08/04/14 - Week 77-Final Week! {Week 6 of Transfer 13} "Goodbyes"

Hi family and friends :D

I am overwhelmed with feelings about thinking that this week is my last week as a full-time missionary here in the Ohio Cincinnati mission. Time has gone by so quickly, but also slowly. I think that time is pleated. It looks short from behind, but when you think of all that has happened, it opens up and you realize how long it has been. I have changed and grown so much on my mission. My mission president says that I really have been "born again." I have relied so much on my Savior through every day and hour. He has truly become my best friend. I call out to Him each day so many times, that I can't number it. I know He loves me and all of you so much.

This week we pushed and pushed. We didn't have some crazy numbers to end my mission, but we worked as hard as we could. We had some really neat things happen through God's grace. There was one evening that we needed to find another new investigator to reach our goals. We were going to contact a referral, and were walking down the street. I saw a lady outside smoking, (as missionaries, you talk to everyone) so I said a little prayer and told Heavenly Father that I would talk to her if he kept her outside. And sure enough, she stayed out. We went up and started a conversation that turned out really good. We are going back to teach her this week! {well...the sisters who will be here....}.

Then last night, we again needed one more new investigator to meet our weekly goal of 7 new investigators. It was 8:48pm and we didn't have any idea where to go. We had the thought to go see a family, so we drove over to the area. As we were driving by, I saw a few people outside that we had talked to briefly before, but never had much of a gospel conversation. We drove past the house of the family we were going to see, and all of the cars were gone. So we thought, "Okay Heavenly Father, you sent us over here to find someone, but who is it?" I thought again of the people I saw outside, so we decided to park and walk over. It was a really good conversation! It flowed really well, and it wasn't awkward!! How awesome is that?? [It doesn't happen too often as a missionary]. We have an appointment to see them this week too! God blessed us with 2 new investigators instead of just 1 new. He is amazing. I have learned that He is always in control. If you will just follow what He asks you to do, then He will provide the way to do it. Just like it says in 1 Nephi 3:7. The Lord doesn't give you a commandment without providing a way that you can accomplish it.

Deanna is doing great! She came to church last week with her two little boys and we were nervous she didn't like it because it was hectic with all of the kids. But she told us that she really enjoyed it! We invited her to be baptized at the end of this month and she is working to quit smoking. She got a priesthood blessing last night, so it shouldn't be a problem :) She is such an amazing lady! She went to brunch by herself to a members home with some other members. {again, that doesn't happen very often}. It was great! Then she had another lesson and dinner at the same members home last night. And we will have a lesson tonight at their home. She is so excited about everything, and so am I! :D She prayed for someone to come talk to her, and we showed up. God is amazing. That's all I can say.

Well that is all the time I have. :( But, this is my final testimony that I emailed in for our mission newsletter:

~~My mission has changed me in ways that I never thought were possible. I know that this is the Lord's work and He is in charge. I am privileged to have been able to serve Him. We are changing eternities as we share what we know with our brothers and sisters. Never give up and never look back. Move forward with your face towards the Son, and the shadows will fall behind you. This is the Lord's kingdom. We have all of the truth. We have a living prophet today and as we listen to him and our leaders, we will never go astray. I love this church and this gospel. I have become a more dedicated disciple of Jesus Christ and I will continue that discipleship the rest of my life. All that you have to do is do your best, the Lord will always take care of you. Let Him mold you and change you. Just like my Dad always told me, "Winds of adversity that snuff out a match, only make a torch burn brighter." So let your torch burn within you and we will light up the world!~~

I love you all so much! I will see you soon :D

Lots of Love,

Sister Farr

07/28/14 - Week 76! {Week 5 of Transfer 13} " ~ ~ Fish~~"

Hey :D

It was a good week! It was full of obstacles to overcome (which is to be expected since we had a baptism), but we made it!! :D So we went fishing this morning...at 10am...for P-day....it was a great adventure! We caught some blue gill fish, then 2 huge bass, and a snapping turtle!!! It was quite the experience. I will have some videos to show you that are too big to email. It was tons of fun. Sister Diana Anderson has a pond in her backyard and let us come and fish in it. We had hot dogs we were using and then we used some crawdads that we caught in the stream. I thought Dad would be proud of that :) haha. It really was fun though.

