviting and we were able to get a lot of follow up appointments.  Members are so valuable in the work!!!

Sister Manjares introduced us to one lady named Mary Ann and we started talking to her.  We asked if there was a time we could come back and share a message with her she said that she didn't have time.  So I asked well can we share a message right now.  She said she didn't have time, but I reassured her it would be a short message.  We gave a short message about Jesus Christ and his love and concern for her.  Then we asked if we could come back and share more.  This time she was really excited for us to come back and hopefully she has that same excitement when we visit her this week.  She was also really surprised by how well I spoke Tagalog for only being here for 1 1/2 months, Sister Manjares told here it was a gift from God to share our message.

I think a few weeks ago I talked about Sheena she is one of our investigators, she is doing really well.  She actually has been a really sick, but she got a priesthood blessing and has been praying and praying for strength.  The one thing that has been holding her back is the Law of Chastity, because she has been living with her  boyfriend.  Yesterday she told us that she was planning on getting married now on June 22! We were pretty excited.  We know that she wanted to go on a mission, but marriage is important too. Her boyfriend is a member and tonight we have an FHE with them and are going to talk about Eternal Marriage-which we want to be her ultimate goal! She has so much faith, it is wonderful to see it grow.

Well I am looking forward to another busy week.  It should be exciting.  We have our final interviews with President Blisner this week.  The new President gets here on the 30 of this month.

-Sister Richins