Keziah in Kentucky: God directs His Work. Out of small things are great things brought to pass!

Miracles + Crazy busy = Amazing Week!

On Monday, we had a slower p-day (a much needed break). After p-day we both felt firmly about knocking a street, so we rode our bikes over there. Once there I thought of a person that lived near there and we decided to visit them. We ended up having an impromptu lesson and setting up a return appointment. It was really cool, but needless to say, we did not end up having time to knock the street…
After that we contacted people, did some social media work, and had a call with the zone leaders. We have some really fun ideas for this transfer! After planning with the Zone leaders we called some of our sisters after 9 that had just been having a rough few days. (Thankfully they seem to be doing better now.)

On Tuesday, we started off our day with personal study followed by our mission-wide Zoom call. On Tuesday at 10 the main topic was following the standards and doing our absolute best. One of my favorite quotes was, “God expects us to try, but we really have to try.” After our mission wide Zoom call we did a few things and then ate lunch. After lunch we had approximately five hours that we spent trying to find new people to teach. First we went street contacting (with little success), then we went door knocking (still with little success). We did meet one super sweet lady while door knocking who is interested, but she is getting ready to move (good thing she is only moving to a different part of our area). A funny thing that happened was we knocked on Gary's door (a super sweet man who is not interested). We have run into him three times in the last few weeks. He moved since the last time we door knocked into him (3 weeks ago) and we knocked on his new door! We are just waiting for him to realize that it is a sign… After that we got banana ice cream at the gas station near us because it was extremely hot. We then did some social media, visited some people, and had dinner. After dinner we had Murphy's Baptismal interview, followed immediately by a call with the SMLs to talk about the Friends of Christ page, followed by Branch coordination. Kind of chaotic evening, but super helpful!

On Wednesday we had Mission Leadership Council. It was really awesome and we came up with some good ideas for the rest of the transfer. Some of my favorite quotes from MLC were, “The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.” (Elder Merrill), “Failure hurts worse than success feels good.” (Elder Passey), “If missionaries are discouraged, they do not understand the goal setting process.” (President McGinn) "Never assign failure to God. That's not who he is.” (President McGinn), "It is easier to do what is right than to stop what is wrong,” and "We are here to learn how to he better, what better way to improve than to try.” (Elder Black). After MLC, we went straight to dinner with the Jensen family. They has the cutest kids! After dinner, we contacted and then had a lesson with our friend Wayne. It was pretty cool because at multiple points you could see the spirit touched him. After his lesson, we did social media, had a District Leader call, and called the Zone Leaders to plan ZLC.

On Thursday, we had a pretty normal morning, followed by zone comp study. In zone comp study we talked a lot about the character of God. After Zone Comp study we had a lesson cancel…meaning we actually got a lunch break. After lunch we had service at the thrift store. It was one of the slower days (until the lady working with us went on break). After that we had a call with a referral where we talked about prayer, followed by some contacting. We then had a lesson with our friend Karl, followed by a lesson with our new members DJ and Jess, followed by a lesson with the Smith's (some of my favorite people). Right after our lesson with the Smith Family we went to dinner with the Cochrans. For our spiritual thought we did a card trick and talked about being led by the Holy Ghost. It was super funny because Brayden was mind blown. After dinner we finished our night with a call with the Lebanon sisters. They are so sweet and they make my heart so happy!

On Friday we had district council. At district council we talked about the Living Christ and who Christ was to us. It was super powerful. After district council we cleaned out the font for Murphy's Baptism. It had not been used in a while… We then went to make sure we knew how to turn it on for Saturday. We realized that the key that opened the font was not the same key to open the controls for the water in the font. After determining that none of our keys unlocked that door we simply unscrewed it from the wall. We then could not get the water to be warm. ..turns out the water heater was turned off. Between that chaos and frantically trying to find mirrors for ZLC, we skipped lunch. We then had a lesson with our friend Joe. He is super sweet. After his lesson, we had a lesson with our friend Courtney. She is super excited to be meeting again and set up her own return appointment! After her lesson, we contacted people, found mirrors, finished and printed the baptismal program, and ate dinner. After dinner, we called Murphy and finished confirming everything for his baptism. We then reported and finished the night with a call with the Zone Leaders to solidify everything for Zone Leadership Council.

On Saturday we had zone leadership council. It was super fun. One of the highlights was that we talked about reflecting Christ and used mirrors (hence the need for mirrors) to reflect a laser from the gym to the drawing of “our friend Dave” in the primary room. It was really difficult, but super cool. After that we talked about stopping bad habits by starting good ones, and leading by example. After ZLC we went to lunch a Shoneys, but we had to get back to Bardstown so we got ours to go. We then frantically drove back to Bardstown to fill the font. Turns out we did not need to be in that big of a hurry because the font only took an hour to fill… We finally ate lunch, set up for the baptism, and got to sit down. The baptism was super sweet and the spirit was so strong. So excited for Murphy! After the baptism, we cleaned up and went back to the apartment to weekly plan. We then called people, had an impromptu lesson with our friend Stephen, and finished the night with a call with the Brandenburg sisters. They both make me laugh so hard!

On Sunday we had church, and then studied afterwards. We decided in our 30 minutes of time that was not full we could street contact. We had a super cool experience. We were walking and talking to everyone. We turned to keep walking and there was a man across the street. We had the thought that we needed to go talk to him. He ended up opening up about some challenges he has had and is super excited to read the Book of Mormon. It reminded us that God can do his own work and we are simply instruments in his hands. God can taking our meager offering (30 minutes between meetings) and make so much more out of it. We then got back to the apartment and went straight to Stake missionary coordination. We had a really good discussion about helping the stake (most of our stake is small branches spread really far apart). After that we had dinner with the Karrs, followed by Branch Coordination. During branch Coordination a friend asked if we could stop by, so we ended up having an impromptu lesson with her on the way home. We then had a call with the district leaders and called it a night.

It was a super chaotic week and yet it was a week full of miracles. God truly is directing his work and has a perfect plan. Miracles to come!!

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