Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter,
 
In Nova Scotia, Easter weekend is four days long. It begins on Good Friday and ends with Easter Monday. We had some wonderful opportunities to share the spirit of Easter with others this week. A couple weeks ago we gave an elderly gentleman a copy of the Book of Mormon, Each time we call him to see if we can come by to talk to him about it, he says, "I haven't read enough of it yet. Call me in a couple days." Last Friday, we called him and asked if we could come by to watch Finding Faith in Christ with him. He agreed, and when we got there, his Book of Mormon was lying on the couch, opening to where he had been reading. He's read at least 100 pages if not more. He says he is really enjoying it, but it takes him some time to really digest what he is reading. We watched Finding Faith in Christ with him and set up another appointment to come back and teach more about the Restoration. He lives alone after his wife past away. As we left, he showed us a picture of her when she was younger. It is evident he still loves her dearly. We are looking forward to teaching him more about the Plan of Salvation.
We spent some time this week working in some of the neighboring towns in our areas. The students are slowly leaving as their finals finish and Wolfville is becoming quieter and quieter each day. Sister Lee and I are figuring out how to be effective missionaries on bikes. We rode through the countryside in Port Williams last week and both of us felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. The adventures of sister missionaries in rural Nova Scotia. :)
On Saturday, we had a powerful experience in the Lord guiding us to where we needed to be. We were trying so hard to set up an appointment with a family that we are teaching, but that morning, it fell through. Our back-up plans were to go to the BYU-I Sinfonietta concert in Halifax that night, but we needed to find a ride with a member from our ward. Out of the blue, one of the members called us and offered us a ride. We felt like it was an answer to our prayer. We arranged for her to pick us up in the area we were working in. We arrived at the designated spot (Tim Horton's, a coffee shop like Starbucks) and waited for an hour for her, but she never arrived. She doesn't have a cell phone, so we had no way to contact her. We were worried about her and frustrated that our plans weren't working out. We decided we would contact a less active family that we met a month or so ago. (Finding them last month was a miracle as well because the address on the ward list was wrong. We knocked into them randomly!) Sister Spencer invited us in and told us about how she had been at the hospital all week with her sick husband. She told us her conversion story and about how much she feels the rising generation needs something to believe in, including her boys. In addition, she told us how when we knocked on her door a month ago, she had been thinking a few days earlier that she hadn't seen missionaries in a long time. Then boom! We showed up. After we left, Sister Lee and I both knew why everything we were trying to do that night fell through. We needed to be there. The Lord amazes me. I don't understand His plan and it's an incredible feeling to see Him work through us as we humble ourselves and seek for His direction.
For Easter, the BYU-I Sinfonietta (which has been touring the mission the past week and this week) and a 70 person choir made up of missionaries and members did a fireside at the stake center. Sister Lee and I participated in the choir. It was AMAZING! Wow. Words can't even express the Spirit that was in that fireside.Sister Lee sang a solo, "O Divine Redeemer." I am so blessed to be serving as a missionary. I can't even comprehend all that the Lord has given me over the last six months. Jesus is the Christ. This is His Church. He lives!
Love,
Sister Renda

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