It was awesome to be able to see you on Christmas Day. It
was kind of funny because afterwards the family who let us Skype at their house
kept asking us if we were doing okay. They were so worried that our Skype home
would make us sad afterwards. But I didn't feel sad at all, I was just glad to
see everyone! J
I realized afterwards that I should have asked you guys more questions...because
I did a lot of talking. But, I guess I will keep that in mind for Mother's Day,
ha-ha! Mom and Dad, I can't believe your Mission President had the whole
mission read the whole Book of Mormon in one day! That is crazy!! But I guess
that means you were able to accomplish one New Year's resolution in one day
then! J
The last 10 days have been full of ups and downs and finally
on Thursday I decided I needed to get a blessing. Everything just kind of
caught up to me. I was getting a little down on myself because our
teaching pool has been empty for quite a while and all we have been
doing is tracting and in the course of 4 hours of tracting, we only have the
opportunity to talk to maybe 4 or 5 people if we are lucky. So, on
Thursday night I received a Priesthood blessing from our Elders. It was
probably one of the coolest blessings I have ever received. It really
helped me! The next morning I read through D&C 8 and 6,
which later I realized were the sections dad told me to read when I
was in the MTC. Section 6 is such an amazing section and is filled with so much
good stuff! I'm so thankful for the power of the priesthood, the Holy
Ghost and the scriptures. Through those three things I was definitely given
more optimism and we worked really hard this weekend and we saw miracles. Our
investigator, Scott is progressing. He read 1 Nephi 8 and he told us a lot of
goals and aspirations he has for himself. We tried to help him see how the
gospel of Jesus Christ can help him accomplish those goals. A big goal for him
is to develop a greater relationship with his daughter. Also we were able to
find a new investigator named Kayla. She is in her late 20's and has a few
kids. We left her with the Book of Mormon which she said she would read and
pray about. We are excited to see how she felt about it.
On Saturday night we attended Melanie's baptism, the Elder's
investigator. As we pulled into the parking lot, we saw President and Sister
Keyes get out of their car. Sister Morris and I started freaking out
because we were speaking at the baptism and our mission President was now
in attendance as well. The only thing that went kind of wrong was that the
Elders didn't fill the font full enough and so after two attempts at baptizing
Melanie, they ended up doing the baptism on their knees. But her
elbow or foot came up after another 3 attempts to baptize her, so finally
on the sixth try it was good! Overall it went really well
and President and Sister Keyes brought such a sweet spirit to that
baptism. Melanie brought her mom and her friend. It was kind of funny because
we had randomly ran into Melanie's friend caroling on Christmas, so it was
awesome to see her at the baptism. She also ended up coming to church. We
can't teach her though, because she is in Kearney 1st ward boundaries, so the
1st Ward Sisters are working with her.
Church was interesting. So, I had to speak on Sunday and I
spoke on the character of Christ and mostly used the example of Satan tempting
Christ while he was fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. I guess it went well.
Then we missionaries sang silent night in Sacrament Meeting. I was
supposed to do a descant, but my voice wouldn't let me, so I just sang it
normal. Melanie's friend, Courtney came to church and it was so funny, because
she asked if the guys and girls split up during Sunday School because
she gets uncomfortable sometimes around boys. She said, "especially
when we have to discuss awkward topics". I tried to help her overcome
her concern by telling her that we wouldn't be talking about anything
uncomfortable, and that Sunday School is
awesome....Well, we went into the gospel principles class and guess what the
topic was,….. that's right, THE LAW OF CHASTITY!!! Seriously, what are the
chances that out of 52 Sundays in a year, the one Sunday we really didn't
want it to come up, it came up! It was actually really funny!
Also, Relief Society and Priesthood were combined
for the last half of the meeting. We had a really neat experience in which
the Bishop involved all of the auxiliaries in coming up with some Ward goals
for the upcoming year. He had each auxiliary come up with a reactivation and
new member goal. After all the auxiliaries came up with a goal he had them come
together and the total Ward goal came out to be 36 baptisms and 30
reactivations. It was so inspired and it made each member in the ward feel
accountable to those numbers because they took part in their own auxiliary. I'm
really excited to see how this will motivate the Ward to really be anxiously
engaged in more member missionary work. Well, things are going well and I am
trying to see the miracles every day, and they are there. I love you all and I
hope the move keeps going well with Uncle Blaine. Kass and Scott enjoy your
time with Mom, Dad and Jeremy. Elder Luening, keep up the great work in Germany
and I'm glad you had a great Christmas! J
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Love,
Sister Luening
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