The next day we met with her and it was the most beautiful lesson.  We cried in the library with our Relief Society president who came to help us teach.  She had a huge anchor tattooed on her chest… so we told her about a new anchor in her life… Ether 12:4. ” Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.”  She loved it.  She asked us at the end of the lesson, “So…can I still do that baptism thingy?” 🙂 🙂 🙂 Answered prayer!
The next day we took her to the Oskaloosa Elders and they gave her a blessing.  She said that she felt power being pressed upon her…”in a cool way.”  That’s the priesthood!! 🙂 🙂

Then, to come right back crashing to the ground, we saw Randy!  He said that His mom won’t let him come to our church because she thinks it’s too far for him to drive…even though members are picking him up.  She owns His car and told him that if he joins our church, He’ll take away His car.  He had a baptismal date for the 30th…. We visited him later in the week and took him to a church activity.  He was really torn again, because the Preacher found out that He was listening to us and chewed out the Mormons too! :S Aaaaaaahhhhh.  We brought some amazing members with us though who helped him recognize how many blessings come through church membership (like the Book of Mormon, Temples, LIVING PROPHETS, the Gift of the Holy Ghost,  all of the revealed knowledge and revelations, and the PRIESTHOOD to name just a FEW!!!!) 😀

Sis. Edward’s introduced us to one of her REALLY neat friends, Patty.  She lives on 40 acres of farmland!! AHHH! I WAS literally in Heaven.  She gave us fresh DUCK EGGS and I ate them for breakfast this morning. 🙂 She said we can help her on her farm, and that if God told her she needed to be baptized, she would.  She’s extremely open to listening to the spirit and believes the BOM to be a true scripture!  So yeehaw. :O]

We had a really wonderful zone conference about listening to the spirit and SISTERS TAUGHT A TRAINING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MISSION HISTORY!!! The church has allowed Sister Missionaries to give zone trainings now and it was SO aweseome to have other sisters!  We’ve always been the only sisters in my zone for my whole mission so after the prayer when all of the elders give each other huge hugs, I didn’t have to akwardly stand there!  I got to hug other sisters!! Yeeees! 😛

Karissa accepted a baptismal date! We met a cute old lady named Donna Goode.  And Sis. Cannon and I looked at each other and said, “There’s a hymn in the Hymnbook about you!”  So We sang her “Have I Done Any Good in the World Today?”  And kinda switched the words to sound like her name.  She loved it! 😉 We helped her trim her rose bush. But she was “too old” to change churches… 🙁

Ha!!!  We were riding our bikes and this old man ran up to me after we passed and said hi.  He came running up to me saying, “Alexis!! It’s sooo good to see you!  You look BEAUTIFUL!!”  And I looked so scared because he was about to give me a hug before he saw my nametag.  “Oh!  You’re not Alexis!”  But he told us he’d come to church!  He gave us 3 referrals–including Alexis–my supposed twin!  hahaha 🙂  Awesome!  It made me laugh so hard.  He LOVED the Book of Mormon and was so happy to hear there was a local church…He said we answered his prayers. 🙂

Well… If you can’t tell.  I’m SO happy to be here.  I love you all more than anything and the gospel magnifies that love so much! 🙂

So Stay strong and read the Book of Mormon.  It’s truer than true! 🙂

Sister Tobias 🙂 🙂 🙂