Three Miracles

Hellllllllllo everyone! Welcome to Fall. Right now it is 66 and blustery and it feels fantastic. Almost sweater weather? Sadly it's supposed to start getting warmer again next week. At least the trees are changing colors now.

   This week was pretty good. We had some cool miracles and really saw God's hand in our week.

   On Tuesday night we officially started our Book of Mormon Study class and had two people come! It might seem like an odd thing to be excited for but the last two weeks we had zero people. So two is great! As I said last week, the Temple was fantastic. 

   On Wednesday we were supposed to have a lesson that was set with a guy that we called but it fell through. Such is the work! We then taught an Activity Days lesson on the Holy Ghost and that was super fun. Then we had a lesson with a lady that lives really close to us named Stephanie. We read 2 Nephi 32 with her and got her to start doing the 21 Day Challenge. Hopefully she develops a testimony!

   On Thursday we had a lesson with Sister Pointer and went over the Ward Mission Plan, well Elder Kloosterboer did. I played have the ball get kicked at me with the daughter and he taught. Those lessons are always interesting, but fun. We then had a surprise dinner with a member and boy can they talk. It was all good stuff but we were there for sooooo long. Repenting is in progress. 

   On Friday we had a lessons with the M* and Jit finally sat in again. We talked about church and the Sacrament. No clue if they got it but we know that K* did. 

   On Saturday we did service for the Park District again and collected seeds for a couple hours. It pretty scary when you can barely see over the grass that you're walking in, but it's an adventure. Nothing else too exciting happened then. 

   Sunday is where the real miracles happened. We were supposed to have a lesson with the Mongers in the morning at 10 but they forgot and were leaving to go to a market. We rescheduled for that night which was awesome. Right before we got picked up for church we met a cool guy named T* and set an appointment up with him for Tuesday. If we had ended up having PEC that morning like normal (which for some reason we didn't have it) we wouldn't have met him, miracle 1. Church was great as always. K* came again and loved it. After church we stopped by a less-active with a member and the less-active told us that if it haven't have started raining he would have been out on his bike and we wouldn't have caught him at home, miracle 2. We then had a dinner with a great family, super geeky so that's awesome! We then had our lessons with the M* and when we got there Ganga had been crying and we were able to help comfort her a little. If we had our lesson earlier we wouldn't have been there to help her, miracle 3. Those are just three miracles but for some reason they stuck out to me more. 

   In that lesson with the Mongers last night we sang I am a Child of God to start off and I have not felt the spirit that strongly in a lesson for a while. I guess music really does bring the spirit. Or maybe it was the simple truth taught in that song that we are all children of the most high. He loves us more than we can ever love anyone. He is willing to help us and sometimes has to let us go through trials, hard trails, so that we can learn to become like Him. It brings great comfort to know that He loves us so much that He gave His son to suffer for all of those things we go through daily so that we wouldn't have to do so alone. For that I give thanks to God and I hope you all do as well.

   Well, this email was super long. Sorry, I had a lot to write I guess. I hope and pray for you all daily, specifically that each of you will have a fantastic week filled with the Spirit of the Lord. I love you all, have a great week.

A little side note. General Conference is this weekend! For those of you that have never watched it before......do it. Trust me, it's good stuff. If you don't know what that is go to LDS.org and there should be a panel about it. Watch it! Thanks.

• Elder Eddenfield

Choose the Right

The Temple is Awesome!

Hey Everyone!

   We just got back from the Temple and it was awesome! First time in over a year and it was good to be back. Can't really say much else about it except for the fact that the Spirit that is felt there is wonderful. Found out that one of Grandpa Leroy's cousins is going to be the new Temple President in November or something? They left a note for me. Hopefully it's who I thought it was. Because of this email time is seriously cut down, so sorry about that, next week should be better.

   This week was pretty good. We didn't teach any lessons but we had lots of finding lessons with members that went pretty well. The members in this Ward are awesome and all have plans to share the gospel but now we just to get them to write those ideas down on their Ward Mission Plans. Slow but steady progress on that. 

   Also, K* M*came to church! Wahoooooo, that's the first investigator I've had to church in months. It was pretty awesome especially considering that fact that he's only 9 and he came to church without his family. He was very quite but loved the music and hopefully if he comes frequently he can sing in the Primary Program in October and then the rest of his family is sure to come. Awesome stuff! We'll be meeting with them on Friday and probably explaining the Sacrament to them, fingers crossed that they understand the importance. 

   We called some guy in our Areabook and he wants to be taught again so we have a lesson with him tomorrow so hopefully that goes well. I'm pretty pumped. Also, we made contact with Michelle again and she still likes us, so that's good! Her phone has been having problems and her husband is never home so she is probably going to ask him if we can just teach her, hopefully she does that is.

   We moved a members friend over the weekend and only had like 3 people there helping but got it done pretty quickly. Once we left she started asking the member tons of questions, real questions, about the church. This member is super happy and hopefully we are going to get the Ward where she's moving to help her unload everything and then baptize her. Or not, either way the help would be nice.

   Well, that was quite the mishmash of stuff thrown together but that's what you get when Elder Eddenfield is on a time crunch. Hope you all have a great week! And I hope the Book of Mormon challenge is going well for you (and I hope you're doing it) because it sure is strengthening my testimony and I know if nothing else it will at least help you understand why I'm out here in the middle of Illinois. I love you all! Have a great week!

• Elder Eddenfield

Choose the Right

I Am Now 20 and Feel No Different

   This was a great week. Last Sunday the Stake fasted for missionary work and boy did it work. I'll just mention a few of them here.

   Probably the biggest miracle was the potential we found. We were stopping by a former investigator who hasn't been taught in a while and ended up talking to her son-in-law Mark. Turns out she moved to an assisted living place and was just staying with them for a bit. Turns out he knows a lot of members and knows a lot about the church. We talked to him for a bit outside but he invited us in eventually and we taught him about the Book of Mormon and the First Vision and went a little more in depth than we normally would but he really enjoyed it. At the end he asked how often we come by his area and when we told him it was our first time in a couple months he seemed a little sad so we told him that we would be back next (this) week and he was happy about that. We'll see how it goes!

  Another cool one was while I was on exchanges with Elder Moore. We were driving to an area and for odd reasons kept turning down the wrong streets. On one particular street Elder Moore felt impressed to knock out the court. We did so and found an awesome guy named Jamal. He has a very limited religious background which turned out to be great because for the first time I was able to explain who Jesus Christ is and what the Atonement is without them already having a different idea about it. He loved what we taught him and wanted us to come back and he also wanted to go to church. He has been through some stuff recently that has humbled him. Proof that the Lord softens people's hearts in preparation to receive the truth. 

   On my birthday the Monsons called us and took us out for a surprise. We went to Geordanos or however it's spelt. It's good Chicago style pizza. It was a good birthday. The man named Jamal was found on my birthday so I guess you could say finding him was a present from God. 

   Next week we are going to the Temple on Tuesday so that's when preparation day will be and we will have very little time to do much of anything, including writing emails.  So sorry about that, but I barely have time most days as it is.

Have a great week everyone!

P.S. Thanks for the birthday wishes. I am now 20 and feel no different.

Choose the Right

The Ryans gave us my favorite soap!

The murder scene of a Brown Recluse by me