Our Live Nativity

Here is our live nativity from this morning at the institute. It was a blast. We had real animals! and Mary and Joseph are a couple who are really engaged. Getting marrieddecember 29th. and one of the shepherds is even a non-member who saw the LDSSA president typing up a sign-up sheet for it in class and asked to come help!! How awesome is that!? 

Sister Santas!

My second baptism in this area

 M got baptized!!!!!! Now my second baptism in this area, where the investigator scouted us out! M saw us on campus one day and realized that we were Mormon missionaries. Just the people she had been looking for after hearing from a friend, who she grew up with who went to BYU-I, that Mormons believe that Jesus Christ is the literal son of God. Satan almost had her because her baptism was set back in October, and she started avoiding us and hiding from us. Then one day, she opened her book of Mormon randomly to a page and read a scripture on baptism and took it as a sign from God and decided to continue learning from us and chose baptism again!! :] 

My birthday!

I threw the greatest party the institute has EVER seen.  So this is how my brithday came about. So, many of you may know this, you might not, but I have picked up a very very strong addiction on my mission called, family history. Literally, every second of every day, I just thirst for it. That's all I want to do, is get on family history and find people. Every single spare moment I get, I go and get on familysearch and just do it. It's like doing a puzzle. If I ever create an addictive substance, I am going to call it Elijah. After the spirit of Elijah. Which I'm pretty convinced is more addictive than any substance on the face of this planet. The Spirit of Elijah pretty is powerful stuff. It compulsively calls to me every second of every day. SO. Someone had asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I said, "I want to do family history for my birthday!!!" And then the greatest idea I may have ever thought of popped into my head. I was going to hold a family history party at the institute the night of my birthday because it so conveniently fell on the only night of the week that there is nothing happening at the institute. There are never any set classes or activities at the institute on Wednesday nights. I tried to start a crocheting club on Wednesday nights at the institute but the only person who ever showed up to it was Kevin and not only that, but the branch was going to the temple that Friday so I thought that if everyone came to my family history party on Wednesday night, then I could help everyone find names to take on Friday to the temple AND I could conveniently be doing family history for an extended period of time and not be feeling like a jack missionary for doing it. So I threw a birthday party at the institute on my birthday. we legitimately invited EVERYONE. We invited members, non members, less actives, potential investigators, former investigators and current investigators. We invited everyone we possibly could and it was a great turn out!!! and the mitchells bought cake, and a few nice people brought presents, but I'm pretty sure that the only person who worked on family history that night was me.... whatever! I tried. But, I had 20 names to take to the temple on Friday after getting permission from President Porter to go with the branch!!! So that was good. I still have 200 names that still need to be done though.. but a bunch of former investigators showed up, like Alize!!!!!! and Emily, and Seth even came and brought John. It was just awesome. I just wanted people to come to the institute and have a good time and feel the spirit and they did. :] 

We went to the temple this week!!!

I ate real authentic Iraqi food

We have only found about 5 investigators last transfer. I've been at Ball State YSA for 6 weeks now, but school hasn't been in session, and everyone is home for the summer and so the campus is like ghost town. But next transfer will be super busy!!!!!  The YSA covers the entire Muncie Indiana stake, but each ward is about 45 minutes apart. The boundaries are HUGE. so, we mainly just stay here around in Muncie. But people have been slowly moving back for school and the institute is located on Frat Row, so as soon as school starts, we can start meeting people during rush week and everything. Do you remember the movie Sydney White? All the sororities and fraternities were all located on one block? Yeah, that's what it's like here. And then there's the institute. hahahaha. We did meet this one guy who swims for the university's swim team, and he actually rode his bike down to the institute to have a lesson with us a couple of days later!!!! He is what we call "golden" or "the elect", people who are honestly searching for truth will all their hearts and will do anything to find it. So he's pretty cool. Super buff.

The senior couple that live at the institute, were invited to an Iraqi wedding a couple nights ago, for a couple to whom they were helping teach English, and are here studying abroad from Iraq. It was literally the coolest thing ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The two getting married are actually converted Christians so that is why she does not wear something over her hair. I ate real authentic Iraqi food as the bride catered it all herself. They are only here for 2 years studying at Ball State. Then they go back to a free part of Iraq called Kurdistan. We had taken them to the temple open house, and the husband still cannot speak English, but he was saying to us with the biggest smile on his face, "Temple! Temple!" He must have been really, really impressed with it. For someone who cannot even say "hello" to go and then remember the word "temple" is truly a testimony.

 

We don't usually dumpster dive . . .

Funniest story ever!!! So, Sister H got her "trunky papers" that means her airline ticket and departing information, and then she walked over to the dumpster to throw away some junk mail we had received, and her trunky papers accidentally flew into the dumpster!!! That's her airline ticket home to Hawaii!!! So, she had nothing else to do... she had to climb in the dumpster and get it out!! LOL!!! Talk about not wanting to go home...