Dear family and friends,
Hello from Vacaville!!
This week has been a week full of miracles!
As a zone we have been striving for each companionship to talk to 20 new people for 7 days in a row, and today is day 7!! So far we have talked to 7 new people about the Gospel - only 13 more to go!!! I love sharing the Gospel with so many people every day. If I count up how many people I've talked to in the course of my mission, it would be...11,210 people :) Amazing how just one person can talk to so many people in such short amount of time.
Some companionships struggled to talk to 20 people everyday, so our mission president came up with a neat idea called the SOS text - if at 8pm one companionship is struggling to talk to 20 people, they can text out an "SOS" to their district members and if the district members have reached the high expectation that day (talked to 20 new people, taught 3 lessons, and invited 1 person to be baptized), then they can drive over to the struggling companionship's area and "blitz contact" it for them! However many contacts they get contribute directly to that companionship! It's helped so much!! The "SOS" has helped our zone reach higher and higher and become so united in an exactly obedient way. We want to get our 20.3.1. before 8 o'clock so we can help our elders and sisters out if they struggle to get their 20 :) It's been amazing to see the change in our zone! Everyone has the fire and the drive now!
I love our mission theme: Mission: Possible! It's been so fun to strive to do better each and every day :)
My testimony was already very strong with the high expectations, but now it's grown even more! And it's just helping us lift and lift and lift :) I realized yesterday evening that I was starting to be pretty hard on myself and had to take a step back and breathe, but our zone in Vacaville has become so much more consecrated to the Lord and I love it!
My fellow sister training leader, Sister Holguin, has also really been helping me rise up. She has such a fire for the work and it's contagious :) She has been helping me desire to rise up and be better! And Sister Ngawharau definitely challenges and helps me to be better every day. She's pretty blunt, which was hard at first since the truth hurts sometimes haha, but she has helped me to see my weaknesses and I've been able to see significant progress in myself. It's also helped us work together to help our area grow.
And Sister Ngawharau is amazing! Her shyness is melting away and the ward absolutely LOVES her. She is a friend to all and has so many Christlike attributes, especially humility and charity. She would be a wonderful sister training leader, President Alba, even right after her 12 weeks finishes in 2 weeks. She told me it would be scary for her, but she has this special gift and ability to reach out and touch and befriend others, especially those who are struggling. She has completely befriended Sister Lesser and Hermana Grant in our zone, and they have been opening up and improving so much as missionaries. She always writes thoughtful little notes to others in our zone, too, and helps motivate people just by being their friend.
This week has been pretty hard, but good. I honestly can't remember much from it...it blurred by!
It was hard because we have been working harder than ever and picked up 3 SOLID new investigators, and 2/3 dropped us because of their family not allowing it (one investigator has a Baptist family, the other a Christian family that is anti-Mormon). It's hard to see people held back from learning the Gospel because of their families restricting their agency. However, I know that they will get the opportunity sometime later in their life.
We also talked to MANY people who were pretty hostile towards us, which can get pretty grating after a while. But I let out a little cry yesterday and I'm feeling much better haha. It's funny because Sis. Ngahwarau never cries, and I cry often. At first it made me feel uncomfortable that she never cried when I did so much, and then Sister Holguin said told me at MLC after we'd both been crying a lot, "You know what? The scriptures told us Jesus wept, so, so will I!" Ha then I thought to myself, "Yeah, same here!" I understand that verse a lot more now than I did before my mission:
I know what it feels like to love people but have them reject you before even taking time to see what an amazing thing they are rejecting. I know what it feels like to ache for my brothers' and sisters' salvation and see them stay in their sins.
But I also know the joy that comes when I am God's tool in His hand to bring even one soul back to Him. I love being His servant and serving my mission for Him and my Savior.
I don't have time to write a really neat miracle I wanted to share, but if you can, remind me to share the story of Orlando Crumpett (the homeless man I gave my oranges to about a month and a half ago). We just talked to him and got the neatest update!
I love you family and friends! Sorry for the shortness and the lack of updates on specific people we're teaching - today has been crazy with cleaning and such. We have a member of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy, Elder Nielson, coming tomorrow for a half-mission conference and we're STOKED! But he's also coming to inspect our apartments after so we scrubbed them down GOOD today.
Love you all!! Thanks for the letters and emails, you are all magnificent :)
Love,
Sister Nikole Decker
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