Knock and Ye Shall Find?

Hello! Well another week is gone. We had a pretty good week. Not too many new things happened. No new investigators. But we're trying really hard!

For one of Raven's appointments this week we tried something different. We want him to get to know people in the branch so he feels comfortable here, but he works at night and can't go to any of the activities or anything. So we invited about of YSAs to our teaching appointment. We basically reviewed with them the Restoration, and then we played a little made up game of charades/pictionary/catch phrase using all words/phrases from the Restoration lesson. I think they really liked it. And it was good because we were able to see that Raven is getting a lot of the things we teach. More than we realize. He was pretty into the game. There are still things he doesn't understand-especially about the plan of salvation. But that's because he asks pretty deep questions and sometimes complicates things. He has time to learn though. And last week President Watrous told us that if we have an investigator on probation who has gone to church for 6 months and paid tithing for 3, then he's willing to write to the first presidency and see if that person can get permission to be baptized. I definitely think Raven could potentially get to that point. Hopefully! It would be nice if he doesn't end up having to wait over a year. We'll see.

The Luceros are still planning on getting baptized Nov. 14. We're still a little afraid that this past elders are going to end up not being able to come out that weekend to baptize the girls, and mom is going to want to push the date back again. But, this is the first time they've actually set a date, and had us tell the bishopric, so hopefully it's really happening! It's just one of those situations that's lame, because the girls have been going to church like they're members for over a year anyway. They just need the benefits of being baptized!

We had a really good visit with Serena, the YSA who was at church last week who is inactive. She's really nice and has been really active in the past, but just hasn't done it yet here. After talking to her we could tell she'd really be a benefit to the branch. And she said she'd be at church. But then she didn't come! AHHHHHH! It's amazing. No matter what, every week people say they'll come to church, and I always believe them. And I'm always surprised when they're not there. Good excuse or not. It's the same thing with this other inactive YSA we've been visiting. Lisa. She was a member for 2 years, really super active, and then I guess she fell off the face of the planet. Nobody heard from her or saw her. When I got here, we made contact with her and have been visiting her and everyone's amazed. She's never committed to coming to church, though she wants to come. But last week we brought another YSA with us, and in front of all of us she said she would come. But she didn't. It really is frustrating. You can't give up on these people, but I don't see why they can't make any efforts! They say they want to, but there's always some little thing that they let be their excuse.

We did get to see the Relief Society Broadcast. Which was great. I was excited because last year we were never told we could go, so we didn't. And I thought it was a really great broadcast! And now I'm even more excited for general conference this weekend!

What else? Nicole is as crazy and frustrating as ever to teach. She really has a lot of problems, and she only hears/listens to what is already familiar to her, and she holds onto that. Sometimes she seems to get it, and other times, absolutely not. We don't know what to do with her. Because stopping teaching her is going to be hard, she'll still be coming to church, and still be depending on us. We really aren't teaching Shakira anymore. Somebody else always answers her phone, and she's never home. Too bad. This is why we're looking really hard for more people to teach! The ward is trying to get us more people to teach too, but it's a slow process.

That was the week! Hopefully this week more interesting/new things will happen! I hope everyone had a wonderful week and will have an even better week! I love you all!

Love,
Emily