And then my companion played Rachmaninoff with a Babushka

July 27, 2015

It's been another busy week in Soldotna! Adventures and miracles galore.

Random fun facts/events:

The town of Soldotna is actually run by Mormons and celebrates Mormon holidays, but the people just don't know it. Like, the mayor and two of the four doctors at the hospital and the town founder dear Mr. Curly Wright are Mormon. So this weekend Soldotna celebrated Pioneer Day! But we called it Progress Days to be sneaky. But it was so fun!

All the missionaries went to go serve samples from the leftovers of the Dutch oven cooking competition... Mm. We had to try the samples first to let people know what they were sampling, of course :)

There was also a chainsaw wood carving competition! I unfortunately didn't have my camera on me to take pictures with the bears and eagles and super legit things carved... But I'm sure you could look them up - Sawfest in Soldotna, AK.  Oh yeah.

Oh, and next week I will send ya'll a picture of me and Sister Price eating at the Thai food truck again. Because it is the deliciousest.  And the man who works there gives us free stuff because he loves the missionaries! And he's going to become Mormon soon. But he doesn't know that yet.

Okay, on to spiritual things: aka the most miracle filled day EVER (yes this is long and few people will read it, oh well I'll print it out and stick it in my journal):

Caution warning: miracles do not build faith, righteous actions build faith. You receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. But miracles do confirm your faith. I'm just copying and pasting from  another letter, so I apologize for any typos, etc:

This week was a little bit of a trial of our faith down here in Soldotna... Until yesterday, when we witnessed so many miracles! It's amazing to watch the cycle that we talked about during Zone Conference at work in our lives.

Yesterday was truly a day of miracles. We started out with a wonderful sacrament meeting in which Linda, who was baptized last Sunday, was confirmed! Then Sister Price and I were able to perform a musical number that brought the Spirit to the meeting along with wonderful talks centered on Christ, and we had a less active family who came that we weren't expecting! Then, after church, we were able to go and visit a potential investigator and perform our musical number for her as well. She was very impressed and said that she could really tell we  were playing from the heart, and that we inspired her to go and play more music for the Mormons! Then we had invited a recent high school graduate to come out with us, and due to her amazing faith we finally were able to gain our new investigator for the week! We have been trying to catch Amanda at home for months now, and we finally were able to talk to her and read the Book of Mormon with her, which she liked. We committed her to read more and set a return appointment for next week! It was such a blessing to have Claire there, because she was able to play with Amanda's 2 year old so she wasn't distracted and could feel the Spirit.

The miracles didn't stop there! We then felt like we should go visit another less active who we thought might be out of town, but we went anyway and he greeted us with "there you are! I've been waiting for  you!" It turns out he had a referral for us and had been trying to get in contact with us but couldn't find our number... But the Spirit contacted us instead! We went right over and gave his friend the Book of Mormon she had requested, and although she was sick and wasn't able to talk much, she was excited to get a Book of Mormon and promised to call us.

BUT WAIT, it doesn't stop there! We had been planning on working on the Area Book Planner App, because we've been struggling to make it line up with the key indicators we actually have, but Sister Price felt like we should go visit Brother Vroman, who has been inactive for 45 years. So we went, and he was so excited to see us! I asked him if he believed in the Book of Mormon why he didn't go to church, and he came up with all these excuses... And the Spirit guided me to really pinpoint the fact that he knows he should go, he's just afraid! We invited him to keep praying about it, and by the end of our visits he had gone from telling us we didn't have a snowball's chance in Hades to get him to church to admitting it might be time for him to come back! We left in shock, amazed at the Spirit's ability to change hearts.

The Lord is truly blessing us! We were so inspired by Zone Conference and Sister Price and I are working so well together. She's a little worried about what transfers will bring, but I know the Lord has a plan for us and He'll send us where we need to go!

...and then I found five dollars. But actually.

I think the most miraculous part of the day was that everyone except one person we visited was home and talked to us... Which never happens. Except yesterday. When we go see everyone.

PEOPLE ARE AWESOME YA'LL ROCK MY SOCKS OFF

Sister Rollins