Viva Las Vegas!: I Shook Hands with an Apostle!

We finally have people to teach! This week was awesome!

Okay, so I'll start with Monday. Sister Fields and I got to go shopping with some of the girls in our ward. It was a lot of fun! We just got to hang out with our members - it was almost like we were normal people... hahah. We got to get some new clothes at this store that is like Forever 21, but really cheap! It was awesome. We had lunch and got to play dart war- so, over all good day. We also got to have dinner with other missionaries in our district at a member's house. They're Samoan, so we had really good food that night. Sister Fields and I came to the conclusion that we are friends in real life, not just companion friends because we have to be.

On Tuesday, we had a really good district meeting about Personal Study. Elder Rogers is probably the best district leader in the universe. We tell him that all the time. We had really good personal studies all week, and I learned so much more because of what he told us to do. Not that we were "studying wrong" before, but it was just a lot more focused and spiritual.

After District Meeting, our whole mission got to leave mission boundaries and go to the Las Vegas West mission to meet with the missionaries in the West Mission and be trained by ELDER NEIL L. ANDERSON and TAD R. CALLISTER. No big deal. It was awesome. Like, really awesome. And we got to leave mission boundaries, so it was like the best day ever. And I got to see Elder Adams! I waved to him, and he didn't notice who I was at first, and then freaked out when he realized who I was. At the end we talked for a minute. We were excited since it was the closest thing to family contact that we had.

After Elder Anderson walked in, he told us that he wanted to shake each of our hands. He took 20 minutes to have us file up row by row and shake his hand. It was awesome.

Elder Anderson taught us about the Atonement. I can't even describe to you how amazing the meeting was, and how strong the Spirit was. Oh my gosh. It was incredible. He told the mission presidents that missionaries need to be staying in wards longer - so hopefully that means I'll stay in Sunrise a bit longer!

At our District Meeting we had taken seminary tables from the Seminary room. Obviously, being the daughter of a Seminary teacher, I felt bad that we had forgotten to put them back. So, I made Sister Fields and I wake up early, at 5:20 am, to go put them back before the seminary teacher got there. That was for you, Mom. You're welcome.

On Wednesday we were going to contact a less active member that we haven't been able to see. We got her as a referral from another ward a few months ago, and even though we've tried to contact her at least 15 times, we have never seen her. We were about to go and see her and I realized that we had lost the sticky note with her address on it. We prayed that we would just be able to remember where it was. As we were leaving the apartment, we realized that we had a voicemail from the lady that had given us the referral. We hadn't talked to her since she gave us the referral a few months ago. We listened to it and she said the address in the message! It was awesome! What a blessing. Prayers are answered. We went and knocked on her door and her Dad answered and said she was home! That has never happened! He went to get her. We heard some voices. Then her Mom came to the door and said she was sick and couldn't come to the door and we couldn't go see her. Then she slammed the door. That was a bummer, but we will keep trying.

We have had so many good lessons this week. We were able to meet with a lot of less actives. One less active showed up at church and invited us over to teach her the lessons again. Even though she was born into the Church, she has never really felt "active". When we went over to her house and she had a non-member friend there! So we will be working with them both! We shared a really cool Mormon message video with them.

We've been working with Matthew still too. He is less active. We love him so much. We meet with him twice a week. He is willing to do anything to find out if the Church is true. His parents are with us a lot - they are fully active. It's really neat to see them try to help him and bear their testimonies to him during lessons. We love their whole family. Pray for Matthew. We feel that he knows it's true and just has a hard time feeling that.

Chaunee Olsen is a member of one of the wards in our stake and goes to lessons with us a lot. She is about to leave for a mission in Wisconsin! She is so sweet. We love her. We took her to the temple and just talked about missionary work. We answered a lot of her questions and bore our testimonies to her. We explained a lot of things to her. It was really awesome and spiritual. Sister Fields talked about companions. She talked about how she has opened up to me and told me things that she has never even said out loud. She talked about how she knows that we knew each other before we came to earth, and that I had my hand on her back encouraging her to go. The Spirit was crazy strong. I love Sister Fields, and really do feel like she is a sister of mine, and one of my best friends.

After our really great lesson with Huey last week, we weren't able to meet with him right away. But he called us with questions this week, and we had a lesson over the phone with him! It was awesome. He wanted to read The Book of Mormon with us. On Sunday, he called us and said he "found a new Gospel". We were worried and asked him what he meant. He said he went to Church that morning, and he wouldn't be able to make it to our Church at one. We freaked out, but he explained to us that he just found a "Mormon Church" closer to his house and at an earlier time so that he could go to Church that day. He went on his own! It was awesome!

On Saturday one of our Sisters that got transferred down to Lake Havasu was coming up to Vegas for a baptism. Sister Fields and I were sent to the Temple to wait for her and bring her to the baptism. We were supposed to meet at 10:30 am... and they arrived at 12:30. So, yeah. That was pretty frustrating. We felt bad for her. The members were going slow and she missed the baptism. Sad. But we were happy that we got to see her.

We had dinner at a member's house with Elder Rogers and Elder Johnson. They have a dog named "Molly" and that is Sister Field's first name. So the Mom would say, "Molly! Stop licking Elder Roger's face so he can say the prayer." We were all laughing so, so hard. She didn't get it, but it was hilarious.

The past few weeks we have been giving other people referrals like crazy. And we finally, finally, finally got referrals from other missionaries! We were able to get FIVE new investigators this week! It was awesome! They are all ready for baptism too! We would have people call us and say, "Oh we have a member that has a friend that wants to get baptized, and he is YSA, so go teach him." IT WAS AWESOME. That happened 5 times! What the heck? So cool.

We are now teaching Tony, Huey, Dillan, Mary, David, and Kevin. Yes! And Tony went to church on Sunday!! He is getting a new job so that he can come on Sundays! His last day of work at this job is on Thursday and we are so excited! He can finally meet with us on a regular basis! They will all be baptized pretty soon, we are sure of it. They are all great and are all progressing. We got to teach the Restoration a lot, which we hadn't been able to do in a while!

We are also meeting with our members and are helping them to find friends to introduce to the Gospel. It's been going pretty well so far. Hopefully they will recognize the importance of member missionary work.

On Sunday we had the "Why I Believe" fireside, which is basically a fireside where converts or others speak of why they believe the Church is true, and how the came to know. It's a really powerful fireside. Sister Fields arranged some sweet songs for the choir to sing! She is talented. And awesome.

We hiked Sunrise Mountain once again this morning. I am way tired. But I got to watch the sunrise, and it was amazing. Watching a sunrise from the very top of a mountain is just too cool.

Love, Sister Coltrin