I LOVE being a missionary

TERESA - Hello Hello!!

OK, I can't even begin to tell you how AMAZING my week has been...but I'm going to attempt to try!! By the way mom, I received your package! Thank you! The LOOK bars are as delicious as I remembered! Ha ha

OK so I will start from the beginning that way you can see the turn of events in order! We had a lesson with Aoife on Tuesday. She has been progressing SO well up to this point! We taught her the law of tithing and she loved it! We did it in a really fun way too that I knew she would like. We said, "Since we love you so much we want to give you 10 sweeties." Then I placed them in her hands counting them as I went. Then I asked if I could get one back and without saying anything she handed one to me. Impressed, I told her thank you and because she did that I said I wanted to give her even more sweeties. So she held out her hands as we poured mini Mars bars out into her hands and they were spilling all over the place. Then we related it back to the Law of Tithing - Malachi 3:10:

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

She responded so well!! It was great :) We asked her what she thought about everything that we've taught her and she said that she believed everything (we've taught her all the lessons too) and that it all made sense, that she's prayed about it and that she knows it's true!! Oh my goodness!! We were so beyond excited to hear that from her! Then I said to her, "Aoife, remember when we first taught you? And we asked that when you knew what we are teaching you was true, that would you be baptized?" She smiled and said, "Yeah." Then I responded, "Well, what do you think?" and she then said, "Physically and spiritually, I have NO problems with it at all. But there's this mental barrier in my mind that just freaks out by the thought of it. I really can't explain it because I have no idea what I mean either." She went on to say that she was really angry when her mom and her brother were baptized and that maybe she's subconsciously been building up this little wall without her knowing. Although she's not mad anymore and loves the church she may have created a mental block. Now this was a tough one. We asked her to pray for help to get over that and to even pray about a date to be baptized. She said she would and then we went away happy. But immediately when we got out of there Sister Weight and I both had the impression that we needed to fast for her ASAP. Sister Weight then said, "We can start right now!" So we did! We started our fast on a bus to the city! It was excellent!

OK now onto the next...We have been teaching Sean (8yrs) with his mom there this past week and not only has it been good for him but also for Brenda! We were teaching him from the nursery manual and Sean has been improving so much! I'm not going to lie, we've seen a drastic change with him since we've started teaching him and the gospel has been in there life. We even had the Primary President come out teaching with us to see him and talk to him and his mom about Primary! It was so nice. It's so wonderful when you can get the ward members out with you, it just adds a different spirit there you know?

Then we saw Aoife again and taught her about baptism and confirmation and we did another neat visual the she also loved! We had two bowls filled with water. One had pepper in it and the other was clear. We had her dip her finger in the pepper one and told her that was her in the world, how a lot of the time we get stained with those bad things and sins. But when you get baptized (we had her dip her finger in the clean bowl) then you get clean from all the sins and bad things of the world. And when you receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost (we put dish soap all over her finger and dipped it into the world) then you are protected from those evil influences. As she dipped her protected finger in, all the pepper dispersed from her finger and she came out clean. It was SOO neat! What great object lessons huh? We never told her we fasted and we talked about her feelings on everything. There was still no change as far as we could tell, even though she knows it's all true and when she even defends the church when others try to bash it. But she said she'd come to Brenda and Sean's baptism (first one she'll ever attend) so we were happy about that. But I'm not going to lie; I kind of went away thinking that the fasting didn't do much to help.

Day of BAPTISM!! It was amazingly wonderful! Everything went according to plan and all smoothly too! Out Ward Mission Leader, Brother Brophy took care of everything :) He's a member of the YSA as well and has been helping fellowship Aoife and they've become good pals! But anyway, I was asked to give a talk on Baptism, Confirmation, and Enduring to the End and that went well, I really just talked to Brenda and Sean as everyone listened haha. But it was great!! And then after as everyone was eating, Brother Brophy said that he was going to talk to Aoife about setting a date for baptism! (Because we hadn't gotten anywhere with that so far) As they were gone I felt I should talk to Aoife's mom. I pulled Mary Burke aside and I asked her if Aoife had spoken to her about the lessons we've had with her and she said she'd only gotten bits and pieces. Here's the thing, Mary is REALLY big on not pushing any of her children into the church so she really takes a back seat to it all. So I took the time right then to tell her everything. I told her that Aoife knows the church is true and wants to be baptized but isn't sure when. When I was talking to her about it, Mary's eyes started to tear up. She told me that she NEVER thought she would see the day. She said if I had only known Aoife before then I would know how big of a deal this is and how impossible this seemed for her to believe that it was actually happening. Then to my utter surprise Aoife comes running back in and excitedly says to her mom, "How would you feel if I got baptized on the 12 of November?" I can't even tell you how happy I was!!!!! I couldn't hold it in!! And Mary was in complete shock! She said that that was around the same time she had gotten baptized 5 years ago, around the 12 of November! Can you believe this?! Ever since we started teaching her I always thought to myself that I would be the happiest if I were able to see her baptized!!! And now it's happening! I told Aoife that was right before I leave and we both got a little emotional, haha, and I just couldn't stop hugging her!!

Fasting works people, it really does. Now I'm not saying that that's what did it but it certainly helped!! This family has changed forever. And it further proved to me that people can change. Even if it seems impossible it IS possible. So this week was far beyond amazing! I LOVE being a missionary!! Nothing is better than this. And the gospel is completely true! I love this!

Thank you for Everything!! Rach and I appreciate you and love you!

Love Always, Sister Teresa Kullick