Sister Rebecca Formica

Kia ora guys!

And guess what?  This week I did a much better job at writing in my journal!  Aka I wrote in it!  Twice!  I have five million entries that I start and then fall asleep, so it has like one or two sentences and then a bunch of scribbles.  I'm officially fired.

So one of our investigators, Isaiah, pretty much dropped off the grid this week.  He told us he was coming to church, and then he didn't come, but texted us afterwards that a lot of family issues had come up from the past, and it sounded really intense.  Then he didn't reply for a week, and in the middle of emails today he texted us and said that he needed to get away.  We went outside to call him and so my email is probably going to be a bit shortish today.  Sorry!  Reread last week's email ha.  Not too many exciting things happened this week.

Blonde moment for the week that I am going to put down to following the spirit...we were going to invite this family to have family home evening with this amazing family that I love so much, but before we were going there to invite them, we had a lesson with a different less active family who live just a couple houses down from the 1st family.  So we go in and I say, "Oh, before I forget, we wanted to invite you guys to a family home evening....." So I invited the wrong family to the lesson.  When we got in the car we were laughing soo hard.  I swear, we were laughing all week at stuff, I just don't remember why.  No worries, if I did remember, and tried to tell you I'd just butcher it like I did with this story haha. (Good news from the "blonde moment" - the family said yes and Sister Formica and Sister Va'ai were headed to have a family home evening with them the day she wrote!)

So we had a lesson with Matthew, the drunk man that we met last Sunday. He was very straight up with us that "the whole God and praying thing isn't really him." But that he really wants to change his life, and wants to participate in activities with people like ourselves who don't drink at all. We had a pretty good discussion with him anyway, the member who was with us was able to share her conversion story--she used to drink and smoke, etc., so that was also really good for him to hear. We gave him the plan of salvation pamphlet and invited him to our ward activity that night. He was hesitant to come, and said that he needed a little more time, but he would come to the next activity, but not church ha. 

 Heavenly Father's timing never ceases to amaze me. He led us to Matthew on the night that really shook him up and made him want to change...it was kind of his last straw. I feel so strongly that he will accept the gospel and truly become converted unto the Lord. I don't feel like it will take that long either, but that doesn't matter anyway, and that's up to Heavenly Father and Matthew. All we can do we is guide and help him.

I love the atonement!!  Anyone can change at any time--no matter how we may feel about ourselves, Heavenly Father loves each one of us and He never gives up on us.  It's never too late.

So we got a referral Saturday night like 30 minutes before our ward activity--a movie night watching Meet the Mormons!!  We already were going to see someone as a little last minute encouragement to go when we called Sister Escher, and so we were running late to the movie already, but as we were driving, we felt like we needed to go contact this man. So... we went to see him, and were so happy that we listened to Heavenly Father.  Bill lives with his wife who has an incurable disease.  We taught him briefly and were able to share the Book of Mormon with him, but it was so powerful, and he is the sweetest man and desperately needs the gospel and Heavenly Father's comfort at this time.  Afterwards we went and caught the last half of the movie (he and his wife couldn't come), but it was a powerful reminder to me that at all times I need to turn outward and focus on helping others like the Saviour does. It's so easy to get caught up in what I want or how I feel. (Rebecca and I are similar in a few ways -- one way is that we both like to see the whole entire movie.  I don't like someone to "catch me up" when I miss the first five minutes.  I am guessing she felt the same way about "Meet the Mormons", but followed the Spirit anyway.  Gotta love her!)

P.S. I absolutely love the movie Meet the Mormons.  If you haven't seen it, go watch it! 

Oh, this week I found a letter that I wrote at the very beginning of my mission...two days into the MTC...(sorry Brad) and I wrote that I had already lost my card (which is the key to literally everything in the MTC) TWICE and that I was learning that being a missionary didn't make me more organized or less likely to lose things...9 months later...exactly the same.  Don't worry, I still have a long time to learn :)  My poor companions.  I'm a mess.  Actually, lucky them, they get to learn patience haha. 

Anyways, have a wonderful week everyone!!  Love ya!

Love,

Sister Formica