 But also, for the past year and a half I have been fishing the whole time. Just being a fisher of men. I am so privileged to have been in the service of our Heavenly Father. This work is amazing. It is the most rewarding work in the world. I am excited to finish off this last week and then to continue serving him for the rest of my life. There is still so much to be done before our Savior comes again. We need to "catch" as many of our brothers and sisters as we can. Our Father in Heaven wants them to be able to return home to Him.

As you were all wondering....yes, Janet got baptized this weekend! And it was amazing. It was stressful to get everything done. We had a mix up with the interview and spent most of Thursday calling people and stressing out.  But God worked it all out, and she is a member of the Kingdom of God now! Her husband came to the baptism and it was amazing. After she was baptized she looked up, clapped her hands, and said, "Thank you Jesus!" She has been so excited all week for this day. She was beaming all day at church after her confirmation. She is so excited to be a part of this gospel. Her husband talked with us a little bit after the baptism and told us that it probably wouldn't be long before he was coming around. {And at the beginning of this journey, he told Janet he didn't want any part in it.} He came to church yesterday with her for her confirmation, and we have an appointment with them on Saturday! I am so excited for her and her husband. They will be sealed in the temple in no time.

We also had a neat experience finding a new investigator. We saw her for the first time last Sunday taking in groceries as we were talking with her neighbor. We offered to help, but she declined. She looked so tired and worn out. It stuck with me. The next day, I saw her driving down the street, and thought, "We have to go talk to her." So on Monday evening, one of our appointments fell through, and so we went to her apartment. We knocked, and she let us right in. When we explained how we felt lead to go and talk to her, she teared up. During our next appointment, she told us that she had prayed that someone would come and talk to her.....and then we showed up. God is soooooo amazing! She is a single mom of two little boys, and is so sweet. Her older boy is so sweet! And he likes me too :) I guess he likes girls with long hair, and so since the first day, he has been my bud. On Sunday morning, people were falling through to come to church. We had the thought to stop by her home. We did, and she accepted to come. We picked her up and she came! Within a week of finding her, she came!!!! Maybe that doesn't seem crazy to any of you, but in Hebron, that is a rare happening. She is amazing. It was a stressful experience in some of the meetings with her kids, but the ladies in the ward were so sweet to help her. I can definitely tell she has lots of potential in the gospel. Keep praying for her too! :D

Other than that, we had a pretty normal week. We stopped by lots of people, talked with lots of people, went on Exchanges with Sister Webb and Jenkins, mowed a lawn, made cookies for people...you know, the normal every day missionary life. There is still lots to do here before I go. We are having another mission leadership council on Friday, and I am sooo happy I get to be here for another one of them. You are just so inspired and uplifted. I again am so grateful for my mission. I am a different person because of it. I am still my quiet, quirky self, but I have a much stronger testimony and desire to follow our Savior.

Keep your faith strong! Walk forward, and don't look back.

I love you all!

 - Sister Farr

07/21/14 - Week 75! {Week 4 of Transfer 13} "FROG"

Hello :)

So I held a little frog this week! It was like those cute tree frogs that you see on all of the magazines..it was bright lime green! I loved it! We were on exchanges (I was with Sister Blackburn) and we were following up with a former investigator. As we talked, she said that there was a frog stuck to her outside brick wall! So Sister Blackburn climbed up some steps and poked it. It flew right off! And we caught it :D It was slimy and so cute! Her kids came out and we got to let it go in their garden. I have never held a frog like that before. Her family was so sweet, they aren't interested in learning more right now, but one day they will be, I can tell! :D

The OTHER reason why Frog was the title was because the other week we met "Brother FROG" But as he put it, F.R.O.G = Fully Rely on God. That is exactly what we have had to do all week this week! But we are seeing so many blessings come. We found 12 new investigators and had 3 people at church. It has been hard to get people to come to church in this area, but God is helping us to change that pattern. Slowly, but surely!

