Hello E'erbody from the small beautiful town of Odessa!
This week has been really good and really HOT! Its been a heat advisory for the past week, it took a break on Wednesday but came back for the weekend and for the rest of this week...yahoo. Luckily, the Elders that we are supposed to give the car to for a week, are so nice and dont want to take it from us :)
On Tuesday last week, we went out on a team up with one of the ward missionaries Sister Greeff who is AWESOME. We went out and afterwards had dinner at her house then she took us too this lake with a park next to it. Oh my gosh it was so pretty and relaxing. I included a few pictures. Right when we had to leave, there was a storm building all around us and then it hit that area once we drove away! Gotta love when that happens.
We found an investigator in the area book who had been taught once in January but was too busy to be taught, so we went and found her again. Well on our 2nd lesson this week talking about the restoration and the priesthood, she kept agreeing with everything saying how it all makes sense. It was awesome! Considering on our first interaction she said that she was more of a philosopher than a religious person and was more a Buddhist believer. We talked about how awesome the Buddha statue is with his big belly and happy face, someone out here totally gets me! Haha. Anyways, we invited her for baptism and she accepted before we could even finish the invite!! She is awesome, she wont be getting baptized til August 6th though which is 2 days after transfers. Hopefully I am still here for it!
We also found 2 new investigators out walking at night here in Odessa, Billy and his friend Brandon. Billy is more of an investigator at this point. He is so awesome too and hilarious. He's 23, listens to Christian rock 24/7, is a police officer for the town of Odessa and LOVES the Bible. I have never met someone like him before, we taught him the restoration and he is a little accepting. We still need to teach him more, he's heard some awesome rumors about our church that we still have to clear up. Oh well, we can take that challenge (with the Lord's help) :)
Todd (married to Jodie in the ward) is doing so awesome!! This week we had to keep rescheduling our appointment but it happened! He opened up to us a lot about not really understanding the need to be baptized again and wanting to learn more about the history of the church. He is so honest about telling us that he doesnt read the Book of Mormon like he should so of course, we stressed the importance of it and we're not just wasting our breath by talking about it all the time. We did invite him to be baptized if he came to know that the priesthood truly was restored and he accepted! So, time will tell when that will be. But at the end of the lesson, he gave the prayer. Something he has put off since we taught him way back in the beginning of June. It was so awesome. I had a permanent smile on my face the entire time. I opened my eyes to see Jodie crying and the spirit was incredible. I just love those 2 so much and can already see the changes that have come into their life from learning from us. Todd will be getting baptized, I already know it.
This week truly was so good, with having an awesome district meeting on Friday and with seeing so much success within my companionship and the area. It feels so good to be a missionary! It's been a week of laughing with my companions too, so awesome! The other night I said, "Oh Billy..." then Sister Tafradzhieva said "Billy, its ME! Jessica!!" in a Bulgarian accent as she quoted Hot Chick and I about DIED laughing!!! Hahaha. Then Saturday night we were all laying in bed and couldnt stop laughing at all these random things. Sister T thinks the word Butt is hilarious, she taught us how to say it in Bulgarian. Its "Du-pe" in case you were wondering haha. I am so grateful for both of my companions, we are all having a good time out here and it really is a party in a trio :)
As we met with our ward missionary leader on Saturday, he opened a book called Aspire by Kevin Hall. He shared with us about the word Passion and it truly had an impact on me so I wanted to share with you all. The word means suffer, willingly but a pure suffering. As he continued on, he shared that is also has the same root word as Path which means suffering from. This word passion has so much more to it and was started in a Christian church which is how it came to be in the dictionary today. But the final definition as he described this word was this "being willing to suffer for what you love". When we discover what we are willing to sacrifice, we discover our mission and our journey. It was profound and made me look at my own life/mission in a new way. There is so much more that I know that I want to willingly give up because I love the Lord and my mission. I hope that you all can see something that you want or already give up because you love the Lord and your family/future family or yourself.
I love you all! Miss you all like CRAZY!!! :)
Love,
SISTA LARSON
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