September 26th, 2011

Almost. You know when Paul teaches King Agrippa and at the end of this beautiful conversion story that Paul tells King Agrippa says, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." That was our week. So we're improving right? We went from sq 1 to almost. I hope this week will be a definately!

This week we taught a lot of people who were close to being investigators, or close to changing their lives, close to gaining a testimony, but because of that darn agency, they just won't do it. Dag nabit all. We taught this less-active family, forinstance, who are now questioning if God exists yet they aren't willing to take another chance and find out that He is there. If only they could know the blessings they and their family would receive by just knowing that God is there and real and by acting on it. We taught one guy named Robbie. We had knocked on his door and he told us to come back another time and so we did and we got to teach him. The lesson went really well until he told us that he couldn't read the Book of Mormon because he had so many other things to read and to do. We asked him what he thinks he would gain from reading it and knowing that it's true. He agreed that he would gain a lot, yet he wasn't willing to do it. He even sat there for a while in silence pondering whether he should or not. I don't know about you but when I see a delicious looking chocolate cake I don't question, I know I'm going to eat it because it will taste so good! Oh that darn agency.

We do have investigators that are doing really great though! Let me tell you about them. Jing and Chen are amazing! They are crazy busy with school yet they make time for our visits. They are waiting to be baptized until they can get married in China, but we're trying to get them to see that they don't have to wait to be baptized, they can have those blessings now! We taught them seperately this week and asked them each why they wanted to be baptized. Their answers were incredible. Jing said, "I want to because #1 it says that I need to in the Book of Mormon and the Bible and so that I can have the Spirit and #2 because it will wash away my sins and the sacrament doesn't mean anything to me until after I get baptized." After she said that all I could say in reply was, "wow, that was the best answer ever." haha When we asked Chen why he wanted to be baptized he held up the Book of Mormon and said, "because I trust this." Simple, straight to the point. ah! They are so amazing, I hope that i get to witness their baptisms.

The Thomas family is doing well! We went and saw them yesterday and taught them how to pay tithing. I brought my little coin purse with 10 pennies in it, poured it out and told them I wanted to pay my tithing but didn't know how. They gladly helped me and filled out the tithing slip. It's so much more fun teaching kids sometimes :) At the end we gave them this giant poster we had made, on it, it has a chart for their reading and praying every day. They get to put stickers on each day that they read their scriptures and pray and they get a gold star for coming to church. Andrew, the youngest was so excited. He immediately started putting a gold star on the poster even though the week hadn't started yet. When we got to the car after the lesson he came running out to tell us that he had put the poster up already. Kids are so smart. In the lesson I asked this question, "what can we give to God?" It was going to be a retorical question because I was trying to make a point that we can't give God money and so tithing isn't about money, but immediately Adam and Andrew raised their hands in the air. Adam said we can give God love and Andrew said we can give him our sins. Woah. pretty incredible answers.

The best part about being a missionary...ehh let me change that, ONE of the best things is that people give you stuff. I love it. They think, "hmmm I have no use for that, the missionaries must want it...hmmm I won't eat that, let's give it to the missionaries!" On Wednesday it was like that all day. We went to help out at the community kitchen and one of the volunteers there just happened to make a chocolate cake from scratch and thought we would like to take the leftovers home. Costco also recently opened up in Fredericton so they donate a truck load of bread to the kitchen every day. The staff invited us to take some bread that had just arrived. Saweet! ...except...we're on bikes. How do we carry all of this stuff? I have no clue, but we made it work. Jerome then came to our appointment with samosas. ya buddy. Samosas are really popular here, they are these triangled shaped fried things with meat in them. not too shabby. It's the best, our cupboards were full and I was full with chocolate cake. The perfect combination.

I feel like as my mission is getting closer and closer to ending I'm trying to cram in all of the knowledge I possibly can. I love reading the scriptures. I love how much more I know the scriptures since being on a mission. Sometimes I don't feel all that different from when I left to now. One thing I do know is that I'm so grateful for the knowledge I've received since being here. It's exciting learning about the gospel and seeing my testimony grow through that knowledge and light. I can't wait for general conference! It feels like just yesterday that I was watching it last fall in Truro for my first conference on my mission. Pretty crazy. Aren't the leaders of the church so amazing?! I can't wait! Have a great week!



Love,

Sister Crane