April 18th

(Dear Readers, This blog post was supposed to be posted last week, and I thought I had done it, but obviously didn't.  So it is out of order.  TD)

Hey ya'll,

This week has been an absolute whirlwind.  A trying one for sure.  To let ya'll know I just dropped off my companion, Sister Tuala at the airport this morning!  After lot's of prayer, pondering, and tears she decided to go home a week early to attend the funeral of her Grandma.  Not the easiest thing I've ever had to do, but I was blessed to get the chance to stay in the mission home with her and drive with her to the airport, and then show her how to check bags and print a boarding pass :) She is currently on the airplane on her 10 hour flight to Honolulu!  Oh I how I will miss S.Tuala.  We got along far too well, that's probably why we had to be separated early.  In the good word's of S.Tuala "This relationship is toxic." She taught me how to have joy in the work and it really is okay to be yourself and a missionary at the same time.  How the most important thing is your personal relationship with your Heavenly Father.  The mission is always, always worth it even if it's not always your favorite.  The mission is not going to be the same without her.  She spent a year of her mission in this area, serving in this ward, the Wake Forest 2nd and Falls Lake and it was so neat on Sunday to see how many lives she had touched with her Hawaiian self.  I am currently covering the three wards in Wake Forest with the Wake Forest 2nd/Falls lake sisters for the week until transfers next Tuesday. 

The big news of the week besides all of that was that Alton was baptized on Saturday!  It was a beautiful service and the most stress free one.  Our ward mission leader took care of everything, we basically just had to show up!  Some of Alton's family was able to attend as well.  After he went under the water, he came up and was just smiling straight at his mom.  It was such a neat moment.  I am so grateful to get a front row seat to see Heavenly Father help his children become eternal families! Alton is gonna do a lot of good in this world. We are so excited for him.

 Another exciting thing is that our investigator Lynda showed up for church Sunday!! She only stayed for Sacrament meeting, but I could tell she really enjoyed it. The choir sang "I Need Thee Every Hour," and I could tell that she was really feeling the spirit.  We have a lesson with her Wednesday and I am excited to hear more about what she thought! 

We also had a Zone Conference this week where we received instruction on how we want to make this mission a baptizing mission and double our baptisms, mostly by increasing our faith.  I'm not gonna lie to ya'll I wasn't totally all for it, cause we can have all the faith in the world and people are still not going to be ready and choose to reject.  So I might not have that faith right now, but I do have a hope.  Afterwards, we were able to go to the Duke Gardens!  It was absolutely beautiful!  We also got to see some of the campus and the outside of the chapel. 

A good portion of the week was spent in chaos as a lot of things were up in the air and as we ran around packing and saying good bye to people, So I don't have too much to report mostly cause my brain is fried with 4 hours of sleep.  BUT I love the Lord.  I love His work. I know that these next 9 months will be worth it. :)  

Love, Sister Dearden