We are so excited for this upcoming weekend. Our investigator, Janet, is getting baptized! She moved in the day I got here 2.5 months ago and she is so prepared. We met her when she was moving in and offered to help her. We had some brief chats with her for a few weeks and then one week she stopped us. She talked about how she has noticed that the people in our congregation are very much different than any other she has met. She had been to lots of different churches, but since moving here she has had a lot of contact with our church and noticed a difference. SHE asked US if she could learn. (!!) Within 6 weeks of starting to teach her, she is getting baptized! Her husband was very against it at first. He said he would never get baptized or convert. He told her she better not convert either. But this past week at church she talked to us about how his heart is softening. She talked to him about wanting to get baptized, and he was actually okay with it! He has been asking her questions about church and things. He said, as long as they don't worship that prophet guy, then I am okay with it. She then asked him if he would like to watch a movie about Joseph Smith so he could understand him better. So she showed him the "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" movie on YouTube. He is being prepared. We have been praying for him and we are excited to see how he starts to progress. He is going to come to her baptism and confirmation next week also! God has softened his heart in amazing ways! So.......... he should be joining the church soon too. :) The Lord worked miracles for her and her family. She told us at church yesterday that she has complete peace about the whole thing. No matter what we teach or she learns, she accepts it. She said that this church is the missing piece she has needed her whole life. She loves the Book of Mormon and all it teaches. She is the most prepared person I have ever taught. I feel so privileged to be able to teach her more and be a part of her conversion process. :D

We had a crazy cool thing happen on Friday of this last week. It was the day I was with Sister Blackburn and we were trying to reach our goal to find a new investigator that day. The night before, when I was going to sleep, a name popped into my head of a lady we met earlier in the week that we should see the next day. As we were driving around I remembered her, so we headed over. She had offered to cut our hair (since she is going through hair school) and we decided to take her up on it. We went by, and she just pulled up from school. We talked with her for a while and set up an appointment for next Monday to come and get our hair trimmed, but I wasn't sure how to bring up the church again in a smooth way. So I said a prayer and asked Heavenly Father for something to come up. As we talked with her, her daughter came up and started chatting with us too. She had at T-shirt on....and there was just something about it that kept drawing my eye. the top of it said "Need Answers? Ask God!" So we commented on the shirt, and she said "I don't even know where I got it. I just threw it on today." As I kept reading, the scripture reference at the bottom was...........................James 1:5. (<---no way!!). Heavenly Father is so amazing! So it was an easy transition into the restoration of the gospel. We explained that it was because of that scripture that our church was started. We went on to explain the first vision, and it was an incredible experience! Both her and her daughter were glued. She is excited to learn more and so is her daughter! I am really excited about their family :)

We are also really excited about Camill and Alyssa and their Dad. They are the two girls who got baptized a month or so ago. Their dad was learning for a while, but then messaged us and said he didn't want to learn anymore. Well, this week, he saw us outside and stopped us. He said that he has noticed the difference since he hasn't been praying and reading. Everything has gotten hectic for them. He told us that he wants to learn again, because he knows it is what he needs :) We are beyond excited! He is such a sweet dad to them and he is prepared to hear the gospel. Keep praying for them! And for their mom's heart to be softened :)

This work is incredible! I love being able to share this gospel with people each day. My mission has taught me so many amazing lessons. Things that would have taken me years to learn, you learn in 6 weeks out here. I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father for allowing me to serve for him at this time. This is not just a church. This is the Kingdom of God on earth. And He is the King. I love this church. I know that it is true. No matter what doubts I have, He clears them up, every time. I hope you all have a wonderful week full of joy and happiness! 

I LOVE YOU!!

Sister Farr 

p.s. We ran out of paper plates...so we took our goodies to people in old pizza boxes :) When you are a missionary, sometimes you have to be creative ;)

07/14/14 - Week 74! {Week 3 of Transfer 13} "People Can Change!"

Hi :D

So today it hit me that I will be home in about 3 weeks. I don't even know what has happened to this transfer. It has just flown by! Time is running out. I just want to shove everyone in our car and make them all get baptized and take them to the temple! haha just kidding. I know I can't do that. I just love this gospel and I know how much it is going to change people's lives!

