Hello Everyone

Hello everyone!! 

It was SO good to talk to everyone yesterday! I love you all! I miss everyone like crazy but I am grateful to be a missionary! 

Hm well honestly this week was crazy busy. We are still trying to get settled into our new apartment and I'm sorry if this email is super lame again but today has been nuts and I don't have much more time. But I will try to make this awesome! So anyway, we again didn't have many appointments this week. But we did have one with a young girl named Evelyn. She is 13 years old and I swear she looks just like Haley! Hay, I'm not kidding you when I tell you this girl is your long lost twin. Seriously I love teaching her because she reminds me of my little sister! But anyway, Evelyn has very little knowledge of Jesus Christ to begin with. She honestly didn't even know what Easter was. Come to find out her mom grew up in the church but never talked about it while raising her daughter, but then contacted the missionaries to come and tech her daughter "the basics of the Jesus story" and so we gladly accepted and we're excited to teach her. We taught Evelyn about The Plan of Salvation and she just kept saying that it all just makes sense! She is a very bright girl and she has so much potential! I am so excited to keep working with her and to help her come closer to Jesus Christ. 

Another cool experience this week was when Sister Asi and I were driving back from District Meeting on Thursday and we were almost back to our apartment when we drove past this cemetery where a car was parked and a lady was just sitting inside smoking a cigaret and listening to music. I drove passed and thought nothing of it at first. But not even like two seconds later within driving passed her I felt my heart start beating and before I knew what I was doing I found myself starting to turn the car around. Sister Asi looked at me and said "did you see that lady too?!" I said yes and then she said "I was just going to tell you to turn around!" Grateful for having both received the prompting we parked the car said a quick prayer and got out to go talk to her. When we walked up to the car I began talking with her and she just proceeded to smoke her cigaret and turn up her music even louder. I asked her if she was religious and she started talking about her relationship with God. I assumed she wouldn't be apposed to watching a short video about Jesus Christ then and I asked her and she accepted. We showed her the #BecauseHeLives video and she LOVED it. We explained to her who we were and what we do as missionaries. We asked her if she had heard of The Book of Mormon and she said no. We gave her a copy of it and she was hesitant to take it only because she felt bad taking something special from us. We asked her if she would like to learn more about and she said no we will just leave it at that. We said that was alright and simply asked her if we could leave her with a prayer. She said of course and quickly just bowed her head and just sat there silently. We were somewhat thrown off by that haha and then she looked at us and started reciting the Lord's Prayer and she asked if we knew that prayer. We told her how our prayers were different and she said she wanted to hear so I offered the prayer and simply asked that Heavenly Father would bless her with the thing that she needed and to help her have the strength the face any trails she faced. When we finished with the prayer she looked up at us with this stunned look on her face and said "how did you know." I asked her what she meant and she said that not even two minutes before she pulled into the Parkin lot she was about to ask different people to pray for her. And with the most sincere look in her eyes she thanked us for coming to talk with her and told us that she would read The Book of Mormon. I was so grateful for that experience and for the opportunity that we had to be an answer to someones prayer. 

Also something else that I've been able to study this week is the principle of retention. In Mosiah 4-5 it explains this. And it has strengthened my testimony so much for the fact that we not only receive a remission of our sins and the things we do wrong but that that we must retain, or hold onto that remission of sin. And King Benjamin explains it perfectly. I have such a strong testimony of the power of prayer and scripture study, and service. And those are the very small and simple yet powerful things that allow us to retain that remission of sin. Because just as important as it is to revive it, how much more important it is to retain it. So please I plead with everyone that if you are not already, please begin to pray, study the scriptures, and serve others. 

I love you all more than you will ever know!! <- I say that every week and I feel like it gets over used but it's the honest truth! 

Until next week!

Sister Callaway

Sorry no pics this week but next week :)