KATE

November 21, 2010 Monday

Yesterday, Sunday, instead of our regular meetings, we watched the Saturday morning session of General Conference. I’d read most of those talks twice already, but it was sooooo good to see and hear the brethren present them. I hadn’t realized the impact that has on a person. It was great.
We hadn’t heard from Samantha all weekend and were worried she was turning away again, but she called Sunday afternoon to explain she’d been really involved with her best friend’s wedding (hmmm, sounds like a great title for a movie ;o) Anyway, she said we could visit her today.
Today, 2 appointments we had in the morning fall through so we ended up tracting. We found an American woman, Kate, who invited us in for a drink of cold water. Her house smelled like she’d just baked chocolate chip cookies, but she didn’t offer us any :o( She had grown up on a farm in Iowa in a large Catholic family. She had decided to become a lay missionary and worked here in Australia, Ethiopia, Israel, a couple of other countries, and then returned to Australia to work in Aboriginal communities. She met a dedicated Australian Catholic and married him. Apparently they don’t have any kids. She works part-time in the Notre Dame library. She was so friendly and great to talk to. She invited us back to visit any time and also to visit the library where they have some really cool paintings. It was fun to get to know her.
We dropped by Samantha’s and gave her the video “Finding Faith in Christ.” She’d been reading the Ensigns and had read an article about food storage. She commented how much that would have helped her if she’d had it over this last little while. We talked to her about the blessings of going to church and gave her a copy of the “Gospel Principles” manual. We invited her to FHE tonight and she came! We still have hope for her. She’s a really smart lady.
At FHE tonight we taught about the scriptures. We played a matching game about scripture stories and then talks about what the scriptures do for us. We gave everyone a reading chart for the next two weeks starting in Chapter 9 in 3 Nephi. They only have to read 5 verses a day. I hope they come through with it. There were 11 of us here tonight—all of them needed rides to come. It took 25 minutes to pick them all up and then again to take them all home!