June 16th - Diversity is the BEST

Dear family and friends,

So guess what? I had a great week! Hope you did as well :)

Everything is always blurred into one long day, but I'll share some highlights with you from what I remember.

So first off, I will be sending pictures this week! I remembered my camera, as promised. I need to take more pictures...goal for this week!

Okay, I can't remember if I told y'all last week, but my district leader, Elder Williams, came out at the same time as me! It's been really fun to serve around him again. Reminds me of the good ole' MTC days haha. Whew...glad I don't have to do that again. He gave me a blessing last week because I have been feeling super stressed, and it helped me so so SO much! I am so thankful for righteous priesthood holders who keep the Spirit with them so they can be instruments in God's hands to give His children comfort.

So, from the first of the week: coolest following a prompting story ever!! Monday evening we only had about 30 minutes before we needed to head back home to Vallejo from Napa. We had several potential investigators to drop by, but this girl's name popped into my head:

Brittany. She is an inactive member who asked that the Church do not contact her. But I felt the feeling again we should go by and see her, so Sis. Harmer and I talked about it and decided to go. As soon as we knocked on Brittany's door, she opened it and invited us right inside!

She was eating dinner with her fiancé, Jordan, who is also an inactive member. We shared with her "Because of Him" and talked about the Atonement and eternal marriage, and how God wants more for them than what they have now. Brittany was in tears the whole time and said she is ready to take the steps to come back. At the end of the lesson she said the prayer and started crying. She said, "I haven't prayed in a long time. It feels so amazing." :) Moral of the story: follow the promptings you receive from the still, small voice. They are so important. God knows when people are ready, and if we listen to His Messenger, we can become "instruments in His hands" to bring back those prepared to come back into the fold of the Good Shepherd.

Something else from this week that was pretty funny, was that I got asked to be someone's girlfriend this week during a contact! Why does this always happen? I've come up with a theory: people mistake feeling the Spirit with being in love. It is such a good feeling! If you haven't felt the Spirit before, I could totally see how that could happen. But anyway...It was awkward. You know, the usual.

#lifeofasistermissionary

Another highlight: we had a member from the first quorum of the Seventy come and talk to us at a half-mission conference on Friday!

His name is Elder Falabella from Guatemala. He is awesome!! It was a lot of fun, and I learned so much from him. I think the biggest thing I learned from him was to ALWAYS be a full-time missionary: in the car, in the store, on the streets - everywhere. We only have 18-24 months to do so. So, we followed Elder Falabella's advice and have been trying to talk to EVERYONE all the time, no matter what. It's been great to see how when we open our eyes and ears and hearts to truly committing to being a full-time missionary, more opportunities to find and teach come into play. We had the coolest experience on Saturday when we were trying to find a potential investigator's house.

We got lost and drove by a park, but I saw quite a few people in there and we just drove right past it. Sis. Harmer said, "Maybe we should go back and talk to the people there." So we headed back to the park and the first person we talked to we taught a lesson to! His name is Eugene. He asked us so many questions about the Plan of Salvation - why are we here? Where do we go after? Where were we before to life?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

My testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel grew tenfold during that lesson. We have the truth. It is simple, pure, and perfect. We have answers to those questions. We have full access to the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true! It really is Jesus Christ's church restored to the Earth once again.

I just love being out here! There are so many amazing people we get to talk to every day. I love this area, as well. On Saturday, we contacted 22 people on Saturday, and only two of them were white. Not that I have anything against seeing a lot of Caucasian people, but it was cool to see all the diversity! I thought back to the people and counted 16 African-Americans, 2 Asians, 2 Polynesians, and 2 Caucasians. It was awesome!! Each culture is unique, and I love experiencing a taste of people's cultures as we talk with them :) Yes!

Okay, so - Sis. Harmer is very creative! She thinks of out-of-the-box ideas. We were thinking of ways to get our investigators to church and she came up with making formal invitations! Such a cool idea! We'll see if it works :) She is so much fun! I love working with her and feel privileged to be her companion. Also, she wouldn't try tortillas from the store for some reason, but she tried them and found out she liked them! Which will greatly augment our food choices haha.

Well, I think that's about it for this week. We are working very, very hard and trying our best to find new investigators. Our members are awesome and continue to feed us and come out with us.

Hope you have a lovely week full of surprises and happy memories!

Love you!

Love,

Sister Nikole Decker

P.S. On exchanges this week with Sis. Shurtleff and Sis. Johnson, we accidentally locked our keys and our phone inside the church....yeah.

So we had to be creative and try to figure out a way to get in contact with someone to let us in. We said a prayer and felt like we should message a lady in their ward on Facebook! As it turns out, she was online, and sent some other missionaries to unlock the church for us.

God answers prayers, no matter how silly or small :)

P.P.S. A lady in my ward is pixie-cutting my hair today!! Woot woot!

It's gonna be so short, I'm excited. Hopefully I don't hate it haha.

I'll send a picture next week ;) And I'll make a new profile picture on Facebook.

P.P.P.S. I did not say Happy Father's Day!  So here it is: Happy Father's Day!!!  Shout out to my dad, who is the world's most amazing dad.  So supportive, funny, laid back, righteous, fun, loving, humble, and hard-working.  You're the best, Dad, I love you!