Kjære alle sammen,

The time we live in is exciting and blessed! And I feel extremely blessed to be serving the Lord as one of his full-time missionaries! This week was nothing out of the ordinary. Well actually, kanskje it was a little bit of a strange week. 

We got invited to have dinner with one of our investigators who is from Syria. Arabic food. It was so good! Also enough to feed all of the extended family on my mom's side. He dished each of us a HUGE plate of Arabic food that we had to eat in 10 minutes in order to make interviews with president. It was for sure a miracle that we were able to eat all of that food! And then make it back to the church on time! All of our clothes and hair smelled like foreign food for a few days, but such is the mission life. Also a part of the mission life is failing hard, which I did a lot of while we were in our green trio. We got on a couple of wrong buses, Tried looking for a house that didn't exist, accidentally trespassed, fell hard on the ice a few times, and the likes. But I keep reminding myself that my track record for surviving rough days is 100 percent. :) Something that is cool in the mission is that we are changing our contacting approaches. We go contacting a lot here... a lot. And well, this new method is a lot more personal and we get a lot less Nei Takk's (no thanks) with it. The thing that we have done away with is greeting people with "Hi, we are two missionaries from the church...." and started to ask people inspired questions instead. It is more direct, and we allow people to feel the spirit quicker. We had a workshop on Friday by the Assistants to go through this new contacting approach. 

Miracle story! We met this guy on the bus one day, and he was nice and stuff, but he got off too quick for us to ask if he would like to meet with us. Ben Weggerson (our mission leader) invited us to his house for dinner yesterday, and because sister Vega's buss card was out, we had to walk home instead of taking the bus. On our way home, we ran into this guy again! I was like "Hey, we know you!" and we started talking to him and we started talking about God we asked him to pray and if he would like to meet with us. If all goes well, we will be meeting with Lars on Thursday! It took over an hour for us to walk home, but if we had been able to take the bus, we probably would not have met Lars again. The Lord truly works in mysterious ways. 

I would just love to share with all you my testimony of the scriptures. I have been spending time in the Bible recently, and it is becoming so dear to me. I finished reading the book of John today, and the last verse says And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. 

I am so grateful for the recorded information about the Savior's life and teachings that we do have! I am forever grateful for the Book of Mormon and it's role in my testimony of Christ and what the bible teaches me of him. In 1 Nephi 13, Nephi sees a vision and the great importance of the book of Mormon. verse 39.I beheld other books, which came forth by the power of the Lamb, from the Gentiles unto them, unto the convincing of the Gentiles and the remnant of the seed of my brethren, and also the Jews who were scattered upon all the face of the earth, that the records of the prophets and of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are true.

So he saw other books come forth by the power of God unto all people, and that for the purpose of helping people see that Jesus is the Christ, and that the records we have from the prophets and apostles are true.

I love the scriptures because they teach me of Christ and what I can do to be more like him. I know the Bible and the Book of Mormon are true, and I also know that if anyone else in the whole world would like to know this too, they can, if they read, ponder and pray about it. You know why? Because the Lord loves us. He knows us. He waits for us to come to him. And he has provided through his prophets, a way for us to know his plan and exactly what we need to do to make it back. It is so simple and wonderful. The way is Christ. 

Remember Him this week and do something that will bring you closer to him. You will be blessed! 

Med mye Kjærlighet,

 Søster Stephanie Joy Williams