Another Week!

What a week!
I guess I should say hello first though, so hello family! I love hearing from you all, mondays are the greatest day of the week because I get to hear from the people I love the most!
Anyway, I have a lot to tell you this week. Sometimes I wish I could just send home my journal and let you all read my daily entrys so I don't leave behind something significant. It is hard fitting a whole week in a little (well.. not so little) email. We have been working with this guy named Spot a lot the past few weeks. He called into the Visitors Center and he had been doing some research of the LDS church online, he said he had seen a lot of good and bad and just wanted to know what was true. That is a good step considering he read a lot of anti! It is always great when people come to the source for answers, some people go to their non member friends and ask about us.. but how would they know? The worst part is they believe what they hear from unreliable sources. Anyway so it was great that he came to us for answers. Turns out he is 27 years old and has been a member of the Baptist church his whole life, but he has so many unanswered questions that he started looking for his missing pieces. We have been teaching him for about 3 weeks now and the lessons are going great. He is one of the elect for sure! He is so prepared for this gospel it amazes me each time we talk with him. So on Monday he decided that he wanted to meet with us in person (we had only been doing phone lessons at the Visitors Center) so he came into the Center. It was monday night which meant family night so it was super crowded.. All the displays had a group of people surrounding them and I just knew it wasn't going to be a good lesson.. we had no where to talk and it was really hard to make anything personal because there were so many distractions. I already planned how we were going to make up for the lack of that lesson in the next phone chat. I don't know why I didn't just trust the Lord, he always knows what he is doing. We ended up at the Book of Mormon display where it goes over faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end using scriptures and peoples personal stories on how that scripture helped them in that specific subject. (I will need to show you how awesome this display is someday :) ) Anyway it was crazy... We started talking and listening to the display and it was like everyone else that was there left.. We were not the least bit distracted, the spirit was there 110% and it was so amazing. At first Sister Piggot seemed to know exactly what to say, she was sharing personal stories and relating so well with him and I for some reason was just exhausted and nothing came to mind. I started getting nervous because I felt like maybe I wasn't fullfilling my purpose, but then I realized how much he needed the experiences that Sister Piggott was sharing, and instead of being bugged that I wasn't talking or finding things to say I knew it was ok because he was coming closer to Christ and that was all that mattered. However I still was very in tune with what was going on so that if I was supposed to say someting I would recognize the prompting. Sure enough after we talked about baptism I had the strongest feeling that I needed to invite him to be baptized.. I was terrified to say the least. It is always scary because the last thing I want to do is scare him away from the church. But the prompting was so strong. I think I have always had a hard time being bold, especially to guys for some reason (not that I was attracted to him in any way). I kept telling myself that I couldn't do it and tried to justify and push away the promting. I didn't ask him and we continued on to the video about the Holy Ghost. We talked about how the Holy Ghost has helped us in our lives and how great it was to have the gift of the Holy Ghost and be able to have that with us as long as we let it be. He looked so eager to recieve it, he couldn't believe that he could have that as well. Finally after much prayer during the Holy Ghost film I know that I needed to ask him to be baptized, and to my suprise I just said it, the Lord definately gave me strength. He immediately said yes, and started crying. He later went on to say that right when I asked him to be baptized immediately something popped into his head that told him yes. We were all in tears by the end and I don't think I have ever had a feeling so great. I loved seeing him so happy and feeling like I really was an instrament in Gods hands. As a missionary I am lucky enough to get a taste of what my investigators are feeling, I love it more than words can explain! Although sometimes when someone is going through something difficult it is hard to feel that with them, but helps me to understand how to help them and be receptive to the spirit. His girlfriend sure isn't happy about it but I don't think anyone could ask for a better investigator... he said its hard because he really loves her but that he knows he needs to get baptized and he cannot turn away, he went on to say that maybe she isn't the one. Can you believe that? Talk about sacrifice and trust in the Lord, I cannot even imagine how many blessings the Lord is going to dump on him! He is going to do such great things I am just so happy to have been a little part of it! He is counting down the days till his special day and loves talking about it and keeps asking us what that day is going to be like! (PS I might need some extra money because me and Sister Piggot want to invest in some leather bound scriptures for him with his name ingraven...)
Here is proof that the Visitor Center really does bring about miracles (and that is just one of many). I finally got my first baptism :). Unfortinately there is opposition in all things and in the same week we got our first baptism we got dropped by another investigator. I cannot remember what her fake name is but she is the older lady with cats ha ha. But boy do I love her. She has a crazy work schedule and works graveyards in 12 hour shifts.. anyway she sleeps during the day and her schedule is just hard. She said that it just wasn't working out because she is too overwhelmed she feels like she doesn't have time for her family and that all the things we commit her too are getting overwhelming. We understood.. it would have been so easy to try to persuade her differently and talked and talked until she changed her mind. But for some reason that didnt come out, instead we were so understanding and loving and I know that it was because that was what the spirit was directing us to do. We couldn't leave without a lesson of course so we watched the movie Finding Faith in Christ. By the end she was crying, she was overwhelmed with the spirit and she had no words to explain to us what was going on in her mind. But she went on saying that everything we have taught her has been good, and that she has grown so much and had so many questions answered. She knows its true.. she pretty much told us, she went on to say that she doesn't want to lose what we have brought to her and that she still wants to keep in contact. She wants a break to catch up to family and other things but she was very advant about keeping in touch with us and wants us to send her scriptures once a week until she feels she is ready to met again. SO.. I guess I can't complain, because it ended well and the Spirit was so strong, we did what we could and I do not feel like we wasted any time with her! I love her so much! She hugged me and I just started crying.. she probably thought I was crazy and maybe I am a little (plus I was fasting which means emotions go crazy) but I just felt so much love for her.
There is so much more to say and I wish I could share it all and I wish you all could experience it with me. We have 12 investigators which keeps us so freaking busy, and sadly none of them came to church last sunday... we are working on it. We always seem to find out our weaknesses ha ha but hey without knowing our weaknesses we couldn't make them strong. Know I love you lots and I am so grateful for all the love and support. It really means so much and I feel more than blessed to have you all in my life! Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to hear from you next week!
Much Love,
Sister Poulson

Funny of the week... It was the end of the day and we were going home for the night. I am in charge of the house keys and they just so happened to not be anywhere... we called all our appoinments that we had that day and went to a few places that we went through out the day and they were no where to be found. We weighed out our options and considered sleeping in the car.. the visitors center.. the floor of the other sisters appartment.. and many other crazy ideas. Luckly enough we called our V.C. directors and they were more than eager to let us sleep over at their place. (Which turned out to be the best idea considering we had the most comfortable beds and they made us a gormet breakfast in the morning). Anyway it snowed.. alot ha ha looked like Utah and we almost got stuck at their house for another night. We called our District leaders and they happened to have a spare key.. oops I guess we should have asked them sooner he he. So we went home and there on my desk were the lovely little keys.. my bad!