I Love Being a Missionary!

This week has been pretty great! We were not able to see Jeran or
Chris this week so that was sad, we may have to push the baptism date
back because we haven't been able to meet with them. Which means they
need more time to make this a priority in their lives. We did however
see some really amazing miracles. We met with Shay and taught her the
restoration and she said it all made sense and she accepted a baptism
date of August 15th! And we did a church tour with her and she loved
the chapel and felt the spirit so strong. She has been searching for
something in her life and she said she is feeling like she is finding
it. I love being a missionary! Jeffery is doing good, he came to
church this week! And all of the talks were about obedience. So that
was just perfect. We met with him after church and read Alma 32
together. He doesn't have a lot of faith so we are breaking on baptism
for right now to help him build his faith in God and Jesus Christ. He
really liked the seed analogy and how when we are diligent we will
reap the rewards. That's whats amazing about this gospel. If we
sincerely want to know it is true and do the work to find out then we
will always get an answer that it is true.

 On Saturday I was able to go with sister Gomez back to la center!
Hannah and Aaron Glenn, the penders cousins, were getting baptized! It
was so amazing to see everyone from that ward there. It was like a
great little reunion. We left our companions in Portland to work so
that was fun for them! They did a great job without us, it seems like
we are being trained instead of us training them. I'm getting more
settled in my role as senior companion. And not being prideful in
anyway haha just meaning that I'm less stressed about my duties and so
that has been a really great burden lifted.

We also went on exchanges this week and sister Olsen and I basically
just did service all day and that was really fun. We have an
investigator named Jerry who has some health problems so we go and
help him in is yard. The elders came with us to help and we ended up
picking black berries for like two hours. And sister Michaud and I
love black berries. Seriously they are everywhere here. And we just
eat them whenever we are tracting. So we are going to make a cobbler
for district meeting/my birthday. It's gonna be great. And I promise I
won't open anything until Wednesday. But I'm putting sister Michaud in
charge of that because you all know me haha.

So we had to go to this stake meeting last night and we were all very
confused and elder call from the 70 was there as well as three stake
presidents and president Taylor. Which I never complain when the
Taylor's are at meetings. But the purpose was they are dissolving the
Portland east stake. We are now in the Gresham stake. Which we haven't
found out what that means for us, probably next transfer we will be in
the Gresham zone but still be in our areas. We were hoping to get more
people in our ward but that didn't happen, our Ward really needs some
more strong families to help with callings. It's so tiny! But I love
it. This area is just coming alive. There is never a dead area only
dead missionaries. And we have seen it blossom as we have worked hard
and been strictly obedient. And we have also seen a lot more joy in it
as well.

I love you all so much and I pray for you daily!

Sister Stephens