We are working with our neighbor to be baptized on the 26th of this month! She is so prepared! She has been to church 3 times, has read up to 1 Nephi 17, has a testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith... :D Each time that we come over to teach her, she is just so open. She came to church yesterday and we had a really deep lesson on the priesthood in Relief Society. I was really nervous about it and if she would understand. A lot of deep doctrine came up and I wasn't sure how she would take it. But I kept reminding myself that God knew she would be there that day and he would take care of it. And sure enough, when we followed up, she was just fine with it all. She loves coming to church and all of the people there. She is just so prepared. She has such an open mind and heart. She has gone through so much in her life, and it has all prepared her to accept the gospel. We just have to teach her everything and she is ready! We are so excited for her. We just have to win the heart of her husband. He isn't as excited about it all. But she has talked about how the more that she has learned and come to church, he has been getting curious about it and has asked her questions. So hopefully we can slowly win him over!

We saw a crazy change in this father that we are teaching. The first time that we went over, he was pretty argumentative about the Book of Mormon. He had read some of it before and had some missionaries over...which he pretty much scared off. He asked questions about why certain things were the way they were in the Book of Mormon. For example why it says "the lamanites had a skin of blackness" verses a skin of darkness. He backed up his opinion with lots of things and when you would try to explain that it could mean different things, he wouldn't accept it. So we were worried to go back and teach him more. We rescheduled appointments for multiple weeks, and were about to give up. But this past week, we finally got in. We had been doing a lot of research on the word black and everything, and so we tried to have a simple, non-argumentative answer. When we went in, we started to explain that black would be representative because black means "no light" and Christ is the light of the world, so they had no Christ in them. We talked about how the word black in Hebrew means confusion. And some more. But he still was having a hard time. So I decided to say a prayer and ask God to help us out. I knew nothing would happen if the spirit was driven away. I thought of the scripture where it said that you shall not be confounded before men...and I felt pretty confounded. And as we sat there, I had ideas start coming into my head. Eventually it lead to a discussion about how the people knew Hebrew, but wrote in Egyptian because it was more condensed. And for some reason, that just clicked...and his whole demeanor changed. The spirit touched him and he knew that was true. It was so crazy! We saw them again this week and in his prayer at the end he thanked God for sending us and helping his family come closer to Him. Sister Bowers and I have been blown away from how it has changed. Just like it says in Preach My Gospel, "when the Spirit touches hearts, hearts are changed." God has changed Him. :)

This week has been a wonderful one. We have met a lot of neat people and seen many miracles as always. We met some drunk people, held an adorable little dog, got caught in the rain again (but not as bad), crawled through fences...you know, the usual missionary stuff. It was lots of fun. We are working hard and expecting miracles! God has been blessing us so much and all we can do is follow what he asks us to do. We were able to meet almost every single one of our goals this week! Every one!! It was so neat. His grace is sufficient, and he will deliver you. I love the people here in Kentucky and Indiana. I love my mission! I am eternally grateful to God for allowing me to serve. I will see you all so soon. I can't believe I am almost done, but I am going to work as hard as I can.

This gospel is so true, I can't even handle it! :D

I send my love,

Sister Emilee Farr

07/07/14 - Week 73! {Week 2 of Transfer 13} "Chalk!"

Hello :)

This week was the 4th of July just as you all know....and we did something super cool as a mission!! We went to a local park on the 4th and drew out the Plan of Salvation IN CHALK. And as we drew it, people would walk by and look at it and we would snatch them and teach them all about the Plan of Salvation. It was so neat! There were TONS of people there. We were with half of our zone in Cincinnati, Ohio. We did it at two different parks and we had a great turn out. They kicked us out of the first park after we had lunch...but I guess God had to get us to the other park too somehow! But we talked with some really neat people. We also had a crazy experience when we were sitting down eating lunch. (Which we got at a suuuper sketchy Kroger downtown. There were cops there to supervise and everything p.s.)  [[but we were safe, the Elders literally created a circle around us wherever we walked]]. This little girl, who was maybe...4, came up to us and handed us temple pass-along-cards. And no, she wasn't member.... Uh...?? She had gotten them somehow and was walking around the park handing them out to everyone. And of course, no one could resist a cute little 4 year old! We should give pass along cards to little kids to hand out more often! But we took a picture of some of us with the cards in our hands.

