Ever Onward 3: May 13th 2013 Maren

Hey everyone!

Long time no... wait... not really! Haha! It was so unbelievably good to talk to you all yesterday! I can't believe how deep Caleb's voice is (and Isaac's too)... and I realized something... the family is a lot smaller since three of us are on missions. Haha. I got done talking to each of you and was like "Okay! who's next?!"... but that was it. Weird!

Well here is an excerpt from my president's letter about two small miracles that happened this week:

"First, we got a new phone on Tuesday and got a new number... So we had to send out a mass text to everyone telling them our new number. Amazingly a less active that we have been trying to contact since I got here texted us back and invited us over. We were so excited! We went to meet her and she is an amazing lady. We were very bold in what our purpose is and really set the stage for our future visits. The next time we went back we had an amazing lesson and were able to testify that we were an answer to her prayer and that now was the time for her to change and come back to church. She is scared but she is ready, she has been prepared and now is her time.... And it's all because we got a new phone! God works in amazing ways.

Then we met with an "investigator"... That is in quotes because honestly it was a very loose interpretation of the word. She had a baby two months ago and the branch really stepped in and helped her because she literally didn't have anything for this baby... Now I think she has too much. Anyways, our goal was to find out if she was interested, ideally by extending a baptism invitation. But, the lesson we were teaching was the plan of salvation and only the very first part at that... So we weren't quite sure how we were going to incorporate this invitation into the lesson. Sister peacock said "it's okay... God will provide the window." Of course she was right. In fact we didn't even extend the invitation, towards the end she said that she wanted to be baptized but there were all these things that are preventing it from happening immediately, like getting divorced so she can then get married... But again, we were able to be bold and committed her to start working on those things so that she could prepare to be baptized. We also committed her to make it to the first hour of church and she did! You should have seen our smiles! I'm sure we were beaming.

O family. I really do love being on a misison. There is no other time in your life that you can live like this. Sun-up to sun-down focusing on others (if you are doing it right) and preaching the gospel. No other time in your life can you watch people change like this. Its like they wake-up spiritually. We were promised before we came to this earth that we would be able to recognize these truths when they were taught to us and I can testify that its true. We aren't teaching people anything new we're just helping them remember what they forgot.

Saying goodbye to sister Madsen tomorrow is going to be hard. I never thought that I could grow to love someone so much who is so completely different than me. I think I could talk to her for hours and hours about any topic and we would never get bored. She has taught me so much about being a missionary and how to work hard and by the spirit. Sometimes she starts teaching and I just marvel and how these concepts roll off her tounge and make so much more sense than whatever complicated words I was using. She is a good missionary. Its been hard to see her come to the end of her time out here, not that she's trunky its just, you can tell the conflict that is going on inside... Someday I am going to have to go through that and its going to be hard. Probably one of the hardest things I have ever done.

And then we will be picking up another companion while we are at transfer meeting. That is going to be crazy. You definately never get comfortable on a mission, I don't know if its God or our mission president but one or both of them like to keep us on our toes. Our area is going to be so young! (in mission age i mean) I am the second oldest and the only one older than me is only 1 transfer older. Miracles are going to happen with all this greenie faith.

Sorry this is short today. But I talked to you all yesterday... there isn't a whole lot more to say.

I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Maren Hale

P.S. thanks for the cookies in advance! :D I'm so excited!