Week 4 in Texas!

 I love seeing where she lives!

These next two pictures are from Emma's ward mission leader's wife. She is so good to these sisters. It brings me such comfort to know they have her to love and care for them.

Thank you soooo much for the package!! I love you so much and I love your handmedowns;) You guys are seriously the best. They all work really well!

This morning our fridge stopped working but on the bright side we get a new fridge!! That's why I'm writing a little late this week.

Dad, I love that Hazel still plays fetch with you!! That is the cutest! I hope that you will get an answer to move soon! Keep me posted. You could come out and visit Flower Mound or Highland Village, they're out of my area and still close. They seem like really nice. I was there for Zone Conference and I think mom could like them. Your allergies may die out here though, fair warning.

I love you too Andrew! Your cake was awesome and I love the Dodgers theme! Now you just gotta get your license!

YAY for new cousins! He's tiny compared to me and Andrew!

This is probably the happiest I've been. I'm pretty consistently happy but after lessons the amount of happiness is unreal. Like the spiritual high after lessons is honestly the best. 

So sad news... M. told us not to come and see her anymore... I was really sad but it will be okay, it just isn't her time yet. We will try and reach out to her again at some point but for now, we should obey her wishes. 

So transfers are Wednesday's every 6 weeks so the next one will be on your birthday momma! I'll have another transfer with Sister Park because the training takes 12 weeks. Apparently it's a trend in Denton to have the trainee start training immediately after so I will probably start training in June. That's crazy to think about so I don't really dwell on it. President likes to 'greenie train' so that will probably end up happening. We'll see for sure though!

Welcome home Nick, let him know I said that haha!

As always I wish I could respond to everything you wrote but I read it all and it's so fun to hear from home!

So this week went by really fast, I feel like it just blows on by without letting me slow it down. I've already been out in Texas longer than I was in the MTC which is mind-blowing because the MTC felt like an eternity(in a good way haha).

Friday we had the most epic storm ever! It started out by pouring rain so hard that the roads nearly flooded. There was thunder and lightning than was so loud! It was so cool to watch. We were just sitting in the church doing my online missionary training when we hear the downpour begin. It quickly turned into hail. The hail was MASSIVE! I had never seen hail so big. When we had to leave the church, we couldn't even get out to the car because the parking lot got so flooded. I mean eventually we did but my feet got so wet. We weren't expecting the storm at all. That night the skies looked so eerie like tornado skies. Luckily we didn't have a tornado. The weather got super cold after that, like yesterday the temperature was in the 40's. I don't understand Texas weather. It's making everyone sick and everyone gets super bad allergies! 

Every blessing I see, every cool thing I witness, I know is a miracle from our Heavenly Father. Here are the teaching updates and the amazing experiences/miracles I've seen:

So all last week C., the one who we knocked on her door and she told us we saved her, was ghosting us. So we were calling her every night with no response and we decided to just give her a break for a few days and see what happens. Missionaries can be pests😂 She called us this week though! I was so excited! Our patience paid off! She said that she was sorry, she got busy, so we've been working on reading with her every night which has been good. She wasn't at church so we need to get her some friends to help fellowship her!

We also invited C. to a Relief Society activity this week and she came! She is really starting to get to know people in the ward which is so good! She ghosted us after thay, we found out she got sick on Saturday so it was probably good we didn't end up going to see them Friday like originally planned.

We also met with G. this week. He's such a sweet old man. He likes meeting with us which is good! We taught him the restoration this week so now he can understand where the Book of Mormon came from. We invited him to read it so let's hope he does!

I may have cursed Sister Park on accident. This week as I was praying, I was asking for opportunities to speak up and to recognize those opportunities. Sister Park is so much better at talking to people, I often times only speak up when were teaching doctrine. I have opportunities to speak up sometimes but I don't always recognize them. So Thursday morning after I prayed, Sister Park woke dying! I totally unintentionally cursed her! She just had a cold and the allergy season in Texas is super bad here but she was out. We didn't leave the apartment until our dinner appointment. I read my scriptures a bit but I was in the Isaiah chapters so that was rough. I also read a few talks about being the best missionary you can be and to not waste any time and then I felt guilty haha. After a while, you can only read spiritual stuff for so long, I doodled a picture and took a mini nap with Sister Park. She's doing better now but I felt soooooo bad. The lesson we learned though is that God answers prayers, not always in the way we expect them but He does always answer our prayers!

Thursday evening we had a lesson with L! He is really cool! He's been coming to church for a while now with his friend who's in the ward and he really likes it. He said that he really wants to build his relationship with God and we told him that he is in the right place! We taught him about the Restoration and at the end he told us that it was exactly what he needed to hear. That was so cool! When we were telling him the first vision, the spirit was there so strongly and it was just a really powerful lesson.

The last half of this week we had a ton of our lessons get cancelled. We were going to meet with A. and his family but they ended up going on a weekend trip and weren't home! With the canceled appointments though we were able to go and try and visit some less active people.

We met one girl on Sunday who was totally open to coming back. We invited her to come with us next Sunday and she told us that she needed to get out more on weekends so she would come. We were so excited!

When we were knocking on another door, she told us she wasn't interested anymore and closed the door in our face. We noticed her neighbor was outside so we went over and started talking to her. It's so awkward sometimes just randomly going up and talking to people but she was really nice. We were just making small talk and then there was a lull so I took the opportunity to share a scripture by straight up asking if we could share a scripture. We shared Isaiah 41:10, which is an awesome scripture by the way, and she told us she had it on her desk at work. She asked if she goes to church anywhere and she said that she doesn't. We asked if she had ever been to one of our services and she said she hasn't so we invited her. She said, 'why not? I'm open to trying it out!" So we got her phone number and we will text her the address and find for church next week! It's awesome how the Lord puts people into your path. It's also amazing how He turns a moment of disappointment into a moment of hope. This was also on Sunday so next week we'll see!

On our way back to our apartment this Sunday evening we were driving right past another less-active member home. We had been there once before with a member and we had heard they were struggling so we stopped. It was getting late but we thought we should. She was so glad we stopped by. We were able to chat with her for a minute and help cheer her up because she was having a really tough day. We had some cookies that we gave her and wished her the best. We also shared Isaiah 41:10 with her. She said that it was exactly what she needed to her. So that was a really cool experience! 

We also get to use Facebook in my mission so we heard the idea to put free Books of Mormon on the Facebook Marketplace. So we did and a lot of people saw it, and we had about 6 people ask about it. A few of those people I could tell were trying to start a fight but the others were actually interested! One guy speaks Spanish so we'll send the Spanish Elders in our area to go visit him! The other person lives down in Arlington so we'll send others to see him too! Anyway, it's really cool that we were able to find people on Facebook in that way! 

The Book of Mormon is true and so powerful! 

I love you all so much! I can feel all the love and support and prayers being sent my way! Until next week!

Love Sister Emma Joi Gardner!