Tracting and finding... yes! Not going to the club.

Soooo many wonderful miracles happened this week! I cannot even begin to tell you about all of them, but I'll share a few of the most special.

On Wednesday when we got home for the night I started really thinking about the work here in Loomis, and I realized that I had developed this terrible habit of doing the same thing every week and expecting different results. I think that's the definition of insanity....anyway, I prayed really hard and asked The Lord what He wanted me to do in this area to help us find more people to teach and the answer I got was make goals and go tracting. Tracting?! That's like the least effective way to do missionary work. Well, as I went with that answer we were able to find 3 new investigators this week! It was crazy!

We tracted into a referral from a family and she is very strong in her faith but said we could come back. We tracted into a family and for the first time in all of my mission life, they let us in right then and there! It was so awesome. I remember as we walked in and sat down I thought "wow! This great! Oh wait...I've never gotten this far before...what do we do now?!" Hahah it was just a moment of panic before we started talking with them about the gospel. The husband is a Catholic with lots of faith and the wife doesn't even know if she believes in God. They enjoyed our time together and we cannot wait to go back! :)

Another day we went to try to contact a former investigator and turns out this guy we met at the park like a month ago lives with this former investigator! I thought I'd never see him again! But Heavenly Father loves him and led us right to him. We left him a Book of Mormon (which he literally would not even touch the first time we saw him) and he owes the community some service hours so we told him we'd find some opportunities for him, so we'll see more of him soon. That experience was so awesome! It really helped strengthen my testimony of how much Heavenly Father is aware of His children!

John 15:18-19

18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

I could go on and on about more finding miracles, but I wanted to share a super special miracle for me this week. Friday we were going about teaching lessons almost all day and in the middle of the day my stomach started to hurt. I was like hmmm... This is weird, maybe I just need to go to the bathroom. So every house we went to teach I asked to use the bathroom...nothing. The pain started getting more and I just ignored it because we had things to do. By the end of the night when we left the B's I literally could not stand up straight my stomach hurt so bad! We got in the car and started to drive home. As I was driving I got super light headed and felt nauseous. I quickly pulled over and opened the door because I thought I was going to puke. But I just gagged. (This guy was in the parking lot and asked if we were at the Valencia Club earlier...I explained that we were actually missionaries....I don't think he believed me) my companion drove the rest of the way home and all I could think was, "okay, I have no idea what is wrong with me or how to fix it. I need to ask Brother T for a blessing." I did and he and a neighbor gave me a priesthood blessing. They blessed me that I would feel better immediately and Be able to rest and get back to work the next day. The Spirit was very strong in the room and as soon as I stood up the pain was completely gone. The priesthood is absolutely real. And I am so grateful for righteous men who are worthy to hold and use the priesthood.

I love being a missionary. I love being a part of this great work. It has changed my life forever.

I love y'all and miss you! It's crazy to think that at the middle of April I'll already have been out 6 months. It's flying by too quickly!

Love,

Sister Byrne

Sou dicípulo de Jesus Cristo