Know who you are, and who God expects you to become

Well Hello Hello! (which reminds me I have to send off grandma her Little Ricky pic) Life is great! Isn't it?! Aren't we just the luckiest people in the world, we are so blessed!! This was a fantastic week, at least I thought so! It is funny.. I feel like I haven't written a family email in months. Forgive me? Time is crazy.. it will be nice in heaven when time doesn't exist. So I decided I have one investigator who I just love to meet with, no matter what the lesson topic, there is such a strong spirit! She is 82, and I never loved old people so much! I decided the reasons I love the lessons so much is because I love her so much, and I think she kinda likes us too. Which makes all the difference! I have come to the conclusion that if you ever want to teach anyone about the gospel, you cannot bring down their beliefs that they hold so dearly.. we can't just say "well you are wrong and here is how it really should be..." but it should be handled with love "you are right, we agree with that, we also believe that this is important.." Can I just tell you that makes so much of a difference! Lets be honest, no one wants to be wrong, nor be pointed out about it. Being humble usually comes from finding out for yourself that you are wrong, not someone telling you. Anyway.. random tangent over! It was funny because when Carol (fake name.. forgot what her original fake name was) first came to our lesson she had one rule.. "No crying today, ok!" That was one thing I could not promise to her. I knew before the lesson even started that there would be tears. Tears full with the spirit of God. We watched a film in the Center called On the Way Home (all about a family each with individual problems, getting ready for the day of their baptism and looking at how far they have come). I have never felt the spirit so strongly in that movie, there is such a strong spirit in the Center and especially when Carol is there. I couldn't even speak after because my emotions were way too connected to the spirit.. (strong lol). We invited her to be baptized again... I decided asking someone to be baptized is like asking someone to get married. Because it is a lifelong commitment and a huge change. But that's beside the point. She wished so badly that she could convince us that she had already joined our church. Thing is.. spiritually she has! She still has a struggle with Joseph Smith.. which if she read the Book of Mormon a little more, that might not be an issue at all. She knows the gospel is true, and I believe that someday that puzzle will all be connected. We have been trying since I got in the field to meet with this very less active family.. and it just hasn't happened. Anyway, the other day she called us and invited us over to see her new puppy and have dinner with them (little did she know of my lack of puppy love). We went over and it was great! At first I felt like we should try to push in a lesson because well.. we are missionaries and that is what we do. But for some reason it just didn't happen. After Sister Piggott left all her stuff at their house.. ha ha which was totally the spirit I believe. The mother had to come and drop it off at the Visitors Center to bring it back to her. While she was there she talked about how much she wanted to come back to the center. Then she pulled us aside and said that she needed our help with something. She went on to tell us that her son had just turned 9 and that he wasn't baptized. God knows exactly what he is doing! It is funny that we didn't push the lesson because normally that is what would happen but instead we built a friendship so she was able to trust us. Because he is 9 it is considered a convert baptism, which lucky for us means we get to teach him the lessons! Not only that, he needs to come to church 3 times before he can get baptized. Long story short, children really are the best kind of teachers! Funny how society thinks otherwise.. They came to church yesterday and it has been years since that has happened. I love that God knows how to bring back all of his sheep! Not just one! So much more has happened this week, and I wish I could tell you about it all because it has helped me learn so much and I wish you could have the same experiences. Thing is you are having great experiences that are personal and made specifically for you. We all need our own experiences and God will help us learn from where we are at, I love that we are all known and loved personally! I love you all so much! Love, Sister Poulson