April 23, 2013

Wow, what a week. I wish I could just tell you all of the incredible miracles I was able to witness this week, but unfortunately time only permits me to share a few. I will share my favorites with you. Excuse me if I do not make sense, but I will have a difficult time putting these experiences into words. The Lord's hand is ever so evident in this work, especially here in Oliver and Osoyoos.

Before I jump in, I found out that there is a P.O. Box in the states that the mission office goes to twice a week so if anybody is going to send a package ever, that would be much cheaper to send it to!! I won't get it until I go to the office for transfers every six weeks, but that is okay, it is super cheaper! The address is below:

Sister Ashlyn Biggs

Canada Vancouver Mission

PO BOX 149

Point Roberts, WA 98281

Well, let's jump right in I guess! I will start with Robin. He is a man that we talked to on the sidewalk. He is not very religious but he has a firm belief in Jesus Christ and God. We taught him about the Book of Mormon, and then gave him his own copy. We ended the lesson bearing our testimonies sincerely about the Book of Mormon. He looked up at us when we were done, with tears in his eyes, and said "Girls, I feel like I am in Heaven". My heart rejoied. I felt like the Sons of Mosiah as I witnessed the Holy Ghost work in his heart. He took the Book of Mormon from us and said "Thank you for this incredible gift". I walked away from that lesson knowing that the Holy Ghost was testifying to him of the truthfulness of our message. We will be meeting with him tomorrow, and I cannot wait to see how he felt about reading from this incredible Book. That is what the Book of Mormon does for us. It makes us feel like we are in Heaven. An investigator helped me realize that once again!

Next I will write about William. My heart swells with emotion as I even write about him. We have been teaching WIlliam since I first got here. He is a little bit slower in the learning process, but since day 1 we have been trying to get him to Church as we know what an impact that will have on his life. For weeks we have been disappointed as we call Sunday morning and find out that he is not able to come from his wife. He has quite a few health problems, but he is also a little hesitant to come to church. We decided this last week to give him a church tour to help him feel more comfortable in the building. He accepted, and we felt the Spirit strongly. The next morning before starting the day, I prayed more sincerely than I have ever before. I poured out my heart to my Heavenly Father, asking him for a miracle. I asked him to please provide a way for WIlliam to get to church today. With tears in my eyes I stood up, leaving it in God's hands as I prepared for the day. On the way to church, we made our usual phone call to his house. His wife picked up, which made my heart sink, as I figured he was still sleeping. However, then I heard her say the words "Yes William will be there, he is just getting ready right now. He also has some muffins to bring to the potluck." My heart rejoiced more than ever before. Immediately I began sobbing in the car as we drove to Church. Heavenly Father had blessed me with the greatest miracle of my mission thus far. After PEC we waited anxiously at the door, hoping  to see William walk in. 5 minutes before the meeting, there he was. I cried as I shook his hand and welcomed him to church. Tears were in my eyes throughout the entire meeting. It is hard to explain these feelings. But this was in fact the greatest miracle I have seen so far in my mission. After Church we asked him how he liked it. He said "I felt something warm in my heart the whole time". After telling him that that was the Spirit, he looked at me and said "I want that feeling forever". I cannot describe the joy that my heart felt adequately enough in an email. But I will forever cherish that incredible moment with William. The Lord blessed me according to our faith and our constant prayers. He is there. He is so very aware of this work. Miracles have not ceased.

I am now training Sister Haight, and Sister Okano has finally gone to the MTC. Like she even needs the training...Sister OKano is so great and helped me so much. I will certainly miss her as we part ways. But I am so grateful to be with Sister Haight now. She is from California and has an incredible testimony of the Book of Mormon. What a blessing she will be to our investigators! I am not sure why the Lord trusts me training these wonderful missionaries, but I know that He has helped me to grow from them probably more than I have helped them grow. Sister Haight will be a great asset to this area. I hope to be able to help her jump with both feet in!

Glen and Barb are two other investigators we are working with. They are Mormons essentially, just missing the baptsim part. They are such a great family and I have grown to love them so much! We had an appointment to teach them yesterday. So yesterday morning during companion study, we started preparing their lesson. We prayed hard for direction on what we should share. We knew we wanted to speak about the Book of Mormon, but we were not sure what. So we prayed again. Stupor of thought for both of us. We were really confused, because we needed to plan a lesson, we were going to be seeing them that night! After no direction on what we should share, we finally decided to share a story from the Book of Mormon. I was not feeling very confident about it. But we went forward with faith. As we drove Sister OKano to the bus station, we were listening to conference from October 2011. The first talk to come up was Elder Callister's talk "A Book of Mormon: A Book from God". I felt like Joseph Smith when he had read James 1:5 while searching for the truth. The Spirit overwhlemed me, and I immediately knew that we needed to share this talk with Glen and Barb. This is why the Lord gave us the stupor of thought. He wanted us to go forward with faith, knowing that He would not fail us. He never has before, and He never will. He provided us with exactly what we needed to teach them. I poured my heart out in such gratitude for the wonderful miracle He blessed us with. Although the appointment fell through because some of their family was sick, I am still so very excited to go back and show them that talk. I challenge each of you to watch it as well. It confirms my testimony of the Book of Mormon so strongly!! How excited I am for them to hear it!

