Church is for sinners -- not for perfect people!

This week was great! Super eventful, especially with the changes they made with the missionary program world-wide.

What a great week it was for us with our work! Our investigator, Daniel, is

perfect! We are moving his date up because he is so ready! We joke that we are trying to find a woman to convert so he can find a nice wife for him to take to the temple with his four amazing and cute kids! Haha! Daniel is Polish and with the kids’ English, their house is full of lots of accents! I didn’t realize how many Polish folks there are here, but there are quite a few in this area!

My Mission Home/Office

We also visited a less active member yesterday and had a nice hour-long conversation with him. Man, he's super nice too! He’s a member but his wife and kids are not. He had been so wrapped up in work and hadn’t been to church in a long while. Then he felt guilty about missing church so he continued to not go (horrible mind set; always, always, always go to church). Church is for sinners – not for perfect people. If we were perfect, we wouldn't need church! So, after a long discussion about what’s important to him and his family, he said he would come to church this Sunday!! Miracles!!! I hope by the end of my mission I can watch them walk into the temple together and watch him gain what he has so longed for.

We've meet some really cool people this week. We met and visited with one man, Dalton, at the bus stop. Afterwards, Dalton wrote to us and said he just felt so strong and confident when talking to us and he knew we had a purpose and he wanted to find his own purpose! So, we are going to meet with him this week! Another miracle happened when we met up with a former investigator, Chris, who had stopped coming to church.  He said the only reason he stopped looking into the church and attending was because he thought it was too long of a church service -_- ! Ha, yeah, sometimes we all feel that way! So we challenged him to come (I bribed him with snacks, haha!) and he came this week! He said he will start coming and we can start teaching him again! So many miracles this week, and many more I wish I could share, but my time is limited!

Oh, this week we finally got furniture in our flat! I was sick of sitting on the

floor all the time so I made an announcement in relief society that we

needed furniture and our flat is so full now with furniture donated by ward members! We now have a beautiful china cabinet, a glass bookcase, a table, a mirror and four chairs. Then, our landlord (who isn’t a member) just gave us two couches!! So, we are baking her brownies and bringing them over to say thank you. I may try to slip in a picture of Jesus – maybe I'll bake it in the brownie! Haha! Just kidding! Anyway, now our flat looks super posh! I'm so stoked, we have a table to eat on and couch to sit on now.

My companionship is amazing; we are such great friends! She actually just

decided to go to BYU-Idaho when she finishes her mission (which is just two transfers away), so hopefully we can room together, if she's not married by the time I get back!

But all is well here! I love it here! I love you all very much and hope you have an amazing week!

Also I challenge all my LDS friends and family EVERYWHERE to look in the LDS tool app on your little gadgets and look for three names you don't recognize or see at church and try to contact them, whether it be on Facebook, phone or message them or even visit them! I know there are plenty in our ward back home because I looked at it the other day and there are over 137+ less active members in our ward – that is outrageous. So, everyone (especially in Bloomington 1^st Ward!) – three names to contact! On your mark, get set, GO!! 

Cheers,

Sister Abeling