Holy Cow! These weeks just keep flying by

Holy Cow! These weeks just keep flying by so fast, it's already half way through November!!!!! Family, my week was so great! I honestly do love my mission, i love talking to people and sharing my testimony of this restored truth! Ok actually looking back my week wasn't so great, it ended great though!! It seems as though we have a theme for each week of what people bring up... i don't remember the other weeks because they weren't so bad but this week was... drum roll please!!! Your church isn't true, Joseph Smith was a liar, you can't even prove the book of Mormon to be true with historical facts.. etc. It was honestly so awful and really discouraging. Taking your testimony smashing it to pieces and then telling you to do research on your own church. How it's false. It hurts a lot, especially because i know it's true and i am sad that they are not opening up their eyes to see the truth. They won't give it a chance at all. I pray that someday their eyes will be opened. So other than that discouraging word that we got at least once a day, this week was great! Casey finally got baptized and it was one of the best days of my life! It just went so well. The room was packed with family, friends, and ward members, missionaries and their investigators. I was astonished at how many people showed up. Casey actually hurt her arm boxing a few days before and her arm was in a sling. She pulled some muscle in her back that connects to her arm and her shoulder. It was really sore and caused her a lot of pain. The funny part of when it happened was that she thought she was going to die because it hurt so bad and the first thing she thought was no I can't die!!! I have to get baptized on Saturday! This is something that she really wanted, she knew it was important and nothing was going to stop her. She told us some of her friends were throwing her a party and wanted her to come drink at it but she thought real hard and decided not to because what would make her most happy in the end. Satan was trying to hard to keep her from being baptized. During the baptism, i spoke on baptism and Sister Prince spoke on the Holy Ghost. Then Casey was baptized by her uncle who is a convert. The one who she had problems with in the other ward at first but now she's all good. he was the one who said weird things in Sunday school. Then she prayed about it and God answered her so directly and actually through him and everything turned out and she ended up asking him to baptize her. It was great. Then after the baptism and while she was getting dressed we had everyone write her a little note, that was special. Then she bore her testimony. Wow. She truly is amazing. She started out saying how she was preparing for this moment and the moment she would bear her testimony and she said that she looked on google and on youtube for "the best testimonies" because she wanted to have the beyonce of testimonies. But she said that she could never remember what to say. She told her sister and she said 'maybe its because your not supposed to remember, those aren't your testimonies". Casey proceeded to look up more you tube videos and write down what she wanted to say but she always seemed to misplace her paper. Even that morning she misplaced her testimony. She had her sister rip it out of her journal and bring it. When she was bearing her testimony she expressed that she was so grateful for the blessings she had been receiving all this time. She was receiving so many that she was feeling guilty. But she really wanted to get baptized because she knew she would receive even more blessings. She said when she came up out of the water, Heavenly Father opened her eyes and she realized that all of her blessings were sitting right there and watching her. He blessed her with the best dad, the best mom, the best brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles and the best missionaries(this is where i cried ha lol) She's had these blessings all along but now she could see them and she was so grateful for what each had done for her in her life. Then sister prince and i sang a nice arrangement of "i know that my redeemer lives" it is case's favorite song and mine too:) The spirit there was so strong and i know so many people were touched. Even her mom who we were originally supposed to find and contact that day who actually pretended to be interested, she was touched and it might go somewhere. God opened the doors for great things to happen. She then came up to the VC that night and visited us. She brought us gifts. She made these bouquets of flax flowers she weaved about a year ago, she gave us a picture of us from that day and also she gave us her favorite scarves. I started crying, almost uncontrollably(really embarrassing) but i honestly was so grateful for those gifts and i love Casey so much. Honestly words cannot describe how grateful i am to have her in my life. These gifts are so precious to me. I'm not so much of a crier but this is one of the only times on my mission when I've cried. i was truly touched. I also cried a little the next day when she received the Holy Ghost and became a member of the church. I am so proud of her and joy just fills my heart to know that she has my favorite gift for herself. The gift of the holy ghost. That gift brings me true happiness. I know when i have it i am doing what's right and making my Heavenly Father proud. :) Such a great day! i honestly couldn't be happier!:) Goal for this week: Study or share your testimony on something that will help you testimony grow in an area where it is week. Love and miss you heaps! sister Bird I know this is true!