Something else incredible happened during PEC meeting this Sunday. President Fields said he was looking through his office and found a binder that he had never seen before, so he started looking through it. It was from 2003, when there was a senior couple serving in Oliver and Osoyoos. They had typed up a written report of every single person they had met or were teaching the lessons to. It had addresses, phone numbers, and everything they knew about them. President Fields made a copy and gave it to us. My eyes filled with tears, once again. The Lord did not have President Fields find this 10 years later on accident. He knows what He is doing. We will be going through this list very prayerfully and visiting each of these people. It was like gaining a brand new area book with so much detail. I read over some of the names and I felt the Spirit testify to me that somebody on there is ready to receive the Gospel. I am so excited to begin making our way through it! After 10 years, the Lord has prepared somebody for us! I just know it!

This past Friday we attended a funeral that we were asked to sing at in our church building. I did not know the man, but his son was a member and wanted to make sure that the missionaries were there because there would be quite a bit of nonmembers there. We sang "O My Father". I felt the Spirit so strongly. As I looked people in the eyes and bore testimony through song, I could feel my love for them increasing rapidly. We had the opportunity to talk to quite a few people afterward. I was able to exchange information with a man named Randy, who I feel REALLY good about. The Lord does not place us in these situations on accident. He expects us to use them to share the Gospel. What a great experience that was.

We had transfers this past week, where I became companions with Sister Haight. It was so incredible. Every time I hear President Tilleman speak, I feel the Spirit overwhlem me with comfort and peace. I know I was called to this mission partly because of the Tillemans! And I am so excited that they will be going home to Tempe after their mission, because I want nothing more than to stay in close contact with them. President Tilleman bore a 10 minute testimony of the Book of Mormon. I have never heard somebody bear testimony like this. He is so incredibly passionate about this amazing scripture. He agreed to come out to Oliver sometime to teach some lessons with us. I cannot wait for that to happen! He talked to me for a moment and promised me that if I were to continue working as hard as I am, that I would be blessed with many baptisms in my mission. I know success is not measured by numbers, but rather by our committment to bring others to Christ. But what a promise I was excited to receive from my mission President. I hope to be able to live up to it and show the Lord how hard I am willing to work for Him. This is His work. He is the head of it. The next 14 months are not mine, they are His. And I will be as humble as I can be to become the missionary He is trying to mold me into.

I guess what I am trying to get across in this email, is that I am involved in the greatest work in the world. I love this Gospel. The Lord blesses His missionaries, often more than they deserve. I know that is often the case with me. I know that He is blessing us with miracles constantly as long as we put our faith in Him. I know that some of the stories I shared may not seem so incredible to you. But just know that they will forever hold a special place in my heart. The Lord is watching over Sister Biggs here in Oliver, and allowing me to see incredible miracles. How blessed I am. What a humbling experience it is to serve a mission. For those of you who knew me well before, you know that pride has always been something I have struggled with. But I am humbled to see how much the Lord works with His missionaries. I feel myself closer to the Savior each day. What a blessing.

For this week's challenge, I challenge each of you to watch Elder Callister's talk about the Book Of Mormon from October 2011. It will inspire you to share your testimony about the Book of Mormon with others. I cannot believe how blessed we are to have this. I love you all so much. This work is true. I bear testimony that my Savior lives, and is SO very aware of me in my life. I love Him. I bear solemn testimony that this Church is true. The Book of Mormon is true. It brings us closer to our Heavenly Father than any other Book in the world. I love this Gospel, and I love all of you! Thank you for your constant support!!

Love,

Sister Biggs

April 16, 2013

I cannot believe another week went by already. What happened? Where did it go?? All well. I guess I better enjoy the days while they last ;) This week has been absolutely amazing. I feel so unworthy of the blessings that our Father in Heaven continues to give us. I will forever be an unprofitable servant, and yet to Him I mean the world. How does that work?? However it works, I am so grateful for it, and for His love.

