Sister Caroline Richards: Week 43: It was ME!

Sup Fam!

This week was so rainy but so hot and full of so many fall throughs, but so many miracles. It was just a crazy week! As for pranks, it was our District Leader's birthday and he thought we made him a vanilla cake, but in all actuality I just poured a bottle of vanilla in a pot of sadza and covered in with chocolate frosting. Hahah it was awesome. The video of him taking his first bite is pretty great, too. But there was a real cake for him too so he wasn't mad for too long.

This week we did a lot and a lot of service! Because we faced a lot of fall throughs, we resulted in doing service for everyone. We plowed fields of chibage (Mom I am so sorry for not helping weed more, but it is hard work), made dinners of sadza and veggies, started fires, and much more. It was awesome! Fall throughs reallllly kill the cheerful vibe of missionary work, but service picks it right back up. I was amazed by how much more love I felt for the people of Epworth, and came home every night feeling happy even though we had only seen three people the whole day. Service is AMAZING. I hadn't really realized the impact until this week, but it really worked miracles.

So Brother Edward is a really hysterical old man that we're teaching right now who CANNOT wait for baptism. Oh my gosh he's like a child waiting for Christmas! He had had some negative experiences with his prior churches requiring money for everything they did. So as we taught him about the Book of Mormon, he looked at us and said, "alright, how much do I need to pay for this?" and we told him it was free. I thought he was going to DIE. He was so overjoyed! "This book! For me? You are giving this book to me?" he started laughing and clapping his hands! We read through the introduction and taught him about the importance of gaining a testimony and at the end he opened up the Book of Mormon and just GRINNED. "I cannot wait to read this book." Wow. It was such a nice reminder to me about how special the Book of Mormon is. Every day we go to read it we should have the same attitude as Edward and say, "I cannot wait to read this Book!" Edward is also reallly good at giving referrals. He said, "sisters, so many of my friends are going to come to the church and the church is going to be full and everyone is going to be saying 'who are you? who invited you' and I'll just stand up and say (with the biggest smile on his face) 'it was ME!'" Hahaha the guy's a hoot.

Bro Lancelot got baptized this week and it was the greatest thing ever! He was a referral from a member and was just a golden investigator looking for the truth. After his baptism, he bore one of the most powerful testimonies I've ever heard. He has such a firm knowledge of the Book of Mormon and the Prophet Joseph, and it was just incredible to hear him. We're also teaching the son of a less active named Blessing, and he got up and bore his testimony in sacrament meeting and it was the cutest thing! He's only 12 and we've only taught him a couple times, but he bore testimony of the reality of the Holy Ghost and the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I wish all the twelve year olds in the world were like Blessing Dipura.

Missionary work is the best thing EVER! Have a great week and ENJOY THE SNOW.

Love, Sister Richards