Week 35 - Softening Hearts

Hey Ya’ll ,

Singing at Norman Institute
(Sisters Jenkins, Gentry, Lewis, Walker)
Check it out on Norman LDS Institute FB page

Take a wild guess at what we’ve been doing this week. We have been singing all week long and finding and teaching and it’s been so much fun! The last couple of weeks have been such a blast with music and can I just say that music just brings the Spirit and it touches lives. We will walk up to a door and they will barely have it open a crack. “What do you want?” and we just say, “Can you just take 2 minutes of your time so we can sing you a song about Jesus Christ?” The door opens a little wider and we start playing and then they’re in tears. Who knew? Sis. Jenkins wrote this song when she first got out here. So we have just added harmony and she said she had no idea this song was going to have such a big impact in the future. It was inspiration and it’s been cool to see it touch so many hearts. We have so many people we will be teaching soon. One in particular, we were out in the middle of the boondocks in Noble, on Cemetery Road, visiting a member of our ward and hitting all the trailers along the way. We just parked our car and started walking. We were in front of this house and not getting much success and were about to leave, when we felt we needed to knock at 2 more houses. We knocked at the first one not getting a good response, then we knocked on the second one and a lady answered the door. Sister Jenkins noticed by the toys in the yard that it must be a family. This lady invites us in and we sing her and her family this song and she was so touched. We talked to her about the Book of Mormon and other things testifying of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They said they have been looking for something and have been going to churches looking for something. We kept talking to them about the gospel and then we invited them to pray about the Book of Mormon. We asked them if God ever answered their prayers and Cami said she used to make a list of things and pray about each on the list, for example, why are there trees? Simple things, but so sincere to her. So we explained to her about the importance of praying about the Book of Mormon and they said they would. We left them and were excited to come back in the next couple of days. We came back on Friday and they were a little busy but were able to invite them to church. They didn’t come to church this time but we have high hopes for them in the near future. That was a miracle from the music that we’ve been writing and some that Sis Jenkins has been writing. It just shows how much you can use your talents. I didn’t know I’d be writing music and singing like this. I knew I’d be singing on my mission but I didn’t know it would go this far and it’s been amazing to see the amazing and miraculous events from it.

Composing a new song on Prayer
Sister Jenkins & Walker

While we’re on the topic of music, we have another song. It’s all about prayer and how we speak to God. How when we get on our knees and we are humble He will answer back to us in the darkest nights and when our hearts need that light in our lives. It’s like a round with a child speaking and then Heavenly Father is speaking, sort of like A Child’s Prayer. Our new song is all about prayer and how you can really find peace from praying to your Heavenly Father. In the song you’ll see why we pray to Him and that is to feel comfort and peace, and the only way we’ll feel that way is because our Savior Jesus Christ suffered for us and that is the only way we can get over the trials we face and get over the hurt we feel some days.

We are teaching Navea and Michelle, Stephanie’s daughters. We were at a recent convert lesson with her and she pulled her two daughters in and said she wanted us to teach them. They weren’t too excited but we asked them questions about why they were taking the lessons and they were honest, their mom’s making them. We are trying to get them to see how cool the Book of Mormon is and how amazing it is to relate to it. In that lesson we had them put their name in the scripture and then said look how much this can relate to you. Throughout the lesson their hearts began to soften, especially the one who didn’t want anything to do with anything. She’s actually softened up to church a whole bunch. She used to fight her mom not wanting to come to church, but now she just willingly gets up and gets in the car. It’s really cool how routine and habits of doing those good things the Lord has asked us to do gets easier when we continue to do them and see the miracles we see from going to church, reading our scriptures and praying. So that is one of the challenges we gave them was to pray about if God really hears them and we asked them to write it down in their journal, cause they got little cute journals to write down their testimony and thoughts in. And we said they could use their journals but they had to pray and read scriptures too. We’re excited to see what comes out of it. We’re teaching an 11 year-old and a 12 year old and we have no idea what we are doing. We are just going by the Spirit every single time we go over there but we have faith that it’s all going to work out and they are going to realize how much the Lord loves them through all of this.

Love these Missionaries!
(Sisters Gentry, Walker, Lewis,
Ruth McDougall (amazing ward missionary),
Jenkins, Elder Franklin & Jones)

This is a little random. . . but the weather here is like 60’s and 70’s. It’s been whacko. Two weeks ago it was in single digits and maybe even negative at night. It was so cold and humid and bitter and you didn’t want to go outside. Now it’s 50-60 degrees and we can’t quite figure it out. I don’t know what it’s like there but I’m loving it here right now. Hope it stays this way but we have heard that it does get like this in January and then it plummets and you’re freezing forever till March and then it finally warms up.

I absolutely love you all and I’m so grateful for the support and the prayers that have been coming this way to Oklahoma. I am grateful for each of you and hope you have a fabulous week. Your Challenge this week:  Read the Book of Mormon and pray to have a better testimony of it and if your testimony is already strong, that’s awesome. Continue to pray about it and to have that strong desire to relate it to yourself. A lot of the lessons that we taught this week revolved around the Book of Mormon and how we can apply it to ourselves. Read the Book of Mormon, insert your name in it, then pray to know if it is another testament of Jesus Christ. I love you and let me know how everything goes. Have a fabulous week!

Love, Sister Walker