November 12, 2013 Letter from Cassidy

Hey everyone!

I have officially been on my mission for 2 months already.... what? I swear I left last week. Time is flying WAY too fast. Well it was another great week here in Ohio! It was slightly less exciting than normal.. and we have had a lot of rain.. and today it turned to a lot of snow.. so I might not make it much longer... but we are really blessed and are able to meet with really awesome people! 

We have so many great people we are working with right now, it is almost a little unreal. Like how did I get so blessed?  Who knows.  But really this is funny. So we are teaching 2 Barbras, 2 Brendas, 2 Joes, and 2 Jeffs.... so let's just say praying for investigators gets REAL confusing. And I will call Brenda Barbra and then I will call Barbra the Barbernator while we are praying in a lesson and things are just a struggle sometimes. hahaha. And sometimes I pray for Barbra and my companion says "Brenda" and then I lose it.  But I am working on it and hopefully by the time I am done with my mission I will be able to say people's names. It's a process with me. 

So one of the Brendas is the one I talked a little bit about last week. We have been meeting with her a lot and she is really working on quitting smoking. We had break through the other night.. I asked her if she had prayed to have God's help to quit.. and she said she hasn't. She said that she knows if she prays that He will help her and take it away.. but she is scared that she will get sick and that's how He will get rid of her desire to smoke. But last night at our lesson we had her say a prayer and she asked for His help and man the spirit was so strong. It is really neat to see her have faith and realize that she can't do it on her own. She has been trying to quit for years on her own.. and she really knows she can't do it alone. I mean that is how I feel basically every single day here on my mission. I am in no way qualified to help these people.. and most of the time I have no clue what to do. It is actually so hard because I love these people and it is hard to feel like I can't help them the way they really need.. but the great thing is that I know I am not doing it alone. I feel Heavenly Father help me so much every day. It is incredible how me and my companion will be able to find people and teach people and help people in a way that we never planned to. Honestly every single day is just full of miracles and I feel so blessed to be a part of it. But back to Brenda, she has a really strong testimony of the church and the Gospel, and she is really working to quit by the 21st so she can be baptized on December 14th! I am excited because I know she can do it with His help. 

One of the funniest things that happened this week was it was a really nice day and we were helping a lady in our ward do some painting. And after we were headed to go tracting. And we were in our car saying a prayer before we started... and literally RIGHT then it started pouring rain. Pouring. It was the funniest thing ever. Everytime we got to knock some doors it becomes a torrential downpour. And then when we are done, it stops. It is classic. But we do what we gotta do. 

We had the COOLEST lesson this week. So we were teaching this old guy named Maurice Mackwhinnie (yeah coolest name ever) he is really old but super nice. (Of course he is old... hahaha only the old people like us) but so we were teaching him.. and then there was another guy at his house and he sat down and started listening. And  we were sorta talking about how God works in mysterious ways..And we started talking about the Book of Mormon and all the sudden the other guy (his name is Frank) says "I have one of those books!" and he ran downstairs and came back with a Book of Mormon. He told us that his step-brother just committed suicide in September.. and the one thing he got from his house was the Book of Mormon. He is not sure why his brother had it... but that is what he took.  And then he was just sitting there looking at the book and said "God does work in mysterious ways.. and I think this is one of them". It was the best thing ever. He is really having a hard time with losing his brother and I know that the gospel would help him so much. It is just amazing how God lead us to him. This whole week I have just been so blown away by how we manage to find these people who need to know more about God and life and what happens after we die and everything. So hopefully we can help Frank out more because that was one of the coolest experiences of my mission! 

Last night we taught a lesson outside in the pouring rain.. to a lady who has short term memory loss.. she has a really rough life and she doesn't think that God really loves her personally or answers her prayers. We were able to teach her a little and she said she will read the Book of Mormon!.. Hopefully she remembers us when we go back over.. that could be really interesting haha. 

Joe was out of town this week in Columbus.. but he did say some classic #joequotes over the phone. like "If you take me out with you to find people to teach... ain't nobody gonna be slamming no doors in your face." And "I will be at church on sundayand NO ONE can stop me." hahaha then he said "Life is not a straight road. It has curves in it." Deep. and then he said he wants to go with us so he can be our guardian angel so nothing happens to us. He makes me laugh so much. I am really glad we have him to make us laugh all the time! 

We had another cool lesson with this lady named Mary. The cool things she said were "This  Book of Mormon must be true and important because Satan is really trying to tear it down." And I was like AMEN SISTER. But really.. the Book of Mormon is the best thing in the world. I have read it twice on my mission already and it just basically makes my life. I really think everyone should just read it once.. just give it a shot.. and then see what you think. It strengthens my testimony of Jesus Christ so much every time I read from it and I really love it so much. I mean I liked it before my mission... but now that I have been really studying it and using it to help other people, I have realized how powerful and incredible it is. I am a little bit obsessed and I just sometimes wish I could force people to read it so they can know how cool it is... but agency is a thing so I will just have to let them chose to read it. Hahaha.

ANYWAYS I am done with my rants. I am loving the people and my mission and I love all of you guys! I miss you so much and I would LOVE to hear from you.. in letter form! I know you are all busy but if you ever have time just send me a short letter! I sometimes really miss you guys throughout the week and it would be so fun to get the mail and have a letter. Thanks for all of your support and prayers! I hope you all have a great week!

Love Cassidy