7:17

Heya!

Ferns for my mom, cause she kinda likes them :)

I just want to start out with a Mom appreciation paragraph, because I have the greatest mom out there. Last week I had my whole weekly blog typed out, and then when I sent it (at 5:58)...the pictures didn't attach. So I sent another email again, WITH the pictures while the initial email was sending, and guess what, my whole weekly deleted itself.

So Mom did the amazing mom thing and
created a weekly for me, by modge-podging some of what I sent her at home, and adding a few touches herself! And of course she had to come up with all the picture captions herself too. I'd say she did a stellar job :)

*My one addition, for the stars on the ceiling: I don't think you understand how excited I was to have those! Mama Curtis coming in clutch and getting us those :) :)

a dove nesting at a member's house;
Sister Curtis not amused

THINGS WE FOUND. We found a long-lost member who wants to start coming back to church. We found a lady who's interested in the church, and we were able to refer her to missionaries where she's from...three guesses? Anyone? Try JAMAICA! She's so cool! And she was only going to be in the USA for another day and was headed home! The address was real too, we looked it up so that was awesome! We met a roller-blading figure skater, a professional dog walker, threw back to 2004 for some LDS music (EFY 2004 album) and fuse beads. Practiced our nonchalant speedwalking to talk to a lady we felt we needed to (she's a new investigator), and last Monday we made Starburst Sculptures.

we had to get creative with our names,
can you tell who wrote it?

We just had a ton of crazy miracles and fun interactions! Perks of being on a bike, honestly. Sister Curtis is amazing, at just stopping what she's doing and whether it's planning or biking, to turn around and go talk to someone. It leads to some pretty cool stories!

Not a sketchy bathroom at 7/11

Plus, I got to use two approaches that I've wanted to my entire mission, but just haven't fit in until now...

CLOTHING CHOICES. One of them was telling someone we just met that the only reason I'm in a skirt for 18 months is because the message we share has brought me enough joy and peace to step out of my comfort zone of sweats and netflix, to go around and talk to strangers.

weekly planning, this week may or may not have
exhausted me a bit!

The other was telling someone that the message we share is about how we can be with our families for eternity, and we have answers to questions like "Where did we come from? Why are we here? and Where are we going after this life?" And BOTH times we got a new investigator!

Updating our schedule in
the best place possible

"Nice front lawn," Sister Dawson

(side note:) this week Sister Curtis and I dropped everything to reach for our high goal of new investigators. We talked to everyone we felt prompted to, and had not one, not two, but SEVEN new investigators! I'm so excited to see how we keep growing in this area!

BEING SPECIFIC. Biggest miracle of the week. Friday is weekly planning day. That means we spend a few hours planning out what we're going to be doing each hour for the next week. It's kind of tedious sometimes, plus we had lessons in there. But that morning we had set a goal of finding a new investigator and we felt good about it, but after planning we saw that we'd only have less than 30 minutes to go out and find someone.

Sister Curtis, Me

Well, we prayed, and told Heavenly Father that we really wanted to find a new investigator, and we'd do whatever He wanted us to, but our time was really tight for us to fit everything in. We prayed about specific people to visit, and it narrowed down to one potential investigator. Then we prayed again about what time we should visit him, or if we should even visit him that day.

The answer we got was around 7:30, and that's too generic of a number, because sometimes we think it's lame to fit everything into 15 minute increments when it comes to scheduling. Instead, we changed our time to 7:17. We told Heavenly Father we'd leave when he prompted us to, and stop our planning for that short time to go over. Well, 7 rolls around, and Sister Curtis stops writing and says "should we go?" and we left.

We drive over and park by his house, and I look at the clock and it says 7:15. We walk to the door and knock, and at 7:17, Whitney Lyle opens the door and we talk for a bit, share a short message and schedule a time to meet with him again. (THAT means, he is a new investigator!!) It was amazing to see that Heavenly Father will be specific when we ask. To have the timing down to the minute strengthened my testimony so much of just how important his work is!

Fuse Beads!

TAKING THINGS PERSONALLY. There were so many miracles this week, and they all stemmed from Sister Curtis and Dawson. We went on exchanges Thursday and found 3 new investigators :) We talked to so many people, and I was able to be bold in lots of new ways, it was fun! There is so much power and importance in the message President Nelson gave, pleading with us to learn how to recognize personal revelation. How does the spirit work with you? He's always trying to reach out, all we have to do is reach back. I know you're all doing amazing, keep holding down the fort!

Sister Whitesell
teresa.whitesell@myldsmail.net

5 Marcia Way Apt 131
Roseville, CA 95747