Bad & Good...

TERESA - Hi ya!

The news about Grandpa Coombs is terrific! I am sooo happy that he is progressing! I have been praying for him every night to recover and I know that I'm not the only one who's doing that. The power of prayer is real!! And yes, I did get the tapes from dad! Thank you! I've been listening to it lately, it's nice to hear your voice again dad!

This week has been really crazy and I mean really crazy. A whole lot of bad and good stuff has happened. Let me start from the beginning...

Remember on Monday I was talking about the girl we found named Joanne? Well Sister Peterson and I did something we'd normally NEVER do! When we found her we had such a strong impression that she was special that we were meant to find her. She wasn't free until this week and we wanted to schedule her as soon as possible so we planned her in at 2:00 p.m. on Monday. Yup, Monday. That is our P-Day if you didn't remember! Now that may not seem like a big deal to you but for a missionary it is! You have only 1 day a week where you can get everything sorted and do fun activities and we planned an appointment?! Ha-ha But we both felt really good about it and knew it was way more important than a great activity somewhere. That is after all what we are here for right? Missionary work? Anyway, we saw her on Monday and it was excellent! She is so solid and she is totally interested to learn more about the gospel. She said she'd be baptized when she found out it were true! She is 19 and super nice. We were so happy about that appointment. It definitely made the day a thousand times better! That day we also went to dinner at Bishop Cook's house and that was so fun as always. And then we had FHE at Sister Green's and our whole group was there! It was way fun :) Honestly, BEST P-day ever!

Tuesday we had District Meeting at the Stake Center in Glasgow. I always LOVE those! WE got to see our whole zone again and the senior missionary couple provided lunch for us! It was delicious and nice to catch up with everyone. We met with a former investigator that day too and made him a new again! We are hoping things will work out this time seeing as how we don't exactly know what went wrong the time before. He just kind of disappeared on us! So we met with him again and things went well. We are just hoping that the same thing doesn't happen again! That night we went to dinner at a member's home that we never usually see. Sister Cranston. Remember she's the single mom whose son and girlfriend we taught that one time? It was such a great time to get to know her and it was really fun! WE are definitely gaining the trust of the members here in East Kilbride! Things are progressing well.

Ok, now this is where things get sad. As you might of known, we were expected to have a baptism this week. Well we didn't. Unfortunately, when we were to have our lesson with him on Wednesday he didn't exactly show up ready for his baptism the next day. I really can't go in to detail but we said we'd see him tomorrow and that we'd discuss a game plan then. We want him to be the MOST prepared he can for this sacred covenant and he just wasn't ready at this time. I may sound ok and composed now but I can't even tell you how devastated I was. I was so glad Sister Peterson and Sister Buchanan were there to give me support when I was falling apart! We phoned Bishop and he was so great about everything and said that we'd all meet together the next night to figure things out. I phoned up President and he made me feel way better. He really helped me put things into perspective for me and realize that it was not the end of the world but that there is still hope and not to become discouraged because this has happened but determined. That REALLY helped. Needless to say I felt a lot better after those calls. I guess a lot of why I was upset was because of trivial reasons like it being the day before his baptism and us having to tell the entire ward that the baptism has been postponed and have to deal with all the questions and raised eyebrows. But in the end it didn't really matter at all about those things. And I'm glad I was able to see that eventually. I am doing much better now and I am very hopefully about the future! We discussed with Bishop and I.S. and figure that a good date to work toward baptism would be August 11. So keep praying! I'm just so glad this work isn't all left up to me because if it were I would mess everything up! President Griffiths said something that really struck me as well, he said, "You need to remember that this is the Lord's work." When you remember that then you aren't too concerned about the social things. This isn't about me (I'm repeatedly learning this lesson!) this work is so much BIGGER than me. And thank goodness it is. I'm glad I have the help of the ward members, Bishop, fellow missionaries, and President. And especially the help of Heavenly Father and my Savior. With all that help, support and love, how can we fail? It was a hard but helpful learning experience.

Sunday was such a good day! Sister Peterson gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting about trusting in the Lord. And Brother I.S. was there! After church we had the best lesson with Brother I.S.! It was centered on the restoration, specifically focused on Joseph's prayer. We all learned so much and we were able to help I.S. relate it back to him. He's really getting things now and we are so happy about his speedy progression! He is doing so well! We also had a lesson with him on the Book of Mormon and what exactly it is and what we can learn from it. That was a good one too! Honestly, there is nothing better than a really good lesson! And last night as well we went chapping and everyone on the street was rather rude and just not interested. And what do you know but the very last door on that street we met Karen. She has a little family and said we could come back and tell her more about our message! We set up an appointment with her for this upcoming week. I never thought I'd have "the last house on the street" story ha-ha, pretty neat that we did :)

But anyways, today we are going to Loch Lomond again. Sister Peterson hasn't been so it'll be nice to see it again. And we will be having dinner with Sister Green out some place and the Family Home Evening! I LOVE Mondays! But I just want to say thank you and I love you all to bits for all you do for Rachie and I. We would NOT be here with out you!

Love Always, Sister Teresa Kullick