This week was AMAZING!!! We saw miracles and I'm feeling super happy these days! Sorry this is a NOVEL. And it's super all over the place. Sorry.
I WANT TO BE LIKE THEM WHEN I GROW UP: On Wednesday night the Parisi's invited us over for dinner. Well it was the best night ever and I'm obsessed with them. Brother Parisi was the previous Bishop and his testimony is unreal. They are from Italy and they are both converts, like everyone in the Weston ward. They got baptized after being married for about a year. So that's adorable and guess what else is adorable? They met when they were dancing. Yeah, they are ballroom dancers and they still dance every Friday night!! We got a special show after dinner and I didn't stop smiling for like 20 minuets. They did the Boogie for us and the music was so cute AND they were smiling the whole time at each other just dancing in their kitchen and AHHHHH I can't even describe it. It was perfect. Also, brother Parisi reminds me of Uncle Lynn and I love that! He's funny and sweet and just super lovable. A lot of times Brother Parisi is saying a joke and I can't understand him but I just laugh because he's laughing and it's contagious. Sister Parisi is a bomb cook and she's so helpful in the ward. She cried when we shared a lesson with her and it was so cute.
A LESSON WHERE WE COULDN'T TEACH: So I've taught people before that are pretty chatty but normally I am good to bring the conversation back to the gospel and keep it focused. Well on Friday night it was a complete fail! Our investigators name was Paul and he's crazy. We brought Staz with us, who is 19 and is a recent convert, so I felt bad that lesson wasn't spiritual but dang was it entertaining. We were teaching Restoration and it starts with God's love for his children. I asked him what blessings he's seen from God and he was like, "let me answer that questions with a story." The next 40 mins he told the story. It started with these three guys banging at his door at 2:30 AM pretending to be police man. Paul hid under his bed and the men ended up breaking a window and came in to search for him. They eventually came into the room Paul was in and lifted up the bed and found him. Paul started fighting with one by a window and they broke the window and both fell out. Paul landed on the other guys body so he was fine, I guess. Not sure if the other man died. But then the two other guys ran out and grabbed Paul and started stabbing him. He was acting this whole thing out and literally got sweaty at the end. THEN he pulled up his shirt to show us all of the marks... And he kinda pulled down his pants to show us the rest... Not all the way but it was awkward. But I guess before they stabbed him they put garlic on the knife so it wasn't painful until later or something. He's from Jamaica and when he was super into the story I was wondering if he was speaking in a different language. But anyways, he somehow got away and started running, leaving behind him a pathway of blood, and he started climbing a wall and he felt God lift him up. So that's where the blessing came in. It was pretty intense. Glad he's alive.
SPACEY FOR DAYZ: So I've always been a space case, right? I thought I would get better on my mission... but some things just don't ever change. I've lost our phone (the worst), but I've also lost 2 name tags. I think they just fall off or something. Not sure but that's bad. I hope people don't pick them up and are disrespectful or something. I have to call again and order more. I feel dumb. Another spacey moment. We were waiting for the elevator for about 4 mins the other morning we were getting super antsy and then realized none of us pushed the button... HAHA we're both super on top of it. I'm trying to be better at not being forgetful but man it's so hard!! A lot of times I realize we didn't call someone or something and I do the O'Brien gasp. Yeah, I'm turning into my Mom.
AWKWARD TEXT: "Hello sisters. How are u doing in the name of Jesus?" Uh not even sure what that means or if it's allowed but I don't like it. That's all.
CREEPER OF THE WEEK: Well one of them is actually in the ward. We went to get to know him and his parents a little bit a couple weeks ago. He and his dad are both gamers and kinda socially awkward. But on Sunday Sister Bott and I were sitting across from him while we were waiting to go into our meeting with Bishop and he legit starts taking pictures of us... It was so obvious. And the last one he took the flash went off. He felt awkward and then ran out of the room. Another creeper story happened on Sunday. We were walking to church and a car pulls over on the road and the man rolls down his window. He was like, "hey, want to come to church with me!?" And he had this super creepy smile with a diamond on his tooth? People are such gangsters here. But we were like, "no thanks, we're actually on our way to church." And he was like, "I'd really appreciate your company, are you sure you don't want to come?" Um, yeah...
