Letter dated 8/18/15 - sorry for not posting it last week.

Hello!!

Things are going great here in Fort Wayne Indiana! We received transfer news today, and I am... staying here!! YAY! Sadly, Sister Mickelsen is leaving me, but I am excited for her to go change another missionaries life like she changed mine :) A bit more about this later!

This week was awesome!! We were walking into the library to have some lds.org time, and because our schedule was crazy we didn't get to go until later than we normally do. Coincidence? No such thing. Because right as we walked into the library a man stopped us and said hello! He was talking really loud, and the whole library was staring at us... but we stopped worrying about them when we found out he was a less active who had just hit the low of lows, and had at that very moment been praying that we would walk in the door to help him. How amazing right?? Like my dad said, life (especially a mission) is like a chessboard, and he moves us around, and has us meet certain people at certain times for a reason. I am so excited to help Joseph out, because this gospel will truly help bring him back into the light! It was one of the coolest experiences ever!

We had an awesome dinner appointment with a lady in our ward who had a non member friend over! She was really interested, and we got to share the message of the restoration with her. The testimony of the member (who was a convert to the church) was really powerful and I truly felt the Spirit there. She is praying to know if Joseph Smith is a prophet, but she truly wants to follow Christ, so I know she will get her answer!

She also asked me if it was hard to have doors slammed in my face. Which was a crazy question because it has literally happened like 10 minutes before! And as I was thinking about it, I came up with the analogy about missionary work (but I have proceeded to copyright it, so you must give me credit if you use it! ;D) Okay here goes: As a missionary, it is like we are standing at people's doors with the most delicious chocolate (or whatever kind you like) cake in the whole wide world. And when they open the door, we are offering them this never ending supply of cake. Cake that somehow has no calories and is made with so much love. (who can say no to that really??) So when they slam the door in my face, I try not to be offended or angry or disappointed in myself, I am just sad that they don't want the cake. Luckily, their neighbor doesn't have the cake yet, so I am always able to try and give it to someone else. As we were leaving, she thanked me for sharing my cake with her :)

Okay, new subject because now I am craving chocolate cake :)

The Lord has called me to be a trainer. Wow. What a exciting/nerve wracking/humbling experience. I definitely don't feel qualified for this. But I truly have been shown that the Lord calls the unqualified, and if we let him help us, he will qualify those he calls. It'll be exciting to get to pick up my newbie tomorrow! She is lucky that she got called to the best mission, area, and ward ever. Hopefully her trainer can do a good job too :)

I love you all!

Sister Sara Matthews

Description of Pictures:  We were asked to give our rap as the opening act at the Primary Talent Show...  

These adorable kids

Sister Tucker and I trying to be cool on exchanges :)

Subject: Families can be together forever :D  (letter dated August 25th)

What a crazy week. But so good. I have prayed harder this last week than I have my whole mission, and the Lord has really blessed me (and us) so much!  I have the best trainee in the world. I am positive that she came pre-trained, and that she is actually here to help me, not the other way around! Her name is Sister Peterson, she is from Holladay Utah and also went to a year of college at BYUI (represent!) before her mission! We have a lot in common, and get along really well, but we also have so different strengths and weaknesses, and it has been awesome to see those come out in these past few days! We are still working out a few kinks in our teaching methods, but we have a lot of appointments this week, so we are going to have the restoration down pat by the next time I email home!

We met the coolest family this week. We were walking to contact a referral, and there was a family moving in across the street. So we asked if we could help them! (On a side note, we ask to help people all of the time, and they almost never let us serve them! So I didn't really expect them to say yes when we offered our services!) AND THEY SAID YES. We helped them move for about an hour, and got to know them as we worked. And I have come to realize even more than before that

there is nothing better than physically serving someone to help boost your spirits, and theirs as well! And then it opens so many doors! We are doing a family home evening with them on Saturday, and I am so excited! They are so prepared, and really interested! And when we said a prayer with them, I felt the Spirit so strongly, and the grandma even started to cry! I am so excited to help this family come closer to Christ and each other, and to help them get to the temple someday!

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D This is the only way that I can describe how I feel right now :)

Love you all!

Sister Sara Matthews :)