One Month Down!

This week I met a 100 year old lady, Sister D, who was the cutest lady ever. She has dementia and lives in a nursing home. She just smiled the whole time we talked to her and she thought our iPads were the coolest thing ever. We showed her the message of the restoration video and she would just keep saying, "Oh that's nice!" It was really cool to think of how much this cute little lady had done in her life and I feel so privileged to get to visit her.

This Thursday at the Senior Center it got pretty crazy. All of the old people were really mad at the food we were handing out and asked us for different food, but we didn't have anything else to give them. Haha they got all worked up about the unripe cantaloupe! I felt really bad though because this lady was going around asking people how they liked their food and trying to get them to sign a paper to get the menu changed for the future but she tripped on a bag and fell pretty hard. We had to call an ambulance to come and get her. It was really bad and hopefully she's ok. The lady that was standing by her was mad though because she almost knocked her over when she fell... dude it was crazy! 

Friday we helped the elders move a new family into the neighborhood then we all went and visited some families in the ward. It was such a good experience to be able to get to know them better and share a spiritual thought. Each thought we gave we would just go by the spirit and it ended up being exactly what each family needed to hear. The bishop has asked that we really get to know the members, because as we build good relationships with them, they'll be able to trust us more and be more willing to work with us on finding new people  to teach.

We met with this amazing woman, Sister E, who is a convert to the church and has been through some really crazy things in her life. But she has one of the strongest testimonies I've ever heard. She is planning on going on a cross country trip to all the temples in Utah (and some on the way) to do temple work for her ancestors. She has about 40 names she's going to try and do all the work for. She's probably in her 60's though and has some medical issues with her eyes; she's worried about traveling that far by herself and seeing at night. So she asked the elders if they could give her a blessing. She has incredible faith and really strengthened my testimony. She asked both of the elders how their faith was and then determined that she wanted Elder H to give the blessing. It was such a beautiful blessing and the spirit was so strong as we sat out on her deck on the beautiful Pennsylvania night. During the blessing my companion and I were just crying because we felt the spirit so strong. It was such a testimony builder to me to see the power of the priesthood and how incredibly amazing it is that the Lord trusts these 18-20 year old young men with that incredible power of God.

After this experience I was able to read this amazing talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks called The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood. It really explains how important and essential the priesthood is to everything in our lives. Without the priesthood we would have nothing. The world was created by the power of the priesthood and everything that is on it, ahhh isn't that the coolest thing ever! We are so lucky to have access to the priesthood in our church and it honestly is such a blessing!

Workin' the ranch!

Saturday was a pretty crazy day!!! We went to the  youth ranch and basically there was hay everywhere!!! We had to stack three huge trailer loads of hay into the barn for the winter... Oh man it took five hours and we were sweaty and had hay er where! We found a dead mouse and this huge black dead snake. Man it was NASTY!!! I seriously was speechless and thought I was going to die. It felt really good to work so hard and then see so much progress. Missionary work takes a lot of hard work and results come really slow, so it was a really nice change! 

I love you all and think about you all the time!

Sending prayers your way:)

Love Sister Douglas

With the elders and her companion at the ranch. We spent hours and hours and hours looking for dresses and skirts for this girl's mission. Who knew we could have shopped at CalRanch??

Bean Boot!!