RAIN

it rained this week. it made my entire life. i miss the rain so much.  especially utah summer thunder storms.

Okay so much to tell with so little time! Can I just tell about thursday and save the rest for another week? okay. sooooo... thursday i went on an exchange with Sister Rutia! She is from the Philippines.  She came to my area. We had a crazy day together! Probably the craziest day of my mission!

So the beginning was normal.  Then at 4 we went to teach the westons.. so long story short the phone battery ended up in the drain in the street. So we were phoneless and didn't know the address to our 5 o clock dinner appointment.  The weston's looked it up on their computer.. and we also used their phone to call the mission office to tell them what happened. they told us we could come in friday and get a new battery so we thought "okay all is well because all our appointments are already set for tonight, we can totally be fine without a phone till tomorrow." hahaha. um.. yeah. so then we went to dinner.. our GPS took us there and it was a gated community. but we didn't have a phone to call them for the code.. so we prayed. and a car came so we could follow them in! miracle! but then.. the address didn't exist. GPS took us to the wrong place. (side note, this is totally like that mormon message from Elder Holland that the Lord had to let us in so that we could know this was the wrong place.. otherwise we would've sat there waiting forever).  So now that we knew it was wrong and didn't have a phone I just thought okay even though we are far lets drive to the RS president's house and use her phone. So we did. ha she answered the door and the first thing we said was "we need help"  we used her phone to call our dinner appointment Sister Long while we explained what was going on.  I should mention, at this point it was 5:30.. we were already 30 mins late to dinner and dinner was with a less active we have never met. I was praying sooo hard that she would be understanding. We got to the house at 5:40... and had another appointment set at 6.  We ate and taught a lesson in 25 minutes, the family was suuper understanding.. and during the process we figured out only half of the family are members, and we added the non members as investigators!!!! we have been praying for english investigators, and also for a family to teach.. so this is a miracle!!! oh my gosh so exciting! Anyway we were out of the house at 6:05 but didn't get to our next appointment till 6:20... we were supposed to teach Brother Ottem but we needed a women to teach with us... she couldn't get ahold of us so she left:/ so we couldn't teach brother ottem but he was super understanding! Then we drove to the Elizondo's because we were supposed to have a lesson there with the Montiels. Right as I drove up I realized we never gave the montiels their address.. and we didn't have their number to call them.. the elizondos were really understanding and we left to drive 20 minutes to the montiels to tell them what was  going on.  We got there at 7:45.. (we were supposed to meet at the elizondos at 7).. and they were suuuuper worried about us! they had been calling us and thought something happened. So we didn't get to teach them but they were super understanding but just so grateful that we were okay.  we rescheduled and went to Theresa and made it there on time with a member. had a great lesson with her.. and went home to end our exchange. the next morning me and Hermana Hilton went to Oakland to pick up the battery.  All is well now.

It was the craziest day ever but it was amazing because the whole time everything was going wrong.. me and Sister Rutia were able to stay positive and happy. We kept saying.. "Okay this must be God's plan."  For most people.. they would say this was one of the worst and most stressful days of their mission.  But for me, yes I would say it was the most stressful, but I also would say it was the best day of my mission.  I don't know what the purpose was that out of all days, our battery would go down the drain... but I know that I did learn a lot. And that is that this is God's work. Our Heavenly Father is in control and has everything under control.  There is never any use at getting over stressed and being negative.  Because God has this under control.  We need to trust him and what he has planned for us.  I am soo grateful our battery got lost this day so that I could experience this day.  And how great is our Heavenly Father?! Even with all this craziness, he still blessed us with so many miracles.. even new investigators!! I am eternally grateful for all he has done for me.  I love this Gospel so much and am so grateful to have a knowledge of it.  I LOVE THE GOSPEL.

That's it. I have other stuff to say too but I don't really have time today. Went on another exchange with sister Thao as well. (: and we had an amazing day yesterday at church!!! primary program!!!! me and sister hilton were already crying the second the piano started playing for the first song. ha I love the primary program so much. Cory was in it! (theresa's 6 yr old son) and bianca and jocelyn! we were so proud. we also had 4 investigators at church!!! ahh.. I love the Lord. He blesses us so much.

Hermana Stokes

This is me and Hermana Hilton at zone conference. (:

Then me and Sister Thao.