Happy Valentines!!!!!

Love is in the Air and so is an ice storm. It’s a beautiful valentines day with every glistening tree branch covered in ice. I love you all. Thursday afternoon, we met with Laura, & her roommate, Darbey at the top of Muse hall, a 14-story dorm at Radford University. There we gave them manicures, and shared the wonderful message of the Restoration! A message that never gets old, because you can learn something new every time you share it! It is the best!That evening we ran into an unplanned service opportunity on our way out of our dinner appointment. We nearly passed it up, as we were on the move to get to the church for our regular Muay Thai class. Instead, we parked, and headed for the last of the groceries left in the minivan. It wasn’t much, but inside awaited a huge family! The hardest part was stopping to help. We have found that doing the harder thing is usually the better thing.

A highlight for Friday was meeting up with Jerry & Peggy Waddell, a couple that has been meeting with the missionaries for about two years. We invited them to join our army, the Army of God.;)Saturday was a special day, because we taught Samson and Zack again! It went really well, and of course they are also praying about baptism! Since Friday was Zack’s birthday, we brought along a birthday card that said, “We hope your birthday is the bomb! Emphasizing ‘bomb’- in which we added Book of Mormon Baby! Not only that, but we also included a little stick figure drawing of a kid doing a canon ball into the water! Hopefully, they caught on, & will both be fully submerging into the living waters soon. We have been meeting up at the Radford City Library, which is excellent because it’s somewhat quiet, and there are opportunities for referrals. One man listened to the whole lesson on Saturday, and just happened to be there again when we showed for our next appointment, Monday. Monday fell through with Zack and Samson, and there we were waiting. We ended up visiting with the man, (yes that one, dear Mr. Rowell) from Saturday. It turns out his sister is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and is currently residing in PRO-VO, Utah. He is in the Elders area.

The Sabbath was wonderful. Well as usual in the beginning we pray and stress about our investigators being there. Laura was sick again and went home to Richmond which is not in our mission and wasn’t able to make it to the new singles ward that we wanted her to get acquainted with, but it’s all good. The talks given were on the Sabbath and magnifying your calling. They speakers were inspired and our less active crew was very impressed to push forward. Summer Evans a young adult even showed up for the first time since I have been here. We know that the spirit had directed her to do so but the heart-a-tack that we left on her door for Valentines might of help. But who knows? Sometimes you have to do the harder thing cause it’s the best thing. We are rebels and skipped out on Sunday school. …to help a Sister, she is struggling with her non member husband that doesn’t even want to spend this life with her, a teenager granddaughter, and a daughter that is going through a divorce and dating a non member, that’s not allowing her to keep her commitments to the lord. That night we went over the ward list to make sure we knew of everyone. We had a couple people with only P.O.Box’s, Brother fisher explain how he went up to one of them and no one was home. We all pictured this grown man at the Post office knocking on P.O.Box 92 to see if anyone was home. We gave him a hard time about that one. He thought it was pretty funny as well.

We also stopped and talked to a young lady named Ashley at the Library, because we saw an unplanned service opportunity to help her stuff envelopes. It turns out she was just about finished, and she was sending out a little something for all forty something Churches in the area to put on their bulletins. We invited her to church, and she seemed excited about coming this Sunday."

We have an investigator Sean that received a BOM a while ago from us that we haven’t been able to get a hold of. We sought to find him at Wal-Mart where he works. We pulled up and what do you know there he is pushing the carts. We honked and to say hello. Sean apologized for not getting back to us because he dropped his phone in the toilet but then introduced us to his friend/ co-worker Devin Stanley. We made them sign their lives away with pen in our planner to meet with them. We also invited them to church. Devin said he would come and seem impressed. Sean said he would come next week and then invited us to go to a party with him. Sadly we declined the party. We found out that Devin just took the spot of Emmett (who came home to months shy of completing his mission to live with his girlfriend) What a blessing to have him move in the same apartment with the less active son of the bishop’s and a former investigator (Kevin). We know that we were suppose to meet Devin and he was suppose to take the spot of Emmett. Now Mike can grow stronger and Devin can help him by learning together. Devin was into the restoration and wanted to know more. He was excited to finally have some questions answered that he didn’t even bring up. He told us he felt good about everything and could see radiance about us. He explained how he doesn’t see the same morally as his friends do. We meet with Devin again and Mike had been encouraging him. Devin told us that he feels right about meeting with us and is intrigued about everything new. He kept saying, “A lot of decisions have to be made.” And he is exactly right we just pray that Devin will truly study and desire it out on his own and Mike can be a good example. We also stopped and talked to a young lady named Ashley at the Library, because we saw an unplanned service opportunity to help her stuff envelopes. It turns out she was just about finished, and she was sending out a little something for all forty something Churches in the area to put on their bulletins. We invited her to church, and she seemed excited about coming this Sunday.

There’s not going to be a lot of hot shower but it will all work out. Sad to say but our amazing District leader is leaving. Can’t wait to welcome sister Young into such a wonderful place at such a loving time of year. This Valentines show the pure love of Christ, which is charity. I love you all. Happy Valentines!!!Mom: Thanks so much for the package that was so loveing of you!!!Parents:I bet it feels so empty in that big old house of your now that all the kids are gone. But i know that you will love working in the Temple it will bring happiness into the home with out the smell clothes all over.Other:It was also great to hear from Elder Barrand he is amazing already!!Love Sister Barrand"