February 8th, 2014

Hello family!!

 

I'm sorry I wasn't able to write last week! This email probably won't make up for everything I didn't get to write, but I will do my best! Last week I went on an exchange with my trainer Sister Thompson!! Crazy right? She is now serving in Brookville which is one of the areas that we cover as STLs. I was a little nervous for the exchange because it has been so long since we served together, but all my worries went away when we started the exchange. She is loving her mission and she has been moved around so much that she has been with so many different people and served in so many different places, she had a lot of exciting information to share. We ended up spending longer than 24 hours together (usually a big no no) because of the weather! It was a huge blessing in disguise because I got to spend quality time with her and discover how much I do really love her! We had a lot of fun :)

 

This week - so many miracles happened. I went on an exchange with Sister Morphy!!! She came to spend time in Butler with me and it felt like I was with family! I have grown so close to her, especially after getting to spend 2 weeks with her in Cranberry, she told me she feels like I am her sister. Just a side not - this is the sister that Alex met up at BYU-I when I first got on my mission and Alex sent me an email saying "look out for Sister Meredith Morphy"! It is amazing how Heavenly Father knew we needed to meet and become friends, so he made sure we were looking out for each other. That night when Sister Morphy was here, we went over to a less-active's home to do service with the elders! This less-active, her name is Jan and she is strongly progressing towards reactivation. Her husband is not a member, but because of our time spent with him over the past several months - he is starting to show interest!! They fed us dinner after we helped them and as we sat around after the meal for the spiritual thought, he started asking a bunch of questions :) Ah! It was so exciting!! We are going back over this week to teach him the restoration. This couple doesn't have any children and so they always joke about adopting us 4 missionaries.. :) They rock.

 

Another miracle happened with another less-active Jeanette and her husband Tiny! That isn't his real name, but it is what he has been called his entire life. Jeanette was married in the temple a long time ago but it ended badly. Then she remarried Tiny and they have been together for almost 20 years! They are very happy but Jeanette slipped into inactivity after the bad experience with her first husband. We have been visiting them for a while, and one day while we were there talking with Jeanette, Tiny got out his bible and asked a question about something he couldn't understand in the new Testament! He pulled up Matthew 22:32 and Luke 20:38, which both refer to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as the "God of the living, not the dead." Jeanette and his mother-in-law are both very much into family history and geneology work, and it didn't make sense to him why it would be so important to do that work if God was only the God of the living. At first, I didn't have a clue what to tell him. I told him that I might have to go home and study then bring him back an answer, but then as soon as I said it I felt that what I had said wasn't right. So I took a deep breath and looked at my scriptures, I followed the cross references and ended up finding Romans 14:9 which seemed to help everything click! It reads, "For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living." :) I explained to Tiny that it was just referring to the fact that Christ had not yet conquered death, but once He had died and been resurrected - He became the God of the dead as well as the living! Footnotes are inspired. haha woot woot! So Tiny is excited to read the Book of Mormon and he wants to read the Doctrine & Covenants as well.

 

Ah... life is good. Something fun that happened this week, our relief society president went on a team-up with us the day after the bad storm (it was still in the negatives - whoops!) and there were these wonderful creations all over the ground called "snow rollers"! She explained to us that the weather conditions have to be just right for them to be created, but they look like a cylinder of snow with a hollow inside that are created by the wind! How fun! She was so excited, so we stopped and took pictures whenever we found a really good one. haha

 

Well family, I love you very much! I know that this gospel is true and that our Heavenly Father loves us so much! Have a fabulous week!!!

 

Love,

Sister Walborn

 

p.s. Pictures: 1) A snow roller :) 2) A picture of us at a less-active's home, with a MASSIVE great dane!! He was so old and would walk over and sit on my knee!  3) My wonderful companion Sister Larsen and I after a long day - lots of love! LOVE YINZ!!