August 22, 2011

We have had the most amazing lesson planned for Dr. Shull....the problem is our appointments keep getting cnacelled.  We think it's Satan.  He does not want us to teach this lesson to Dr. Shull.

We taught Danielle and Ian last Monday.  Ian still hasn't read from the Book of Mormon so we had him pull it out and he said, "Alright, so how do you operate this bad boy?"  We taught them the Plan of Salvation.  I don't want to go into too many details...but he's got a lot of INTERESTING ideas.  We had Family Home Evening with the Rippenkroegers (returning to activity in the church!)  It was really interesting because they have a fella named Raz living with them.  He's had a hard life, ran into a lot of problems with the law and we think he has some mental problems as well.  I don't think I've ever had a lesson with so many cuss words in it before.  He was telling us how when he was 19 he was traveling from California to Wisconsis and on his way he was walking on a highway in Utah.  A man picked him up and took him through all the buildings on Temple Square and they spent the whole day doing things there.  At the end of the day the man offered for him to live with him and take care of him and he would help him change his life or he could take $100 and get out of the car and keep walking.  Raz decided to take the money and he never made it to Wisconsin.  He ended up committing a crime that landed him 25 years in prison.  Talk about a decision that could have changed his life.  He kept telling me he had a feeling I was related to this man that could have changed his life.  He doesn't know his name so I guess we'll never know.

We had an awesome lesson with Kami and Seth on the Word of Wisdom.  The best part was that before the appointment we had a meeting with our Branch mission leader, we had a little misunderstanding with his wife last week and she has been mad at us so we were hoping the Lord would touch her heart.  Well it turns out he did because she was a lot friendlier to us and Sister Dalton even had the impression to invite her to come to the appointment with Kami and Seth, which turned out to be amazing because Seth has no issues with the Word of Wisdom.  It's actually Kami, who is the member that has a problem with coffee and tea.  Sister Larose was able to relate SO well to Kami because those were the hardest things for her to give up whe she joined the church.  She still craves coffee but her desire is stronger to live the Word of Wisdom.  Another amazing thing is that Seth received an answer that he needs to be baptized!!!!!  It's so exciting, we've been praying so hard for that!  He wants to be baptized on his birthday.  October 1st.  That's conference weekend so we';ll probably do it in between sessions.

We helped Sister Sanchez teach her lesson to the Young Women on scripture study, she told a personal story and I'd like to share it with you.  "When do we have to read the scriptures everyday?"  I would answer their questions with another question.  "Do you have to eat everyday?"  "Yes, if we don't eat we'll die."  Well that's how it is with the scriptures.  We need to feel ourselves physically AND spiritually.  I really enjoyed that story, so I thought you would too!

Be sure and write and keep me in  touch with you.

Love you all
Hermana Jilyn Hepworth
8515 Douglas Avenue  #19
Urbandale, Iowa    50322