Ohio Cleveland Mission: I Can Hear The Bells

Hooooolaaaaaaaaaa!

So this week has been crazy good. I guess I haven't updated anyone on the past couple of weeks, huh? Well... Nothing too crazy has gone on. So I'll just focus on this week.

We've started working with a less-active sister in our ward. She is the SWEETEST THING EVER! She got baptized like 20 years ago and has never been back to church though. So. She really doesn't know much about the gospel but we're hoping we can help her to know more! :)

Darlene is doing really well. She read up to 1 Nephi 8 in the few days since we had met with her, and she retained it all really well!! Like she was "Laman" this, and "Nephi" that, and "Well I can see why he would hesitate in killing Laban..." We were amazed. She is doing really well. She just needs to come to CHURCH! We took her on a church tour to see if that would help her be more comfortable with coming. We invited another sister from the ward and they got along really well. The spirit was SO STRONG! Especially at the baptismal font. qI think she totally knows that she's getting baptized, cause everything she said was "when" and not "if". You know? Like, instead of saying "So, if I do that I would..." It was "So, when I do that I would..." I WAS DYING! It was so exciting! But she still didn't come to church... Hopefully she just wasn't feeling good.

Dave has not shown up to lessons twice. We stopped at his house the Saturday after the first time, and he said he got another job and was just really busy. Then he sent us home with a dozen oatmeal raisin cookies (DELICIOUS OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES) and hugged us before we left. Haha I didn't even know what to do with myself. So then we tried to meet with him again this past saturday and he didn't show up to that either. :( We were sad. But I am not giving up on him.

We also started teaching a guy named Jay. We are so excited about him! His girlfriend is less-active but she still has a fairly solid testimony. At the end of our restoration lesson I think she really saw the need for her to be better and start coming back to church more regularly. He's not comfortable with prayer at all, so we're meeting with them again tonight and focusing a lot on prayer. Oh yeah, they also live together soo... Wedding!

We have found some fantastic new people lately too. There are a lot of potentials, but the one I'm most excited about is named ASHLEY! So after our exchange Saturday me and Sister Beaudoin were trying to figure out where to go to tract. We had Virginia street come to mind, so we were like "hokay" and went to virginia street. It had been snowing and blowing particularly hard that day, so we grabbed our shovels out from the back of our car and offered free shoveling/book of mormons to people. Finally, we got to this house, and we just started shoveling their driveway. We thought nobody was home so we were just going to leave a Mormon.Org card. We were almost done when two people come out, a brother and sister, who looked like they were in like their 20's. They were saying it was nice of us to do that for them or whatever, and then the dad came home and he started freaking out over it too. Anyways, they ended up inviting us in for hot chocolate (since we explained the no coffee thing). Ashley asked us the million dollar question of how Mormons were different from Baptists. Turns out she's been looking for a new church to go to. She was raised Baptist and wants a church that has the same values she grew up with, but she doesn't like the Baptist churches here. SO WE'RE TEACHING HER WEDNESDAY! It was seriously a miracle. That was some real divine intervention. Also, their dad's name is Lemuel. CAN YOU SAY PREPARED. We're bringing him a Book of Mormon on Wednesday.

Lem, when we were leaving, he was like "You guys are welcome at our home any time. And if you ever need anything at all, just let us know and we'll be over in a moments notice! Hey, we'll have to feed you dinner!" And all this crazy stuff.

So this week has been so good. The church is SO TRUE! I love watching peoples lives change because of it. It's such a blessing to witness it. READ YOUR SCRIPTURES! All of you! They make a difference! Hahaha love you all!

Sister Perrenoud