Tuesday, August 13, 2013

One Month and Counting.....

August 6, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

Ahhh, do I really have 1 month left? It feels like just yesterday that I left the MTC and was with my first companion. This was an amazing week for me and at the same time a sad one. Needless to say the whole week before Thursday was just like a normal week. Missionaries would randomly tell me "you’re dying! How do you feel?" or "your already starting to stink" or "are you ready to go home?" and it still never felt like I was actually at the end of my mission. On Thursday we had MLC with all the leaders and it turns out that this one was my last one. At the end of the meeting the APs surprised us by asking all the missionaries that where going home would give their last testimony. It was the first time that I had felt like I was going home and it was so hard to keep from crying. President Miller at the end said he didn’t realize that so many of the ZL’s and STLs where going home this transfer and said that he would give salt lake a call and see if he could get those who wanted to stay some more time. He asked who wanted to stay and I practically jumped out of my seat. Turns out he was just kidding and that it’s too late to extend anyone’s time. Thanks a lot! Ha-ha so I will be coming home unfortunately, but I definitely will not be slowing down before that day comes.

We had some good miracles this week. On Wednesday we had a return appointment with a lady and her 6 kids. She’s a single mother and works a lot in order to provide for her family. It was the first time we met her because the first contact we made with the family the grandma was there. The grandma invited us in and we left a blessing on the home and prayed that they would be able to find a family member of theirs that was lost while trying to come here to the US. They hadn’t heard from her in 8 days. So we went back the next day and at first the mother said she had no time for us and that she didn’t want to listen to our message. We asked if we could talk to her 17 year old son then and the son let us in. We decided to teach about prayer and how to pray. Partway through the month came and sat down and started listening to us. At the end we invited them to pray and no one wanted to. Finally the 10 year old daughter volunteered and started her prayer. Halfway through the prayer, she broke out crying uncontrollably. And because of that her mother's heart softened instantly. There was such a rapid change that we could hardly believe what happened. She said she wanted to have her kids and her get involved with the church and it’s something that she thinks her family really needs. They are a family of 5 or 6. This reminds me of the scripture in Matthew 19:14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. If only all would just become as a little child.

Everything else is going so well. We are teaching so many families and every week we have 12+ investigators at church which is really an awesome thing the Lord is blessing us with. Elder Hunter and I are getting along really well and life is just perfect. We just have to find out how to get all these investigators baptized now!

Anyway, I hope all is well and that you are all in good health.

Love you,

Elder Stewart

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