Dearest Beautiful Back-to-Schoolers,

This week started with the COOOLEST Thunderstorm I’ve ever been in! The mid-west has a huge sky, so it just rumbles like a monster falling down a staircase! :0) Hehe! But this week was a spiritual success for me. I think Sister N. and I finally reached total Companion unity and it feels soo good! The spirit is much stronger when we are together and we are sure enjoying learning from each other! Our happiest moment was when Diana J., (the catholic family) told us she really wants her husband to come with us on a church tour and that she will basically drag him along no matter what! Hehe  She’s really opening up and telling us about all the things she likes about our church and saying how much she’d love it if she could know 100% that it was true. She just needs some time…  She said, “There’s no way to know if there is a true church until you’re dead!” And we helped her see that she could find out a way through prayer! And then I gave her this really neat, “17 points of the True Church” with scriptures from the Bible all about what Christ taught. (Mom, those were from you…THANKS SO MUCH!!) And she’s really getting excited. 

Another highlight was when the 6 Peoria missionaries sang in church yesterday!! Elder M. is a genius on the piano and made an arrangement of “Joseph’s First Prayer” to “Come Thou Fount.” There were several people in the audience in tears and I had total goosebumps!  I practically forced the Elders to do it, but they were happy they did it at the end because it was SUCH a powerful song!! Eeeee! This TWO YEAR OLD BOY came up to me and said, “I wanna be a missionary!!!” woah!

Yesterday when we were praying about where we needed to be, I just had a feeling to go to a parking lot near our apartment building. It was really wierd! Haha but we did! And we saw this funny bumper sticker,www.thecoolchurch.com So we laughed and said, “Let’s take a pic of it!” After we did that, a guy came out and got into that car! So we started talking to him about his church, and in-turn told him about ours! We ended up having a faith promoting lesson and a prayer right there in the parking lot!  It was a miracle and I know that God set that up. :0) Even though he didn’t want any more lessons, It was still so cool to have someone to teach last night. 

We ate dinner with a member yesterday and they told us they’ve lived here 17 years and most of the new converts leave after 6 months… This is a really hard area. But It’s okay! God is still blessing us with people to teach; even if they are a little flaky. 
We had dinner and lunch with two less-active families at Golden Corral, and the next day they were at church!! Yaaay! They are so neat. They even made me Gluten free cookies!!!

I found a cute/funny scripture that I gave to my companion that falls asleep when she studies…Proverbs 6:9-11. hehe 

Thanks for all you do for us! I’m trying to be more dilligent with my time out here! My whole heart rejoices when I remember how lucky I am to be on a mission!!! 
God Bless,
Sister Tobias