TERESA - Hiya family!
That's so great Kelly's getting married!! When did she start dating this guy? Too bad for Jeremy, I guess it wasn't meant to be! That's so wonderful; tell her congrats for me :)
Ok, so this week has been SO great - full of little miracles and such fun missionary work!
Sister Weight and I went out QGCing one day and we hit a high goal of 22/4 potentials! It was so great :) And let me tell you that is very good for Ireland standard for one day! So that got us totally pumped up for the week ahead of us.
Thursdays are ALWAYS busy here in Dublin! Sister Weight and I had WPS and then we had dinner at the Burkes (Aoife, our investigator's family) and it was really great! You can see that family getting closer and closer as Aoife has been learning more and more about the Gospel! I can't even tell you how amazing it's been to teach her! Plus, she's been off cigarettes for 4 days now and that a huge accomplishment for her!! She was such a heavy smoker and she really wants to stop! And we also taught her about the 10 commandments and she LOVED it! She kept saying throughout the lesson, "Whoa, I've never realized that before." or, "Are you serious? Man, I've got some changing to do." It was AMAZING! I love this girl so much I know I'm going to cry when I leave! It has been an excellent opportunity to see a person literally change before your eyes! She said she adored General Conference and wants to follow them. Honestly guys, when I first got here she hated the missionaries and had NO interest at all to learn! Now, she's progressing and changing in the gospel so fast! We are teaching her tonight and I really can't wait for that :)
We taught Vito again, the Italian man, and he is really enjoying the lessons. He's gone to Italy for a week so we'll tell you more about how things go with him when he returns. He thought it interesting that we view the Fall as a good thing and he said that it made sense! So things are looking really swell there. Oh and we dropped Kevin, another investigator, because he's got some serious issues that he needs to sort out first. I hope he gets the help he needs.
But let me tell you it has been busy busy busy! We have been working a whole lot with Brenda Blackmoore, our investigator with a baptismal date for the 22nd! She is doing SO excellently! She hasn't had one cup of tea since we've taught her the Word of Wisdom! She came to church on Sunday and loved it. She said she loved being apart of something :) Also, her son Shawn, who's 8 yrs, went to Primary and LOVED it! It was a little different because they are preparing for the Primary Presentation. Since we wanted Brenda to be in the classes and Shawn was a little hesitant to be with out mom, we went on splits for the day with our Ward Mission Leader's permission. So I was with Shawn in Primary with Sister Hancock (a senior Sister) and Sister Weight was with Brenda and a member! It worked out wonderfully! And they both enjoyed it very much. We taught her the Law of Chastity and the Law of Tithing and she responded so well to those too! In fact, when we taught her, she was excited to pay tithing and out of the blue Shawn said he wanted to pay tithing too! It was so neat. Brenda asked Shawn if he wanted to get baptized into the same church as mommy and he said yes! Brenda was so happy to hear that! (She didn't want to push him at all) So we will be teaching Shawn the lessons and he's scheduled to be baptized on the 29th of this month! A week after Brenda's! I am SOOOO excited! A little family! I feel so blessed to be here in Dublin and apart of their conversion! Also we've been working with Patti Green, Mary's less-active sister and friend of Brenda's, and she came to church on Sunday! That is a huge stride for her! She talked with Bishop and he told her that she could get to the temple if she continues to come to church. She was bursting about it! What great experiences!
And Sunday was wonderful for a whole bunch of reasons! We went over to the Hancocks, The Senior missionary couple, for dinner ant it was their Canadian Thanksgiving! We had quit the feast and it was nice to tell each other what we were thankful for. I went first and narrowed it down to 4 things:
1. The Gospel
2. My family
3. Rachel (I know she's in the family bit but I love her so much and am so grateful for her that I counted her twice!!)
4. Being on a mission in the Scotland/Ireland Mission
It was so nice to go around and share that! It was a good Canadian Thanksgiving! Haha
We visited a member family, The Aliphons, and they are SO great! We had so much fun with them teaching them about the Plan of Salvation. And we were all excited to set up another appointment! Plus, Victoria wants to be baptized (the youngest one who just turned 8) so we will work with them on that too!
But I want to share with you an experience I had after church that was really special. So remember the Troy's? With the RM son, Kelvin Jr. and the Irish mom who taught me how to make French fries and the American dad? They are one of the BEST member families in the ward! And they even have daughters away to school at the moment and they always say that I remind them of one of them! I love it! Well, the dad, Kelvin Troy Sr. is one of my favorite people. He is so enthusiastic! My companion and I were talking with him after church for a bit. And by the way, he kind of struggles in the Gospel sometimes. He told us how he loves the church but how he has some problems with a few things - one being tithing. He said that if the family is the most important thing then you need to look after them first and make sure you get the bills paid and all that. And he didn't see how paying tithing could really help with being able to pay his bills. OK, just so you know, I have a STRONG testimony in the principle of tithing specifically! So I was so happy to talk to him about it! I told him about my dad. I told him how he had been unemployed for years and years with a few sporadic jobs in between. But that basically we weren't getting that much income and we were struggling. But I told him that my parents had ALWAYS decided that they were going to keep God's commandments and were going to pay a full, honest tithe on whatever they had. I told him that we saw miracles from that and that I never went without. We were always taken care of by our Heavenly Father because we proved to Him that He was more important than material things or money and that we would trust in Him over anything else. I told him how grateful I was to have a dad that set that example for me. That because of that, I will NEVER not pay my Tithing because I know that it is real and that it works. After that Brother Kelvin Troy Sr. looked at me sincerely and said, "Really Sister?" and I said, "Yes, I know that paying your Tithing will ONLY help you." He looked at me again and said very determined, "Sister, alright, I'm going to start paying my Tithing." It was such a miracle! He said that if it worked for my dad then it could work for him and that he would give it a shot. I am so happy! I am so happy that I was able to help someone through my parents' trials and experiences. So I'm telling you this dad, those trials were blessings in disguise for me. Thank you for helping me gain that testimony!
I LOVE it here. I love my mission. And I love you all. Thank you for loving Rach and I. We couldn't have done this without you.
Love Always, Sister Teresa Kullick
P.S. Dad I know your story would really help him. Would you mind sending me your complete experience over email so I can give it to him to read? I know he would LOVE that. Thank you :)

