Sister Olds the II: Up, down, and all around.

1 Nephi 13:12 -Well, you can thank that inspired man that you didn't get an email from me yesterday. Sorry!

What a week, what a week. We had some awesome lessons, some hilarious lessons and some heart breaking lessons.

We'll start with the awesome though. We have been meeting pretty frequently with Jojo and it has been so great! She gets more and more excited about and committed to the gospel each time we see her. We are going to Kirtland this Friday with her and her son and the Wrights. We are so stoked!! Joseph Smith is kind of her biggest hold back right now. We are so blessed to serve this close to where so much church history was made. Pray that she will have an amazing experience!

So for our hilarious lesson: We meet with quite a few less active members that live in nursing homes in our area. We were meeting with Sister Blackmur one night and it was after she had just taken some pain medication or something. Ohhhh boy. Background info: she really really loves dogs. We were talking about general conference with her and how we can receive personal revelation. Towards the beginning of the lesson she stops us and says that she has a question for us. She goes on and on about God and animals for quite some time and we can't really figure out what she is saying. Then it clicked and I ask, "Oh! Are you wondering if God has pets?" Bingo. She was extremely concerned that Heavenly Father might not have any pets. We talked about the creation and since He created all the animals then we guess that all of them are his pets. That comforted her a bit.She started talking about seeing her pets in heaven again and how they will run across the rainbow bridge or something? I'm not sure. I kind of got lost in the middle for a bit. Then when we asked how we can receive revelation or guidance in our lives from Heavenly Father she pauses for a moment and then just simply says, "Dogs!" Oooookay. It was about time for us to go and let her get some rest. It was too funny though. She is so hilarious. I love her to death! [I actually met her on my first exchange on my mission. She was the one that asked me to get her some chocolates and reminded me of our dear sweet Gran.]

We had a lesson with one of our recent converts this past week who has decided that the church just isn't for him now. [He actually got baptized my first week in this ward and I got to go]. We talked with him for about 2 hours and the more and more we spoke the more our hearts broke. It is mind boggling to me to see how quickly Satan has gotten a hold of him and made him deny everything that he once knew. After that lesson Sister Maddox and I just went home and cried and cried. That was hands down the hardest lesson I have had my whole mission.

So I started reading "Our Heritage" last week and it is so good! Have you all read that book? If not then you should go read it! The strength and faith of those early saints is one of the most impressive things to me. I always wonder if I lived back then if I would have the faith necessary to endure all that they had to go through. I am so grateful that they did persevere and trust in the Lord through so much. The trials that I have had to go through in life seem like nothing at all compared to what they suffered through. It definitely puts things in perspective.

I love you all so much!! Thank you for your prayers. I hope you know that they truly do make a difference.

We went to the Art Museum again last week and so of course I had to get a pic with good ole stylin Grandpa Olds!

Also yesterday since we had so much extra time we went and walked around downtown Cleveland. We went to a little civil war memorial they have and look who I found! Thomas Olds! Do we have someone in our family that fought in the civil war that was from Cleveland? We have family all over the place here!