hastening

June 27, 2016

Hey family:) This has been a great & crazy week!:) 

First off.... we got a text from President Thursday. A really long text talking about how the area 70 & the quorum of the 12 have been thinking for about a year now- and have finally decided to realign the mission boundaries of the Pittsburgh mission, the Maryland Baltimore mission, & the DC north mission. The reason is because of the growth of the church out here in the east with all of the branches, wards, & stakes!! It is so exciting:) So now the Annapolis stake isn't part of our mission:( but the Lancaster & Chambersburg stakes of Pennsylvania are now in our mission. The craziest part is that the quorum of the 12 went through all of the missionaries serving in those areas. We are losing a lot of great missionaries- but it is exciting because the work is hastening!!:) All I know about Lancaster & Chambersburg is that there are a lot of amish & country land haha. 

Fun news: Sister Olsen is staying for the rest of the transfer! She is my favorite & it has been so fun:) 

We picked up a new investigator this week! She is a member referral...hallelujah! Haha. She is liberian & has a cute baby girl. She let us right on in & we taught her about the Book of Mormon! 

Also a tornado hit Maryland on Tuesday. We were in the library & they told us to stay away from the windows & in the center of the lib. Thankfully no damaged happened- but it made me think of dads days growing up in Kansas. 

Ahhhhh the coolest miracle happened on our bus!! Wednesday evening we were riding the bus back to our apartment complex. The bus driver started to talk to us about what we were doing. He is from Trinidad. He said, "You are always so happy & smiley! Nothing gets you down!" hahah so we explained about how we are missionaries! He said his brother was a member of our church & he totally is! He's on our ward directory but the missionaries have never been able to contact him. So we gave our bus driver a Book of Mormon with Sister Olsen's testimony in it & hopefully we will start teaching him:) 

We did a lot of moving this week which was fun because it is always great when people take you up on service. We helped a new family move in, a family in the ward move to another home in the area, & then a non-member family move out. 

If you remember Sister Boshart- she's the one we took self defense from- we were able to finally give her a church tour Friday:) It was so powerful & the spirit was so strong. 

Saturday, cute Meghan Morrell, the 8 year-old we were teaching, was baptized. I about cried as I watched her dad baptize her. She has so much faith in the Lord. I admire that pure & humble faith. I'm so grateful to be a missionary & to see the power of the Lord every day. I know if we look for His hand we will see it. Our faith must always be in Heavenly Father & Jesus Christ. Love you all. Xo Sister Stolworthy