News from North Carolina: Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don't unravel!

So last Monday, we got a text that we had a new referral for someone named Doherty Sunders. And we were like, is that a girl name or a boy name? Guess we will find out! So the next day, we looked up the referral and saw that it was a self-referral and they wanted a book of Mormon. So we drove to the address and we were like, no cars! Oh well, lets go knock anyway. So as we were walking up, I saw the TV on and got excited because someone was home. When we get up to the door, we are about to knock when we hear someone start unlocking the door. And all of the sudden this lady comes out and says, "I am so glad to see you!! I didn’t know when you were coming but I am so happy! Go around to the back and I'll be right there!" So we walked around to the back trying to figure out what is going on here and she comes out. So we asked for her name and it turns out it is Dorothy Saunders. Her brother has been a member of the church for years and has been trying to get her interested, and she finally is! So we started teaching her the Restoration and she was getting so excited because she has seen the Restoration movie and remembered a lot from what her brother told her and she pretty much taught us the Restoration lesson! She is so excited to learn more about the gospel and she asked us if we could get a ride for her to church this Sunday and asked what we thought she should read in the Book of Mormon and asked if we could come back and see her next Tuesday and she is just amazing! And she said that she would most definitely be baptized! So Sister Tenney and I just walked away from that lesson on a spiritual high! Best day ever! Then, a few days later, we were in our apartment making lunch (well, I was actually baking sugar cookies...I couldn't decide what I wanted to eat!) when Dorothy called. And she said that she had talked to the sisters on Temple Square again and they had told her to call us so that she could tell us she was getting baptized on Nov 15th! Haha. First time I have ever had an investigator call us and tell us when they were getting baptized! (By the way, I totally burnt those cookies I was making...yeah...I was so not thinking about cookies at that point!) So we told her that we would have to meet with her quite a few times between then and now and she was like, "sure, that would be great!" So we planned to have lunch and a lesson over at the Leinbach's after church. (The Leinbachs were giving her a ride to church). Then later, the same day, she called and talked to us about what she was reading in the Book of Mormon and she was talking all about how Lehi's dream of the tree of life is so amazing and how people try to mock us and turn us away from God. And then she told us that she wanted to get to 2 Ne by tomorrow for church so that she would be prepared. And she really enjoyed church! Especially Sunday school; the lesson was on baptisms for the dead and she loved it because she discovered that we do baptisms for the dead because the dead don't have bodies anymore and they can't be baptized! And when we taught her the Plan of Salvation at the Leinbachs, it was amazing! We taught her about how Adam and Eve partaking of the fruit was part of the plan so we could gain bodies and she started crying because she had never heard that before but it made so much sense. While we were talking about Earth Life, we also talked about commandments that God gives us like the word of Wisdom (she had told me during church that she smokes and she really wants to stop and since her baptism date is so soon, we decided we needed to address it now). And as soon as we had told her about the word of wisdom, she told us she wasn't going to drink coffee anymore and she was going to stop smoking as well. She is seriously the best investigator ever! We hardly even teach her anything that she doesn't already know because of previous experiences in her life! At the end, we asked her about the baptismal date and talked about how it probably wouldn't work that weekend because we have stake conference and we asked her if we could move it to the next weekend and she got really excited because then her brother will be able to come! And when we told her he could baptize her, she started crying. I seriously love Dorothy! She is the best! And this morning, she texted us asking if drinking hot chocolate was okay. :) And she said she is struggling to not smoke so we sent her 1 Ne 3:7. When God gives us commandments, he makes a way for us to accomplish them! Anyway, we are really excited about Dorothy! Sorry so long!

Hope y’all are having a blessed day!

Sister Morris