Monday, July 6, 2015

TrioTastic! - Sister Maren Madsen

Written by Sister Maren Madsen, serving in the Arkansas Little Rock Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaking Spanish.

Well, first of all "friend" is a more endearing term than I would use for the guy who interrupted my testimony twice. But I'm not bitter :) It's funny that you mentioned him because he actually called us!! QUE RARO! He doesn't live in our area. He was just working here for a little bit and then the Sunday he came to church he ended up going back to his home in North Carolina. So I honestly thought we would never hear from that guy again. But he called us this week and told us that he will be back in town next week and wants us to come visit him. I am nervous because I don't know if he had a super change of heart and wants us to teach him more, or if he just wants to tell us we are listening to the devil again. I now feel super guilty for being angry at this guy because he was just so opinionated and set on his beliefs, but Hermana Ponce is convinced that he is legit and has a soft heart. I sure hope so.

So this week is just packed full of stuff, so I won't be able to go into too much detail. We saw N** and he is just beaming! He has the Holy Ghost with him and he was baptized and I can see the change in his life! Working with him is tough, along with lots of people around here, because they are always telling us that they just don't have any time to read the scriptures. Or to say prayers. I am not too keen (Amberlee quote) on that excuse. I definitely understand that life if busy, and yes everybody has an excuse, even true excuses not to do something. But I just feel like I am consistently testifying of the blessings that come from putting God first in their life. I know that anytime God and his gospel is the #1 priority in life EVERYTHING will turn out. Anyway, it was hard to get him in the scriptures and in the routine of prayer and it still is tough, but he is just a whole different person. I love being able to witness it!

So Wednesday was transfers and the American Sign Language (ASL) sisters we live with got a phone call and they were to spend the night in Arkansas and take the transfer van after the transfer meeting. So we get a call at the end of studies and one of the Assistants to the President said, "Did we forget to tell you to come to transfer meeting?"...... uh yeah... haha, so it ended up the Sister Training Leaders (STL) brought Hermana Husdon (the sister who was trained before me by Hermana Ponce). So we are indeed in a trio! It's weird, but good. So the reason that the ASL sisters had to go to Arkansas was because Sister Kennach's dad passed away, and with serious news they have the Mission President break it to them. It was horribly sad :'(  We all cried a little bit. So the STLs stayed the night (because they do that when times are tough, I guess) so there were 7 of us in our apartment. It was nuts.

Sister Kennach went home for a week to help out her family and go to the funeral. She will be back next Friday. Any prayers that could be sent her way would be of much help. So it was definitely divine intervention for us to be a trio so one of us could trade off going with sister Neilsen for the week and teach in English. It is going to be crazy around here for a while, but I love that we are all still seeing investigators progress!

We have this family with a newborn and a 6 year old who just had two back surgeries. They all were given priesthood blessings the night before and the doctors were unsure about the surgery. V** and J** both knew that if he made it out okay it was because of the priesthood. And I am happy to report that Ju** (the son) is healing very quickly and both surgeries were a success. We taught them yesterday and they were both very engaged. I could tell that they were feeling the truth of our message.

Well, I love you family! Tell Braden I say "good luck" and send me his email so I can write him! He will do so great. I am so excited for him. Les quiero mucho!

Con amor,

Hermana Madsen

Baptism in Mississippi (June 29, 2015)

Pinto Bean  (July 13, 2015)