Boise East 4 (Week 9)

We finally made it to July! This week, Sister Weeks and I have been working a lot in our new ward. On Tuesday we went to explore the area. The past missionaries had been trying to work with a lady that had not been contacted in awhile. We both thought we should go find her. The problem was that she did not have an address on our records. So we did some finding. The only notes we had about where she lived was, "next to Bruno." We had notes about the two houses next to "Bruno" and both of them were not good. Sister Weeks wanted to knock on one of the doors I was a little wary of. But we did it anyway. We knocked and a guy answered the door and said, "you must be here to see Marilynn." Sister Weeks and I looked at each other; that was who we were looking for! We had a really go visit with her and she told us about her life and how growing up she had a thirst and a desire for truth. She would stay up late reading the Bible and her (Pastor) husband's books. She has a strong belief in Christ and does not attend a church but believes much of the same things we do. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said she would read some of it, but to not be offended if she gives it back. 

We went to dinner with some members after that and guess who was there? Addie! We met Addie a few weeks ago and she was very interested in learning more about the church. She is from Romania and is moving to North Dakota at the end of the year for her husband's work. Her neighbors (who we were eating with) just happened to invite her over for dinner that same night! We shared a message and she had a lot of good insights to share. She told us that she wants us to come by her house sometime next week. That was a miracle!

We have been working with Alx and Toni and they have been struggling with feeling comfortable coming to church. We invited them to a church tour and they said yes! We are so excited to show them around the church. Sister Weeks and I also had the thought to do a musical number at the end of our tour. I will be playing the piano and Sister Weeks will be singing "Gethsemane." Music can invite the spirit so strongly and we are hoping to convey our love and the love of the Savior for them.

Friday night we had another miraculous experience. We had planned on staying and tracting around the area where we ate dinner, but we got done and saw that we missed a call from the mission office and one of our senior couples. We called them back and they said that they had a perishable package for Sister Weeks that they needed to get to us that night. So, we changed our plans and biked up the hill to our apartment to meet them. We decided it wasn't worth going back down the hill for an hour and decided rather to tract the apartments we live in. There are 25 buildings around us. We prayed about what to do as were trying to decide where to go, and we both got the impression that we needed to go to building L. So we walked to building L and started knocking. The first 2 doors were not interested at all. We knocked on the third door and my hope's were not too high. They had very loud music playing and an Indian man opened the door. We had to shout over the music and he tried to listen to us. Eventually he turned to someone else in the room and motioned for them to turn the volume down. We started again and he interrupted us and invited us in. We sat down with him and his wife and shared with them a little bit about what we believe. His wife did not speak much English, but listened very intently to what we said. Her husband told us that they just moved here from India 3 months ago and that they believe in Christ but do not practice a religion. I pulled out a Book of Mormon and testified to them of its truthfulness and how it can help them draw closer to God. The woman took the book and said something to her husband. He in turn told us that she has been looking for this book! We left our English copy with them and are currently working at getting a copy in their language, Talugu. We walked out and Sister Weeks turned to me with tears in her eyes. She said, "we were meant to be here tonight." I agree. We were led by the spirit. We had not planned to be working in that area Friday night, but everything lined up exactly. There is no coincidence that Sister Weeks happened to get a perishable package that night and we both had the distinct impression to go to that building. Heavenly Father is aware of every single one of us. He never leaves us alone even when it seems lonely. Look behind you, say a prayer, listen, because he is always there.

We had lots of other "fun" experiences. Sister Weeks' bike broke and we had to deal with that. We received a referral that was someone trying to prank their friend (let's just say the parents weren't to happy). Today we got to travel to Idaho City today for our District activity and it reminded me a little bit of Albion. I miss that place so much! It was a very eventful, miracle full week! I hope you all have a wonderful week and are staying cool! I love you!!

Love,
Sister Beutler