"This week for me was a really good one with a lot of miracles and success and fun :) We had a great start to the week by setting a date with that guy Chris who was my birthday miracle from last week and we set his date for the 21st of September so that is this week!! We have been meeting with him a lot just to make sure he is ready. The faith this guy has and the trust he has in the lord is incredible because he has been smoking and so we told him he has to quit now if he wants to get to that date and he stopped no questions asked. He really understands how important this is going to be for him in his life and he's ready to make that step we just have to be on him like a hawk this week to make sure he doesn't smoke. I got to give him a blessing for it and he said he could feel the difference so that was way cool for me. On the 10th,Joshs birthday, I had my fake birthday party at Mama Sheps house :) It was great we had fried chicken, mac and cheese, mash potatoes, corn bread, greens it was soo good :) then for desert we had peach pie! it was great! The Sister Missionaries got me a card and it was by far the best card I have ever received. It was Sister Huppi in a card and it said "Huppi Birthday" it was funny you can hopefully see what I mean from the picture. But it was cool because we had a miracle for that dinner as well. The sisters before coming into dinner contacted this young black guy on his way home and I ran out to meet the guy and then invited him to my birthday dinner. He ended up coming and we had a great time. Then after we got to teach him and it was a super powerful lesson and you could tell he was understanding it too. As I talked about the first vision he started to tear up, the spirit in the room was just so powerful and I gained an even stronger testimony of the first vision and the power that comes with it.
Oh by the way I had a great spiritual boost this week that was really inspired from our Father in Heaven. I was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting this week, which was wierd because I have already spoken twice in this branch and I thought they would have had E. Fracncis speak because he is still new to the branch but they asked me to talk on the things on my mission that I have gained that would bless and help me spiritually when I get home. When I first started thinking about it I was thinking about a lot of different experiences that I could use but there was no direction to it. Then after praying for some guidance I was looking through one of my folders and saw those clip outs that you sent me in the pioneer day package about "10 things that a missionary should take home" by Gordon B Hinckley and it was perfect!! It was exactly what the branch needed to hear because they wanted me to remind the RMs in the room of things they could do to maintain their spirituality and things like that. But other than that it boosted my testimony and relieved some fears of going home. I then realized that I had gained all the things on the list and really applied them to myself, and it gave me comfort about going home. It still freaks me out a lot about going home because I'm afraid of I guess losing all the things I have gained from my mission but because of this talk and the preparation for it I have realized things I can do to maintain the things I gained and to bless me in the continued progression I'm going to go through when I get home :) But ya It was great and im thankful for Gods continual guidance in my life :"
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| "Huppi Birthday" Elder Anderson! |