HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!

This week was seriously the craziest week of my entire mission! ET'd sisters back and forth in my little world called R., transfers (Hermana G. is our new companion!) appointment after appointment stacked, splits with members, tears and goodbye-ing, MLC (they invited me to come even though I'm not SSTL anymore. The APs informed me that I wasn't "released"--just "retired" haha!) not to mention I completely lost my voice for 4 days, and THOUSANDS of MIRACLES! 

Let me just show you what Sunday was like:

FIRST. We got a call Sunday morning--we would be teaching Gospel Principles, Primary, and a lesson in Spanish to our new investigator that doesn't speak any english AT THE SAME TIME. Good thing there are three of us. 

SECOND. Everyone and their grandmother (no joke) came to church. They kept coming and coming....10 investigators. We were running around like mad! No one usually shows up for Gospel Principles--so I started to recruit as many ward members as possible while simultaneously throwing members at our investigators so they could be friends and have someone to show them around because we were preoccupied. 

In the end we had this AMAZING lesson about the Atonement, G. (the guy who needed his own separate lesson in spanish) apparently had a vision about the 3 kingdoms that floored us and then committed himself to be baptized and quit smoking before we even told him he needed to--side note: the story of how we met him and our first lesson is pretty miraculous. Ask me about it sometime--the primary kids had fun, and one of our investigators (who we actually just met this week too) sent us a text afterward telling us he left our church with a "confusing feeling" that he really liked. I couldn't believe it! I was so in awe at that--I kept telling my companions "do you realize how significant this text is??" Just feeling the Spirit. 

Did I mention that D. was baptized this week and then confirmed on Sunday? My favorite part was watching him with the biggest smile on his face as he embraced his best friend who had introduced him to the Gospel and this new family.

One of the inactive teenagers we reactivated gave a talk in sacrament meeting that filled my heart. He wants to serve a mission. We had fantastic lessons on gratitude and love. I've just learned so much here.

They asked me to say the closing prayer. I couldn't really get through it all without choking up. 

I love the Lord, I love these people, I love this experience, I love the hard things, I love this Gospel, and I love who I am becoming and will continue to become. 

Hurrah for Israel!

Sister Thompson --always.