We also had another CRAZY rainstorm this week! We were luckily in the car when it was really bad, but there was some intense lightening. I took some videos, so I will have to show you..but it split some trees in our apartment complex! When the storm passed, we could still see the lightening, and it was literally like war of the worlds. Were it was silent but there was lightening coming down in the same spot over and over again. We took a video of that too. I really haven't seen anything like it. We had our power out for about an hour that night. It was quite the adventure, but really fun too :D But no worries, no one got hurt or anything.

THANK YOU FOR YOU PRAYERS!! We finally got 2 people at church! We have been working so hard to get 2 people to come to church for the past 4 weeks, and have been unsuccessful. But I know that your prayers to help us, sent us God's grace. We had two cute little boys come to church with us and our neighbor. The boys absolutely loved it. And the younger one (who is 7) was asking me all about baptism and the sacrament during sacrament meeting. At the end he said "I want to go to this church until I am 8." I said, "Why??" He said, "Because then I can get baptized!!!" It was the cutest thing! They are 7 and 10 and absolutely adorable. They are so interested in learning about church and always ask questions. We are trying to get their grand parents involved because they aren't really church goers, but with more prayers and with God's help, we can get them there!

I don't have a ton of time, but I hope you all know that the Lord loves you! Keep doing the little thing

s every single day. They really do matter. We meet so many people each day who just "fell out of the habit" of coming to church. It is through small and simple things that great things are brought to pass. But the great thing doesn't just have to be salvation, it can be destruction. Satan usually works by small means. But we can overcome him! We did once. In the pre-earth life, we all overcame him. In Revelations 12, it talks about the war in heaven. And how we overcame him. We can do those same things today to fight him off. We are the valiant of the valiant and we have power given to us that will always overcome evil if we choose. I love you all so so much!

I love you all!!! Have a week of happiness!!

Sister Emilee Farr

06/30/14- Week 72! {Week 1 of Transfer 13} "Just Keep Swimming..."

Hey!

First of all, the title has two reasons behind it. The first is because we had a HUGE rain storm this week! It was crazy. I have never seen one like it. And Sister Bowers and I were out caught in it :) It was 8:40PM and we don't go in until 9:00PM so we decided to go and contact a potential investigator. It had been raining off and on all day long, but it really hit as we pulled up to their house. We said our prayer and it just started pouring like none other. We had an umbrella....but it wasn't going to do anything. The rain would have crushed it. And we didn't want to get struck by lightening. So, we decided it couldn't be that bad and we just ran to their door. To our surprise, stepping out of the car was more like stepping into a shower! It was crazy! We ran as fast as we could, to realize that it was actually the wrong house...so we ran next door....and it was still the wrong house number. hah....so we ran back to the car. We were absolutely drenched! Our hair was dripping and it was running down our arms. Goodness gracious. I can't even explain it. But hopefully you can see it in some of the pictures.

The other reason why it was titled to keep swimming is because we had another week full of opposition. The devil is working so hard! We had an awesome Tuesday and Wednesday and then Thursday hit...and man....it was like everyone left Kentucky and no one was home or available!! It was insane. We had no members out with us and even when they came, none of our investigators would be home. We still saw little miracles in finding new people, but we are struggling to get them to come to church. We have been trying so hard to get at least 2 people to come to church here, but it has been crazy hard! We have consistently had 1 at church, but we are technically supposed to have two as leaders. No need to fear though, we will get them! Just say extra prayers that people will come to church! :D

 

We had a less-active we have been working with kind of....tell us to leave and say she didn't want to hear any more. :( We had a member with us and it wasn't a very good experience for her. She gave us back the Book of Mormon too. We have been working with her for a long time and she was progressing so well! But then all of the sudden the past few times she has been having lots of doubts and has slid back. It was so sad. The good thing though is that she called us the next day and apologized for getting so worked up. She LOVES Sister Bowers like her own daughter. But we aren't so sure where it will go from here.

