Sister Fluegel: Dreams do come true in St. Louis February 13th 2017

SO. This week was hard, and worth it.

Sister Bustillos and I are in a lot of ways starting from scratch in this area. The Arnold/Imperial area of Crystal City that we cover is home to almost 30,000 people, and there are roughly five active LDS member families who live in it. Amanda, our one and only investigator...at the start of this week, that is...doesn't even live in our area! She lives where the Elders serve, but wanted to be taught by sisters.

Anyways, with that in mind, there are no shortage of doors to knock on. A long range of "no thank yous," to "I'm Catholic/Baptist," a very few "Come back laters!" and then there are the fun times like talking to bible-bashers or when a lady told us if we ever came back on her property she'd sic her two rabid dogs on us. Lots of fun.

Then there are those few, crazy times the Lord blesses us. This week Sister Bustillos and I made a goal to find four new investigators, and Saturday night we practically ran into an older couple that had met with missionaries before and said yes to meeting this week again. THEN last night Sister Bustillos and I were going out strong, using our last two hours of proselyting time to keep knocking, and we met two amazing people. One of them was Steve, who we had a short lesson with and he asked if we could come back and teach with his whole family there this Wednesday.

The other we met was Amy, and it was an amazing experience. She told us she really needed direction in her life right now, and let us in. We only taught about half of the Restoration lesson before she broke down crying and explained that she was trying to divorce her husband and that morning he'd beaten her. She told us God had sent her two angels, the very night she needed it, and that she really needed a family right now. She's coming to church on Sunday and we will be seeing her twice this week! I only got to know her for about 30 minutes, but I could feel Heavenly Father's love for her. I knew we had been an answer to her prayers, and she'd been an answer to ours. It's amazing how the Lord is watching out for all of his children, and uses us as tools to bless each other. The whole week of rejection was worth Amy telling us: "Thank you for knocking, I'm sure you knock on a thousand doors, but just remember there's someone like me who needs you."

Thirty minutes left, and the Lord answered our prayers. This week will be a lot more teaching, and I'm so excited for it.

Meanwhile, the teaching we did do was so great! Sister Bustillos and I taught the Restoration to a few member families and not only did it help us learn how to teach together, it inspired those families to invite people to this upcoming Sunday service! It's called "Come and See," geared towards people who've never been to church before. Our ward is really trying to pick up the pace when it comes to missionary work, and I feel so blessed to be here.

Amanda recommitted to her baptism date, and is so open and willing to learn. She has such strong faith in this gospel, the commandments and lessons we've given her since she acts like she's just been waiting to live them! She told us how blessed her life feels, and how good she feels inside about herself and everyone around her. We are so lucky to learn from her as well.

That about sums up my week. Other random things: people have some cool mailboxes out here; the sunsets are still amazing; it's been 70 degrees!! TWICE!; Sister Bustillos has cool neat handwriting; we both share a love for Ryan Gosling and Mormon memes; my hair has been reintroduced to humidity and Sister Bustillos is a little frightened by it; she got so much Valentines Candy this week we gave half of it to Elder Cardiff and Durrant, the elders we share the ward with, and we STILL have way too much; I saw the Mississippi for the first time in a while, it was gorgeous and it's right along our borders; The MSLM (Missouri St Louis Mission) has a legacy of original rap songs that we listen to during p-day, and I found that crazily enough, you can feel the Spirit listening to a rap!!

Signing out,

Sister Fluegel