Dearest Family!!!!!!
We have worked hard this week and we did a lot better with our goals this week!! Still striving to finish strong---we have faith we can have a baptism this month--we have some really awesome people. They all just need miracles, so we are working hard to provide the faith required. The most promising investigator is a very sweet sister. She is 15 and her family initially opposed her baptism back in May. We went from not being able to visit to visiting almost weekly to weekly!!! We have been able to sit down with her whole family once, but with both parents three times! Our relationship with them have become so close--She comes to church every week with her classmate (she is a member referral!). We have also had peikes at all but one lesson! It has been a huge miracle. So we have faith we can receive permission this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am going to work my hardest to do so. And then we are going to keep working with the whole family can be baptized as well. They are such a strong family---her mom LOVES the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet the young women's leader gave her. She reads the scriptures with her mom and invites to them to pray with her daily! She has been a little bit nervous to ask her father, but is gaining more courage. I know she can do it! We invited her to re-ask her family this week so will call her today for an update. We have amazing investigators with some hard obstacles, but we have been working really hard to overcome them. And will continue to do so.
I feel recently my companion and I have been working to change the way we work to be more in line with what God would have us do. We have been working more with active members, searching out new people to rescue and working hard to find those prepared souls. Recently there has been a really cute group of girls attending the Beginners English class. They have stayed afterwards to meet with us three weeks in a row (so since their first time coming). We added four of them this past week and will meet with them again this Wednesday! It was such a miracle and they have such a great relationship with us (I switched into the Beginners class two weeks ago, so now I am their teacher too). Three have been/are Christian, but they are excited to learn about the Plan of Salvation and what we do at church.
We have also found an amazing family from English, a mom with two teen aged boys. The Elders are working with the boys and the mom has become our mom! She calls US up almost every day and just drops by to give us bananas and homemade jellies! She loves talking about the Gospel with us---but she feels that her Buddhism is good too. So we are working to show her how God is every one's God and that we are just here to give her the whole truth--the Plan of Salvation. There are a lot of exciting things going on here right now and I feel like I just need another move call!!! Please????? You all would probably kill me though--- all getting excited for my return. And I know by July 3rd I will be too.
As for our RCLA work, we keep working together with the ward and have been able to find some really great people to rescue. The ward is getting more and more involved with our efforts and I know it will make all the difference. We also received four member referrals this week....we usually get ZERO, so huge improvement. Also, on Sunday, three of our newer members brought family members to church! So even though we had only two investigators, we had FOUR family members brought to church! It was soo awesome. We were able to switch info and refer a few of them. It was great!
So pretty much life is amazing and I am realizing more and more how blessed I am. I can't wait to see what else the Lord has in store for us. In my personal study this morning I especially liked 3 Nephi 22 verses 7 to the end of the chapter. It mentions all the blessings God will give to His righteous servants and I felt very comforted. God has never forgotten us; his kindness will never depart from us. He is always there and ready to help. We just need to seek His will.
I love you all and am glad to hear things are going well over with the Smith Clan. Happy Father's Day and be good! No count-down chains!!!! So funny. Oh, and not that I think you all would try to, but they asked us to remind friends and family not to send packages with me only having less than a month left. :)
All my love,
Sister Brooke Smith
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