November 14, 2011

So where to begin from this last week.  I am still happy and doing great. 

I just completed my first transfer!! Can you believe it?? I've been out for a whole transfer already.  I am feeling more confident and I am becoming a better missionary which is exciting to me. While that's still exciting I'm sad it's the end of the transfer, my awesome district leader is getting transfered and a couple of the other elders are leaving Lancaster!! It's amazing how much I have grown to love the other missionaries I've been serving around even though I hardly see them.  I am definitely going to miss them but I'm excited to meet the elders that will be here in their place.

We had 6 investigators at church yesterday!  We called our district leader and told him and he asked how is that even possible? haha. Well somehow it is cause it happened.  We have 15 investigators and so that means a little over a 3rd of them came.  Our goal for the week was 14! hahaha.

I'm also way excited cause some of our investigators who are currently not living the law of chastity are trying to get married.  Which will be good and help them be one step closer to baptism.  We also are trying to help another couple get married.  We're trying to get them married so that their goals can be baptism and then be sealed in a year. 

Well mostly everything else is great expect for having really bad pains in my abdomen again...  I called the mission doctor and he has been doing some home treatment until today when I'm supposed to call him again... I got a blessing from some of the Elders.  I was told I would be healed completely.  But that things would maybe get worse before they get better.  So things haven't gotten worse yet and I'm not excited for them to get worse if they do. But at least I am prepared for it if it does.  And I was also told to rely on my companion.  So I'm trying to make sure I don't complain too much but that I tell her when I do hurt and just let her know what's going on.  Cause I have had the tendency to not...  But the best part of that blessing was that I was told that Heavenly Father is pleased with my efforts as a missionary.  and that makes everything okay.  Because I know my Heavenly Father knows I am trying my best.  So please keep my crazy stomach in your prayers that it heals sooner rather than later without too much pain or suffering. 

Love Sister Davidson

Nov. 7, 2011

So this week has been great.  Last Monday since it was Halloween(dad's favorite holiday...not) we had to be in by 6.  But we had a dinner appointment with a family, well it's a husband and a wife all their kids are grown up but they had one of their sons there with his wife and daughter.  It was fun.  Then we went home and deep cleaned our apartment (fun!...) No it was good.  I have been happy to live in a clean apartment regardless if it made me sneeze for days afterward from all the dust we stirred up.  And Lancaster county does things differently than anywhere I've ever been.  They assign times for trick or treating!  So people/kids could only trick or treat between 6 & 8 pm on the 31st.  And I've heard some years they don't trick or treat on Halloween!  It's weird!!

Oh last night was way cool! We ate at a member's home.  That family is awesome and so much fun.  Their names are the Whitings and they are just a great family.  Sister Whiting made a really good dinner.  Then she made homemade donuts for dessert!  Yum! Then we were driving home and we saw a whole bunch of Amish people playing volleyball!!! It was crazy! Since it was dark out they had big lights on.  I think they generate their own electricity somehow so that's it's not connected to the outside world.  I even saw an Amish man and woman at Walmart last P-day it was crazy! (I will never get over the excitement of seeing Amish people....)

We have already been invited to 2 thanksgiving dinners.  Luckily for us they're at different times.  I love thanksgiving! It's my favorite holiday!!! There's so much to be grateful for!

The sad thing about this area is that so many people have been taught that all they need to do to get to heaven is say that they believe in Jesus Christ.  And there's nothing more that they have to do.  And I always am annoyed when they say things like that.  We tracted into a woman who is a Unitarian (?) and she believes just everyone will make it back to heaven.  It's sad to me to see how the devil is teaching the world what would have been his plan. But his plan fails!  and it's so sad to see how people agree there should be a prophet and all of these basic doctrines of the gospel until we bring up the name of the Book of Mormon.  It's so frustrating all these people have been taught about how 'horrible' the Book of Mormon is and they've never even read it for themselves.  And it makes me think about me and how I can't say anything about other religions because I don't know.

Oh yeah a member told me yesterday that he likes to ask me to pray cause he likes listening to my prayers cause I pause to collect my thoughts.  And that I remind him of someone famous that I had never heard of before and consquently do not remember the name right now. It was way funny.

We have one progressing investigator.  She is great!! She's been to church a couple of times and she has a baptismal date of Dec 21! (12/21/11 Notice any pattern?) I am so excited I hope she is able to make that. 

we also have another investigator who has a baptismal date of 12/7/11.  She's 14.  She lives with her grandma(who is a returning active member).  But she goes to her mom's on the weekend in Reading, PA... which is not our area which is not even our mission... So we got permission to talk to that mission and hopefully get her to church so she can get baptized!  Anyway I'm going to try to send pictures to everyone now.  I love you all lots!!! :)