Flat tires, Spiders, y las obra misional!

¡HOLA!

How was everyone's week?? I love hearing from all of you! :) 

So we went to the Statue of Liberty today  it was a BLAST. But unfortunately I wasn't as smart as last week when I finished emailing in the morning.....so this will be a little rushed. But this week had a lot of amazing things that happened! So hopefully I'll have enough time to tell you all the stories of the week:) 

So we actually got to see all our investigators (almost) this week! We had a mini lesson with Sis McCreary and that went good. Stevie and her kids are still great. Sis Maldonado made us TOSTONES, and we had some really amazing discussions with her this week she's becoming our friend which is really good. BARBARA finally met with us and she's doing week, just trying to figure things out so keep her in your prayers. AND yesterday we had a really incredible lesson with Ashley. We had planned to do a lesson on prayer and scripture study, and when we got to her house they were frantically looking for the car keys they needed. So when we prayed we asked for them to find their keys and then it led to such a spiritual lesson where we shared experiences on when prayers were answered. We don't know if they've found the keys yet but it was an awesome lesson so hopefully it all works out! ALSO. So the elders (the ones that got whitewashed out) had found this investigator Margaret before they left and we hadn't been able to get in touch with her but then we decided to just try to find her address again, and somehow the combination of me and Sis Smoot's photographic memory worked and we found her apartment and it was just perfect timing. She was having a really hard day and we were able to be there for her and comfort her. Being able to help complete strangers and uplift them - missionaries are the luckiest people in the world! 

Thursday we were on our way to correlation it was raining and then Sis Smoot was like I think we have a flat tire....and then the light came on....so we pulled over like 3 miles away from the exit we needed to take. So we get out and we knew how to change a tire, so we were like we've got this! And so we get out the spare and all the tires....but then the thing to turn wasn't working and we were just not strong enough, and so we called the elders but then this car pulls up. And this guy with a marines shirt (he's a pretty big man) gets out and says his wife told him he needed to turn around and help us. He's also a cop (badge, gun, everything) So he changes our tires so easy and quick. Such a tender mercy!! He asks where we work, so I told him we're missionaries for our church. He said he knew the church since they're from the city (just upstate for a retreat). And then we were going to leave and he comes back to our window, at first thinks we're JWs, and says him and his wife were talking about naming their son Joshua, and they were having the conversation as they stopped to help us. So he asked if we knew what the name Joshua meant - because maybe it was a sign they stopped and helped us!! We didn't know.....(looked it up later- it means God is Help)...he walked back to his car but then I quickly got a BOM and our card and went and gave it to them. We slowly drive to correlation with our spare (went to Middletown the next day to get a new tire) and they followed behind us until we got off the right exit. It was a miracle for sure! Sometimes we get flat tires, but somehow it still is perfectly timed for us to meet those who we need to!

Some other fun things of the week: we got to go to a gospel concert in Liberty as a part of Interfaith, and we also had an interfaith meeting at our church last night and it's just so cool to see how strong the communities are in small towns. We ran into a random street fair too so of course we got some handmade leather friendship bracelets! 

OH and so our apartment decided to become invested with giant spiders this week. And knowing me, I'm deathly terrified of even the smallest spider. So Saturday morning when I went to get in the shower there was the first spider ON THE SHOWER CURTAIN. I panicked and screamed and couldn't shower for like 2 hours until we had the elders come kill it. I'll send a picture it was HUGE. Yikes. We haven't seen any more spiders since Monday, so pray they're gone for good!

Well I'm out of time, and I want to send a few pictures. I'll email more next week! I love you all and hope you have an awesome week!! 

Con Amor,

Hermana Smart