Transfer 6 Week 2

Uhh, wanna talk about miracles?

JEREMIAH ROBERT FERGUSON WAS BAPTIZED!!!!!

I know, right?! I told y’all the briefness of the story, and I was
getting worried last Monday when Jeremiah hadn’t called about baptism.
So I had called him and left him a message saying, “Hey Jeremiah, it’s
the Sisters. Just wondering what you’re thinking and what’s going on.
Hope you’re having a fabulous day—call us back!” And we didn’t hear
from him until ~6:45 that night, when Sister Gilbert and her son,
Adam, were driving us to a lesson with the Seamons. I answered it and
did the small talk thing and then couldn’t stand it anymore—I was
like, “So, Jeremiah, where are we at in regards to this baptism?
What’s on your mind?” And he said, “Well…I’m thinking that you should
probably schedule a baptismal interview.” And I may or may not have
gotten a little squeaky and said, “Uhh…like, a practice one with us or
the real deal?” Jeremiah: “Uh, the real thing. For as soon as
possible. Though I don’t want you guys to stress out with the baptism
being Thursday, so…” Me: “Jeremiah, we LIVE for this. If you want to
be baptized on Thursday, you will be baptized on Thursday. We’re
professionals at setting up baptisms.” Jeremiah: “Okay, set up the
interview for tomorrow night.” And then we closed the conversation.
Sister Kartchner and I were SCREAMING and the Gilberts were laughing
and rolled all the windows down so our voices wouldn’t burst any
eardrums. Tuesday night Jeremiah met with our District Leader, Elder
Williams, and passed the interview with flying colors. Mind you,
Jeremiah and E. Williams decided to play a little prank on us. I had
my coat and boots in my arms (I was playing basketball with some
little kids during the interview) and we walked in the room and Elder
Williams was all serious and jazz and was like, “I’m so sorry Sisters,
but….Jeremiah passed.” I threw everything in my arms at him and
stormed out to the hall to chastise (not really) Jeremiah for coming
up with this NOT FUNNY joke. Sister Kartchner was about to punch Elder
Williams. It was funny…later. The baptism went BEAUTIFUL!!! Sister
Kartchner and I called every single active member in 1st ward to
invite them, and for a 36 hour notice, we had a good amount of people
show up. We even had 2 other Sisters who had taught Jeremiah at the
baptism. So 4 of the 7 Sisters that taught him were there. It was so
awesome. I don’t feel like it’s real, though. I feel like we’ll meet
with him next week and try to commit him to baptism again.

The Lord is blessing us, for realz. We have a potential new
investigator and a new investigator that we got from tracting. We
decided as a companionship that we need to actually be serious about
the goals we set. We were setting a goal for 1 new investigator a
week, but we weren’t doing anything about it. I called us out on that
and so we decided that we were going to actually try to obtain that
goal. 2 weeks in a row we got our goal of 1 new investigator, and then
we aimed for 2 last week. Miracles happen when you put your faith in
the Lord, and we got those 2 new investigators. Now we need to
transmit our faith to our investigators who will attend sacrament. We
have 11 that should be attending, but only 6 that do (on average). So
our next step: getting all 11 of those souls at Sacrament. It’s
totally possible. So we’re going to do it.

The Lord also gives us reminders. Sometimes I don’t realize how much I
love these people I’m serving. But last Wednesday one of the Recent
Converts sat us down with her daughter and told us that she has
bladder cancer. As she spoke with medical terms I couldn’t stop
crying—this amazing woman who has already over come cancer, abuse,
divorce, and other medical issues and found solace in the gospel of
Jesus Christ is being faced with another huge challenge. She is so
amazing. And it hurt me to see her hurting. We won’t know how serious
it will be until the 6th of December, but I’m praying hard for her. I
didn’t realize how much I have grown to love her over these past
7-8ish weeks I’ve been here. And I’m learning to embrace the Lord’s
will. He gave her this challenge because he knows she can handle it.
That should give us so much strength. And then when we can’t handle
it, he will fight out battles (Doctrine and Covenants 98:37). And
through his atonement, we will be made free (Doctrine and Covenants
98:8). He knows the way because he IS the way (Jeffrey R. Holland). We
just have to follow him. Give our will to him. We can do that.

The Lord also blesses us with goodly parents, just like Nephi. I’ve
been reminded over and over this week how amazing my parents are. Mom
and Dad, you two are the most legit individuals in the world. I am
soooo blessed to have you in my life, to have been raised and taught
by you, to have been able to learn from y’alls life experiences to
make me a better person. We are told in the scriptures that our
parents teach us—the Stripling Warriors did not doubt because their
mothers knew it (alma 56). And we should follow the example of Nephi
in 1Nephi 11:5—“ And I said, Yeah, thou knowest that I believe all the
words of my father.” I know that you guys are here to teach me correct
principals. I know it. You are two incredible people, and I thank you.
I will never be able to repay you…except, perhaps, by giving you
grandkids someday :o).

This work is awesome. We got 4 inches of snow yesterday and I built my
first snow man EVER!!! I shoveled snow at the church building and
found it delightful. This work is just BOMB.

I love you all very much and hope you all have a happy and safe Thanksgiving :o)

love love love,
sister mack