Sister Bailey Guthrie: November 2017

This week was suuuuper good and successful. I realized I didn’t give y’all a lot of details when I first got transferred to Oxford so I’ll try to catch you up in this letter. First of all, we opened up a new area which means a blank area book (aka no investigators or contacts). Luckily there’s a companionship of elders in the area so they helped us get a little acquainted with the area and campus. Secondly, we are the first sisters to serve in this area in about 5 years so the members were super excited to have us. The Ole Miss campus is in our area and we are somewhat able to find people to teach there. It’s kind of like Russia; we can’t approach the students but if they approach us we can teach them. Hopefully in the near future we will have more access to on campus proselyting. We’ve spent some time walking around campus this past week to get the students familiar with seeing us and to hopefully spark some interest. We also did a lot of walking around the outskirts of campus where we can approach and talk with anyone we see. The success we had this week came in finding new people to teach! On Monday night we went to have a family home evening with a couple in the ward. Well, when we got there we met their non member friends Kirstin and Ricky who were staying the night. We were able to teach them the message of the restoration and invite them to read the Book of Mormon. It’s so great to find unexpected and unplanned opportunities to teach. The members here are awesome! They’re helping us find so many people to teach the gospel to. We’ve had a couple of lessons with the nonmember husband of a member in the ward and it’s going really well. His name is Sonnie and man I love him and his wife!! They are so sweet and I feel like they’re family at this point. When we teach them the spirit is always really strong and I feel like we are able to be bold and loving with them when sharing principles of the gospel. We invited Sonnie to start reading the Book of Mormon to find out if it’s true and helped him download the Book of Mormon app on his phone. He loved that because he was having trouble reading the small print of the paper copy. He is really shy but he said, “I was reading the pamphlet (the restoration pamphlet we left with him) and I understand what you’re saying”. It was so sweet and sincere. I love them so much. They said we can help them set up their Christmas decorations after Thanksgiving so that’s something I’m looking forward to. On Thursday we had a spiritual experience. We were walking all day (11 miles to be exact) and towards the end of the evening we decided to take an unplanned route. Well, after walking that way for a while we ran into a familiar face from church. The member hurriedly came up to us and said, “I NEED A FERVENT PRAYER”. He explained that he had come outside of where he was working to take a phone call and set his laptop down on a bench outside. He went inside after the call and realized he didn’t have his laptop. He ran outside and it was no where to be found. He was searching for it when suddenly we walked by. So, we said a prayer with him that he would be directed to where the laptop was. Well, after that we said good luck and started to part ways. We watched him go into a nearby shop and ask a woman if she had seen anything. Well, through the store window we watched the woman pull his laptop out from behind the counter!! He gave the lady a big hug and Sister Keiser and I just laughed and thanked God that he had found it. Tender mercies and miracles. On Friday we went to teach an investigator that we had found last week. She wasn’t home but her son Tyrese was on sitting on the porch with two of his friends, Brandon and Que so we took advantage of the opportunity to teach! We taught them about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. We also taught them about prayer and receiving revelation from Heavenly Father. When we started driving away after the lesson I looked back and saw all three of them gathered together on the porch starting to read the Book of Mormon together. It made me so happy! To top off all of the amazing lessons we had, Kirstin and Ricky ended up coming to church on Sunday. They brought their copies of the Book of Mormon and we could tell that they had been studying! It was a great week full of so many miracles. With thanksgiving coming up quickly I want to express how thankful I am for the gospel of Jesus Christ, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16). God the Eternal Father lives!! He loves us. He knows us. Jesus Christ is His son. Through Christ we can be cleansed from sin and healed of spiritual wounds. The Book of Mormon is the word of God. I’m thankful for all of these plain and precious truths and the many more that make up the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and God’s merciful plan for our redemption. “God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son” (the Living Christ). Happy thanksgiving week!! Hope y’all get to celebrate it with momenem (southern word referring to “mom and them”) hahahahahha gotta love tha souuuuth

Sister Bailey Guthrie

905 Kierre Dr.

North Little Rock, AR 27116