We had a really great experience with our investigator, Angelica. She has recently had some surgeries and has been hard to get in with. Usually we just stand on her porch. But on Tuesday we went over there, and we had set up to do a church tour. When we came over, she said she wasn't feeling good enough to go. She said she wasn't really in the mood too. We started talking with her, and it started to rain pretty hard. So she let us step inside. {And we weren't gonna let her not come}. So we were bold with her and told her how much it would help. After a few minutes, she decided to come, and her friend's mom came with her too! [she is a less-active]. It was an amazing church tour! The spirit was so strong. We showed them all around and when we got into the chapel, the spirit just took over. She told the member who was with us that she felt so good she could cry. While we were in the chapel, we started to talk about church and they both really opened up. We learned more about their past and everything. It was something that we really needed to have happen to teach them more to their needs.

Oh....hahaha..I just remembered this lesson we had with a cute old lady who is less-active in our ward. She is country! She grew up in a town where a DOG was the mayor...yes a dog...an animal....it is called Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. Anyways, they have pictures lining their walls all over. And none of the frames match :) It is sooo cute! She shows us the same pictures every time. But this time she was especially talkative. She showed us all of her things in another room..her blankets, pictures, souvenirs, trinkets, stuffed animals...everything. We couldn't get out the door without her telling us what all of her plants were and wind chimes and flowers. "This is a picture of four generations, me, my daughter, her daughter, and her little girl. This is a picture of me and Josh Hutchinson, did you know he is from Kentucky?? This is my Lamb chops, have you ever seen lamb chops? And my Raggedy Anne and Andy. This is my gorilla named ____. And my doll, Rachel; I crocheted all of her! I found this brown bear, brownie, on the play ground at the elementary school where I used to work. This is my cactus from ____. I got this flower from _____. I have had this bush for _____." And on it went :) hahaha. It was so cute. We were trying so hard not to just laugh because of how funny it was. She is just adorable. She is stubborn, but she sure loves her family and her little things.

We are excited to have a new week to start fresh. We are working hard and keeping our faith in Jesus Christ strong. We have Mission Leadership Council tomorrow, so you can expect some more pictures on the mission Facebook page :) I might even get to see Alyson Porter!! Crazy :D I love my mission. I have learned so much from being out here and meeting so many people. I have been challenged and stretched, and I have so much more to grow. But I am always grateful to my Father in Heaven for the opportunity he gave me to serve. It will change who I am forever.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! :D

Love you!!

Sister Emilee Farr

06/23/14 - Week 71! {Week 6 of Transfer 12} "Faith Precedes Miracles"

Family!! Friends!! Everyone :)

First off, I am STAYING in HEBRON, KY :) For my last part of my mission! So my address remains the same:

Sister Emilee Farr

2260 Flicker Dr #195

Hebron, KY 41048

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I sure did. It was...super hard...we really had to pay the price for miracles to come. Lots of things fell through, and some people were just rude. We had one of our greatest investigators drop us and it was devastating, but wait until you hear the miracles that we were able to witness!! :D

We found a really amazingly prepared dad of 3 yesterday afternoon when we were out with our member. We were at our investigators house for an appointment, but he wasn't home. As we were knocking on his door, his neighbor came home and started bringing in groceries. We said "Hi" from the other door and offered to help, he thanked us but said no. After no response from our appointment, we went down the street to see if another investigator was home, and they weren't either. As we walked back up the road towards our car, we thought maybe we should knock on the guys door and talk to him. But we battled it. "It would be awkward.... We just saw him...he would think we were weird..." But we decided to follow the prompting and go knock on his door. We knocked and there was no response for a long time. But then he walked out and said, "I want to know what you girls are doing. I have seen you around here walking around for a while and I am interested in what you share. I knew you were going to knock on my door. And if you didn't, I was going to come outside and find you and ask you to talk to me." We were blown away! He went on to tell us his whole life story from when he was about 16 to now. He has been through so much in his life. But he has been so prepared for the message of the restoration. He is a father of 3 kids and we are stoked to go and teach all of them.

