Monday, September 23, 2013

"Walk like an Egyptian"


This was a really good week. (minus me being sick for 2 days, but I'm better now!) Last Monday we went down to PCH and I got to see the ocean! It was so pretty and the weather was really nice. Then we went to main street in Huntington beach which has a lot of souvenir shops, restaurants, and surf shops. (huntington beach is called surf city) We have randomly contacted a lot of Egyptian people lately. Two of the them came to church but we realized they live in a different ward boundaries so we had to pass them off. Another Egyptian family that we met lives in our apartment complex. We went over and talked to them about our church. They are muslim and I never knew that we had so many similarities with them! They don't drink, smoke, gambol, they pay a form of tithing, they pray and read their scriptures, they believe that we are God's children, they believe in prophets, they believe families are important. The main difference is that they believe that Jesus was just a prophet. It was a great discussion but they weren't really interested in converting, just curious about what we believe.It made me think though just how important it is to believe in Christ and have faith in the atonement and how much they are missing since they don't believe that. Also we are still working with Viv. Sadly she didn't come to church on sunday and her reason was that she was going to an exclusive red carpet event at the Emmys. (welcome to orange county) But we had a great experience with her this week. She has been having trouble keeping commitments especially since she started her nursing class. A few nights ago we were over at her house and I asked her how she was doing with saying her prayers every night. She told us that she was trying and that she had had an experience this week. She was listening to music and when she started to listen to the lyrics she suddenly thought about God and how much he loved her. (coming from someone who has been atheist her whole life this was awesome!!) It was a Rhianna song (which doesn't have anything to do with God but the lyrics said something about "where have you been all my life") As she was telling us she broke down into tears and told us that she just never felt this way before and never felt so much love. We told her that what she was feeling was the spirit and that, however random it may seem, God knew her and he knew how to talk to her even if it was through a song. It was just a great moment because I can see her faith growing in just knowing that God is there and He wants her to be happy. I made a comment  to her that all of these little moments are bringing her closer to the truth. She agreed but she said that this wasn't a small moment. She said that it felt like lightning struck and things just clicked. This was a good reminder for me. Sometimes it can be frustrating when investigators won't even do something as simple as praying. But for her realizing that God was there was a huge moment for her, since she has never known he was there. It was great. This week we also had a finding training where we were taught about how to be better finders and what we can do to try to get more people to teach. We are trying to still find right now which can be hard in our area but hopefully we will keep getting better at it. We are getting excited for conference because it is ten times more awesome when you are a missionary. Also our mission president told us this week that there are 80,000 missionaries out right now which is crazy!! The work really is moving forth!

love you all!!

-Sister washburn

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