This week has had its ups and downs. I went on exchanges with Sister Glasgow on Tuesday to Junction City. Oh my it was so fun!!!! We were laying in our beds on Monday night and Sister Glasgow says, "it's like we're having a sleepover!" I laughed, because it's been a while since we had one of those!
Junction City was AWESOME!!!! We had some really cool experiences. On Monday night while we were planning, we were looking at a former investigator's teaching record. We decided we'd go to her house. As we kept looking at the record, it said that the girl who had been taught (Anna) didn't live there anymore, so we debated whether we should go there. We decided we would give it a try. The next day we got to the street (Pear Loop). We started tracting. We talked to a couple of people who weren't really interested and then we knocked on this door and this woman (Melissa) came out. We had an awesome conversation with her; we even read a scripture on the porch. She said she'd read the Book of Mormon and that se liked it and thought it was scripture. We then told her that with that knowledge came responsibility to act on it. We told her that we invite people to be baptized and to act on that faith they've developed. She seemed very interested so we scheduled a time to come back on Thursday. As we were walking away, we realized the house she lives at is the same house that Anna lived in. We were thinking wow! that's pretty cool, because we had considered not going there.
A few hours later, we were contacting another former investigator on the opposite side of town. She wasn't interested, so we started to talk to people on the street around her house. We talked to this lady who wasn't really interested, then we talked to these two guys who weren't very nice. We asked the two guys if they knew anyone who could use a message of Jesus Christ; they pointed to two women across the street and said, "Yeah, them." They said it pretty sarcastically and then watched us walk over to them. I think they thought we'd make fools of ourselves and frankly, I think Sister Glasgow and I thought we would too. We started talking to the women. One's name was Danika, she was probably about 18 or so, she said that she had been to a bunch of different churches, so she was pretty doubtful. We moved into the Joseph Smith story and recited the First Vision to her. As I finished it I asked what she thought and she said, "I like it!" I said, "You do?! Do you want to know more?!" She asked if I had a pamphlet, I told her yes and asked if we could meet with her on Thursday. She said yes, but it would probably be better to meet at her dad's house. Sister Glasgow started getting her info. She asked her was her address was and the girl said "1780 Pear Loop" Sister Glasgow and I both said "What? We were just at that house! We talked to Melissa." Danika said, "Really?" We said, "Yeah, we're meeting with her on Thursday at 4, will you be there?" It was the craziest experience! It was awesome! Sister Glasgow and I both walked away from there completely shocked! It was awesome!
On exchanges, we also went to dinner at the Gamby's. They have my dream house!!!! It was seriously a castle house through and through!!!! I loved it so much and Sister Gamby took us on a tour of it! Oh I want to live there so bad!!!!! I wrote down the address, so I can bring you to it when I get home! It's so beautiful! And the Gamby's are so cool! We had a really funny dinner there. We got to the house and went in. I complimented Sister Gamby on the house, so she took us on a tour. As we were coming down the stairs into the kitchen, we smelled the spaghetti burning! So, Sister Gamby started cooking some more for us. She has adopted like 9 kids or something and all of them were taken by DHS and given to the Gamby's, so I was very fascinated by their stories. I kept asking questions and she'd start talking and stop cooking. After a while I was trying not to ask questions, because I could see we were never going to get to eat! Ha! We ended up having like a 2 hour dinner by the time it was cooked and we ate. We learned A LOT about the Gamby's though and I really love them! I hope to some day serve in Santa Clara/Junction City! I love it there so much!
On Thursday, we went up to Oakridge for a Missionary Night. We had worked with the activities committee and had planned this dinner along with some learning stations. We got up to Oakridge in the afternoon and taught a little bit. We met one of the coolest kids I've ever met here! His name was Austin. He is 12 and his grandma is a member of the church. He said he wanted to be baptized, so we went to try to teach him. He said he wanted to be baptized, because he wanted to receive the priesthood. His spirit was so strong and he had such an incredible personality. He talked about wanting to serve a mission some day. We had to get his mom's permission to teach him, so we went over to his house with him. His step dad wasn't very happy that we were there. We left our number for his mom to call us. We called his grandma today and she said that his mom has now decided he is no longer allowed to go to our church and that he will be attending the Baptist church in Oakridge. :( Hopefully someday, he'll be able to make the decision for himself and he'll remember how he felt when he came to his grandma's church and want to come back.
On Thursday night we went to our missionary night. We had dinner first and then we issued mission calles signed by the branch president to each member present. The call said that they were called to serve in the Oakridge branch for Eternity. After dinner, we had about 4 stations that they members split up into. One of the stations was a role-play station that Sister Smith taught. She taught the members how to approach their friends about the gospel and then let them practice. The second station that I taught was a referral station where the members got to write their testimony to one of their friends in a copy of the Book of Mormon and then they wrote their friend's name and address down for us to contact them. We will be taking the member with us to contact their friend and give them the Book of Mormon next Sunday. We got 10 referrals! The third station was a letter-writing station where they got to write letters to missionaries from their branch. The last station that Sister Kaufusi taught was a missionary relay race. The members split into two teams and had to run to the end of the room and iron a shirt, put it on with shoes and a suit coat then grab a suitcase and a Book of Mormon and run it to the end of the room to give to the next person in line. They had so much fun! At the end of the night, the Branch President (Pres. Zimmerman) got up and gave an awesome talk that just summed up the whole night! It was so much fun and the members really clicked with us. They asked us a bunch of questions about our mission experiences and we got to tell a lot of stories about our missions. It was one of the funnest nights! I love Oakridge so much and I'm really going to miss it! :(
We went to the Women's Conference on Saturday, which was really awesome! I loved President Monson's talk! It was great! On Sunday, we had a baptism after church! Stacy got baptized!!!!!!! In the McKenzie River!!!!!! It was freaking awesome!!!!! She invited us to come to her TEMPLE SEALING next October in the Salt Lake Temple!!!! Yay!!!!! I'm so excited! This is why I love being a missionary.
Love,
Sister Losee
Picture 1: Sister Smith, Sister Kaufusi, Mike Landen, Stacy Landen, Me, Dad Landen. This is by the McKenzie River right before Stacy's baptism!!!
Picture 2: Pammy, Me, Brandy, Makaela, Rachel(in front) at the Missionary night in Oakridge!
Picture 3: Sister Glasgow and I on exchanges!!!!
Picture 4: Us and the Spanish Elders on our way home from the coast last week! Ha! We caught the elder's sleeping and took pictures, so then we decided to pose it so it looked like we were sleeping and the elders' were being crazy! We had fun! Love these guys!
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