God has just been blessing us. We had an amazing investigator come to church yesterday. She is our neighbor and told us she wanted to learn more because of our examples and the members of the church she has met. She is soaking it all up. Yesterday at church she absolutely loved it. She commented in Relief Society and was reading the scriptures that people shared...she was just so involved. We are so excited for her. She is strong and has received a testimony of Joseph Smith already. She prayed about it and told us, "The Holy Spirit has revealed to me that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God." We can't even express our excitement! Patterns are changing here in Hebron. We have been working hard and we are so excited that we are finding some amazingly prepared people :)

We had another neat experience with our investigator that we have recently started helping. She is planning on moving to California and is getting her house ready to put up on the market. We met her knocking doors one day and offered to help her around the house if she needed it. She has been painting a lot, and we thought we could help. In the middle of us meeting her, her step-mom passed away and we lost some contact for awhile. After a couple of weeks of talking back and forth, we were able to go over there on Thursday and help her go through some of her things she was going to put out for a garage sale. She fed us a delicious lunch of Ziti and we had a good chat. Then after, we were walking down to her garage and she started to tell us that everyone was telling her that she shouldn't let us come back because we were going to "try to convert her". She then said "You aren't going to try to convert me, right??" Awkward pause....and right at that moment someone pulled up and she walked over to talk to them. phew...we avoided that awkward conversation. But now we knew not to push her too hard. After going through a bunch of things, we went inside to make some signs. While we were in there, I was just praying that Heavenly Father would lead the conversation. And He sure did! She started asking US questions. She said "So what is the difference between Mormons and say, the Catholics?" (<-since she is Catholic). PERFECT QUESTION!! And from there it lead to some really great discussions. We talked about Joseph Smith and about how she doesn't like the church she had gone to... It lead to her crying and talking about how hard it was for her to lose her step-mom and we were able to bear testimony of the Plan of Salvation. At the end of the conversation she ended up saying, "I will have to come try out your church some time. When is it?" How neat!!?? We didn't even have to push her. SHE asked all of the questions and we just answered. I felt more like a member missionary than a normal missionary. It comforted me to know that I will be able to share the gospel when I get home. You can all do it! Just pray for missionary opportunities, and they will come up. It was so neat. I can't even explain how wonderful it was. She felt the spirit and it is doing all of the converting. We are going back this week to help her paint, and I am excited to see what else we can share with her! :D

I just love this gospel. So many miracles come. Oh! I just remembered another one from this week. We had a 19 year old kid we are teaching who was going to come to a baptism on Friday. We stopped by earlier that day and asked if he was going to come. He said he might be with his cousin, but he would try. When the time came that night, we went over, and.....no one was home. We knocked a few times..but no response. We were really bummed. So we went to talk to his neighbor and invite her to come, and as we were talking with her, he walked out of the woodsy area behind his house and went inside (since there are woods pretty much everywhere here). We decided to head back over and invite him to come. When he answered he was all wet and he told us that he had just fallen down a hill....(<-uhhh. crazy). But we invited him to come and he said sure, he just needed to change. So we waited and then headed over to the baptism.....25 minutes late. I prayed that it would have been delayed by some miracle so that he could see it. And a miracle happened...when we walked in, they were just singing the opening song. We sat down right up front and it was amazing! He was intensely listening to everything. It really was a beautiful baptism. At the end we showed him around the church and then asked him how he felt. He said, "I felt different. I have never felt that way before.." So we asked him to explain it. He explained that he felt like he was there physically...and mentally. He had never felt that way before. Most places he felt like he was there physically, but not mentally. We told him "That is the spirit!!" It was so neat. We are excited for him too!

There is so much neat potential here in Hebron. I am so excited to be able to stay here for the next little while. I love the ward, the area, and of course cute Sister Bowers. We are working hard and continue to expect miracles to come! Just have faith, and God will bless you :D

Love you all!!!

Sister Emilee Farr

P.s....I held a BABY RACOON!! Crazy..