SAY NO TO BEER: Denzel is doing so awesome and is getting better with the word of wisdom. The other day his friend came over and asked Denzel is he wanted to go with him to get a beer. Denzel said no and they he called us because he was so proud! It was a cute phone call! He also is going to talk to his boss to see if he can get Sundays off so he can come to church. He's totally changing and it's so cool to see. He's wanting to be baptized sometime in February, but hopefully we can move it up a little bit.
ELDER OAKS: He's coming this Saturday! I can't believe I haven't written about it yet. But I'm so excited! All of the missionaries are meeting with him in the morning!! And our recent converts and investigators have a meeting with him in the afternoon. I can't wait!!!!!
LONG PRAYERS + BEING TIRED = BAD: Our prayers are crazy long these days. We pray for our investigators, recent converts, less active members, family, each other and everyone else. So the other night I prayed and it was about 10 mins, but when I ended Sister Bott didn't say amen... She had totally fallen asleep!!! THEN the next morning I totally feel asleep during her prayer. I was trying to stay focused but I guess I didn't do a good job with that. I think I'm pretty energetic during the day so by the end I'm super tired. Ha we've been better the last couple days though so that's good.
DEE, CANDRA, & MARIO: Highlight of the week!!! OK I have such a strong testimony of God preparing people to hear and accept the Gospel. Dee, Dandra, and Mario were baptized yesterday after we met with them every single day this last week to teach them the rest of the lessons.
Monday-We took over substitute coffee stuff for Dee. She hadn't had coffee since we taught the Word of Wisdom which is crazy because she used to have about 5 cups a day!
Tuesday-We taught the law of tithing. Man, I was so nervous to teach it because that's where we lose a lot of investigators. But we fasted before the lesson and they were all so accepting of it. It was amazing, they were like, "this makes so much sense." And they all committed to live it.
Wednesday-We taught Law of Chastity. I was also nervous for this lesson. But again, it made sense to them and they committed to follow it. Dee had a couple questions about her past but we cleared it all up.
Thursday-We taught them 10 commandments and Sabbath Day. The lesson went well and we talked about their baptism on Sunday. They were all so giddy and excited about it, it was so cute.
Friday-We taught them about the Priesthood, and Follow the Prophet and reviewed the Restoration with them.
Saturday-We were with them for 5 hours... We went to their house around 3:30 and all walked over to the church together. I pushed the baby stroller and it was so fun! It kills me that I can never hold Noah. We got to the church at 4 where Passmores met us and brought us dinner! They are soooo nice! We ate Subway and then taught them about the temples! Our last lesson with them :)
Sunday-After sacrament meeting we went upstairs but so many of the ward members left, which made us so sad!!! It was 4:00 so a lot of people had hungry kids and stuff so they had to leave. But we kept on waiting for more people to come up. We started it a little late and President and Sister Clayton showed up!! We were so happy they came! The talks were amazing and they were so excited to be baptized. They wanted Elder Passmore baptism them so that's awesome. Dee was first. Her foot came up so she had to do it again. But she came out just so happy, couldn't stop smiling! Mario was next... His was scary! He went under the water, and I guess got nervous so he started kicking his legs and I guess opened his mouth. When we came up the first thing he said was, "I CAN'T BREATH." and then the next was, "I thought I was going to drown." So Mario has a really good memory of how he felt and everything else.... Candra was last. When she started going under she kept her legs straight. Like she was stiff as a board and Sister Bott and I are still laughing about it. She's so cute and was totally smiling and closing her eyes when she went down but it was such a struggle. It was our fault because we didn't tell her to bend her legs. But oh man, I'll never forget it!! And when she came up she was like, "oh, that was so beautiful!" While they were changing we had people write down notes for them with their testimonies in it. And we had a lady in our ward play prelude. We asked them on Friday if they would feel comfortable sharing their testimonies but they said that would be too scary and they didn't want to. But after the closing prayer Dee stood up and said thank you to everyone who came and supported them, she looked at us and said thank you to us and that we were her angels. Well, I totally started crying!! Then Kendra got up and said some really nice things that she had written down. She started crying so I started crying even more. Mario got up and said, is it time to eat the treats!? Ha I love him. Such a cute and funny eight year old. Well it was amazing and I feel so blessed that I was able to teach them the gospel and see the change that came to them as they started living it! I'm obsessed with them and hope we can be best friends forever!!! Candra asked us about going on a mission... I can totally see her going in a year!! :) She's amazing. They all are.
Love you all so much. The Gospel is true and I love sharing it!!!
Sister Dayton
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