On Tuesday we went to Okmulgee, it's about 30 minutes away and we go twice a week (yikes, it's hard on miles), we're so busy whenever we go there! There are so many people to see! We have a couple of investigators up there. One of them, ---, grew up in Sister M's hometown! What? Teeny tiny Jerome, Idaho! --- is married to a member and has been meeting with missionaries for years, he said that God must be getting pretty serious to send a missionary from his home town!
Wednesday marked my 9 month mark, not my hump day though. It has been 9 months since I entered the field, but It's not 9 months until I go home until the 30th. So ha. Still, 9 months is a pretty big deal! Sister Shumway was in district meetings and she talked a lot about temples and how that needed to be the end goal for our investigators. Sister M and I have been trying to focus on that more.
Thursday was weekly planning, which took FOREVER! Our area book was crazy. There were less-actives that we see regularly who were in the middle of the Recent Converts and Less-Actives section, as were our recent converts, there were records of people who have moved, and people who have passed away! We needed to clean it out and organize it. We went through and put a sticky note on all of our recent converts and less active that we wanted to get to the temple, obviously we want all of them to get there, but for some of them we just really want to focus on getting them to church first! Fortunately, it had been bothering Sister M too, so we were able to fix it, we also got some really good planning done, which was great! The thing about weekly planning is, if it's done well then it reduces so much stress and nightly planning time through the rest of the week!
Friday was another Okmulgee day. We had dinner with a Recent Convert and his wife, the ---, they're newly married and pretty adorable. They are really cool, I like them a lot, they're just fun to be around.
On Saturday there was a ward activity. It was a pasta sauce cook off! It was a lot of fun! A lot of people showed up! Yay!
Sunday was kind of crazy. While we were teaching a family (on their porch), this kid pulled up to get a tire from them (I don't know, Oklahoma...), and he looked almost exactly like Tanner, that's right! I saw my brother's doppelganger!! I was kind of freaking out (not loud enough that he could hear...). When he left Sister M asked the family if they knew where he lived, but they didn't. I was a little bummed because I felt like we needed to teach him. Later, we were driving around, trying to find a member's house, and guess who we drove right by. TANNER 2.0!!! What? Crazy stuff right? So we went around the corner and pulled over so we could talk to him. They (he and some other people) were fixing the tire, so they were a little distracted, but we were able to give them a Book of Mormon, and you can bet we'll be going back. The craziest part of this story is that it's all true! I'm not making any of this up! What???
This has been a great week, it's been so temple focused! I am so grateful that we have temples! It is amazing to me to know that our Heavenly Father has provided a way for us to be sealed to our families for eternity!!! "In the Church we build buildings of many kinds. In them we worship, we teach, we find recreation, we organize. We can organize stakes and wards and missions and quorums and Relief Societies in these buildings or even in rented halls. But, when we organize families, according to the order that the Lord has revealed, we organize them in the temples. Temple marriage, that sealing ordinance, is a crowning blessing that you may claim in the holy temple." (Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple, (2002), 1)
I love you all so much and hope you have a splendiforus, magnificent week!
Love,
Sister Fleck ♥
