Hello Family!!!
It is SOO good to hear how things are going with everyone!! I
miss you all, but I know that this is where I need to be at this time. Please
know that you are all in my prayers as well.
My testimony of the gospel has grown so much since being here on
my mission for nearly the last two months. My testimony of our Father in
Heaven's plan for us and the role of the Savior in my life is growing ever more
deeper. As I help others turn to the Savior and to seek help with their
trials, I find my faith in the Savior increase and that there is real power and
strength in the atonement. I've come to also realize that our Father in Heaven
truly wants us to find happiness and joy in this life and that will come as we
have faith in the Savior and exercise the power of the atonement everyday by
repenting and bettering ourselves. As we turn to the Savior and repent and ask
for forgiveness, we can be healed spiritually and we can overcome feelings of
guilt, remorse and hurt.
This week we taught 22 lessons! Some of those were short
messages to families in the ward, but it gives me hope that we can be teaching
20 a week to less actives, and investigators. This last week we had a hard time
meeting with our investigators. Our appointments kept falling through for one
reason or another. We'll be working hard this week to meet with them though!!
On Wednesday, the 4th of July, we'll be having dinner at an
investigators with his children and the Elders. We may also spend some time
during the day talking with people at a parade :) It'll be a good day!
This last week we had the Called to Serve sisters from Davenport
with us on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They were staying with some host
families in the ward so we had them from 10:00am to 9:00pm. We had a few
lessons that they were able to sit in on and help with, but a large part of our
time on Saturday was spent finding (tracking) people. There were four sisters,
so I had two sisters with me and Sister Whitaker had 2 with her. Each sister
had two Book of Mormons to hand out and by the end of the day on Saturday they
were all gone!
Late afternoon on Friday was interesting. We had been out
following up with some potential investigators and then around 4:30 when we all
met up at the van, Sister Whitaker asked if we had heard the sirens. I was with
two sisters previously in a less active woman's apartment and we all replied
that we hadn't heard anything. Sister Whitaker said that she was confirming
dinner plans for the next day with Sister Jeppson (who's husband is the First
Counselor in the Mission Presidency) and that Sister Jeppson told her that
if those sirens went off again we should all go to the church building and
huddle together in the changing room next to the baptismal font. She also
said that they were predicting a bad thunderstorm to come
through. Things didn't look bad to us at the time. The sky was overcast
with only a few dark clouds. We drove to an area close to the University
and went out to contact some more potentials. Within a few minutes we heard the
siren go off. We all piled into the van and I drove us to the church building
which was about 7 minutes away. We informed the bishop who was one of the host
families that we were at the church building and then we also found out that
the area was going to receive some strong winds upwards of 80 mph. Again, it
didn't look that bad outside, but I told myself that things can change quickly
and that we need to be smart and listen to the warnings because we are
responsible for these four sisters. 15 minutes after we arrived at the church,
the wind started to pick up. At 5:30 or so we received a call from a ward
member and she said that things had changed and they weren't expecting the big
thunderstorm till around 9 that evening. We ended up going to our dinner
appointments and by the time we ended it was raining outside with some
distant thunder. We went out tracking, something I wasn't too fond of at the
moment with the thunder and lightning. The rain let up after a little bit. At
8:45 the sisters I was with drove over to meet Sister Whitaker and her sisters
and then by the time we reached them, it was just pouring!! That drive to the
apartment was so scary for me. The rain was coming down so hard and the lightning
was a lot closer. I kept a prayer in my heart that we would get to the
apartment safely. I was impressed to continue forward and that we would be
protected and that everything would be alright. There were a couple of times
when I saw that lightning in front of us and inside I freaked out,
but I controlled myself so that the other sisters wouldn't be alarmed.
On Sunday all the sisters sat in on our lesson with Paul who
speaks French and Swahili. That was a neat experience for them all. A number of
the sisters said that if they aren't married by the time they are 21, they
are going on a mission.
LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
Sister Tucker
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