Sister Okano finally got her visa so she will be going to the MTC next week. I will be getting a new companion, Sister Hate who has been out a transfer. I cannot believe the Lord is trusting me to train again, maybe He just has a plan to compel me to be humble or something? Who knows. Whatever it is, I know I will put my faith in Him and help Sister Hate to become the missionary that the Lord needs her to become at this time. Although I am so sad to be losing yet another companion, I cannot wait to begin learning from a new one! I am so looking forward to it. Sister Okano is SO much like Megan it is scary sometimes. She does a lot of the same things and talks like her. She is hilarious. So it helps with my homesickness quite a bit :)

We unfortunately had to drop Noreen this past week. The Lord told us very strongly that we just needed to give her some time to reflect. Sister OKano and I were pretty nervous about dropping so many investigators, but by putting our faith in the Lord we were able to find 3 new investigators last week!! What a blessing. Another similar miracle happened this morning. We had an appointment with Shellian, one of our investigators we have been meeting with for a while. We walked in and she sat down and told us she could not meet with us anymore because there was just not enough time in her life right now. She was very sweet about it and hopes that in a few months we will get back in contact with her. We sure will! So we started the day by losing one of our favorite investigators. However, we then had an appointment with Pam. And immediately, God blessed us with a new investigator. How great! He knows what He is doing in this area!! She is so solid and loved what we taught. She agreed lightly to baptism and is coming to church on Sunday. I am very excited for her. I cannot believe that I ever doubt my Heavenly Father even for a second. He has never failed me before, so why would He now? He won't! He is in charge of this work and He knows what He is doing with His children.

This past week we had such great opportunities to learn from President and Sister Tilleman. Thursday night we had a Stake Relief Society Fireside where they spoke and gave us INCREDIBLE counsel regarding being sisters in this church. Then the next morning we had Zone Conference where we were taught by both of them about principles that I had never thought about before. One of the things they spoke about was exact obedience. So many people think of exact obedience as something for missionaries (that is what I always thought!). Well, he spoke about how we must be exactly obedient every day of our lives, whether or not we are missionaires! Then he spoke about how we CAN Have perfect days. He said so often we get caught up in thinking that we CANNOT be perfect in this life. But he said that if we lose ourself in the work ALL DAY, we are on purpose 100 percent of the time, and we do not ignore any prompting of the Spirit, then that IS a perfect day in the eyes of the Lord. Obviously we cannot have perfect days according to our standards, but that is what the Atonement is all about! Through Him we can be made perfect, and we can see perfection in degrees throughout our lives.

So, that is my challeneg for this week - strive to be exactly obedient in all you do. You CAN read scriptures everyday. You CAN pray daily. You CAN go to church and partake of the Sacrament. And through all these things you CAN be found perfect as the Atonement fills in the cracks! What a blessing!!

This past Sunday we had Stake Conference. It was a 2 1/2 hour drive both ways. Yikes. But we got to hear from Elder Christensen of the Seventy. What a great speaker he is!! He told a cool story about how when he was in President Monson's office.  He had a carving and President Monson asked him to look at the carving and tell him which rock of all the rocks was the real one. After great contemplation, Elder Christensen chose, and was inevitably wrong. President Monson then picked up a rock and said "This one". He told Elder Christensen that he could look at the carving all day long, but he would NEVER be able to tell which one was real unless he picked it up. The Gospel is the same way. We do not find out that the Church is true so that we can enter the waters of baptism. We enter the waters of baptism through faith so that we can then KNOW the church is true. We must pick up the rock of the Word of Wisdom or pick up the Rock of Tithing. We must live the commandments to then know that they are true. Not the other way around. I cannot wait to use this story with my investigators. This is how we find truth!

I also loved hearing President Tilleman talk about how this is not my time here in the mission, it is the Lord's time. Sometimes I think I forget that. How selfish! But I am no longer "Ashlyn" for the next 15 months. I am Sister Biggs, set apart to serve the Lord full time. I do not get to choose to obey or not. When I accepted my call, I promised the Lord I would obey and serve Him with all my strength and time. And that is exactly what I will do. I will not waste another moment here in the field. This is His work, and He will watch over me as I devote all my efforts toward what He wants me to do.

I love this work. I love being able to serve!!! I cannot wait for another transfer to come and for me to learn from new missionaries in different capacities. This church is true. Pick up the rock, and find out for yourselves!!! I love you all, and thank you so much for all the support I get from back home. Have a great week, and keep the faith!

Love,

Sister Biggs

April 09, 2013

Well hello there everybody who is not in the amazing country of Canada!! :) Ok...that came out wrong...hello everybody :) I hope all is well with you guys! I love you all and pray for you often!!

Well, what a week. I suppose I should start with how AWESOME General Conferece was!!!!! What a blessing it is to be able to hear from these incredible men twice a year!! My heart aches knowing that not everybody watches it or will watch it. I wish that that was the ONLY thing on tv at the time!! We watched it down at the church since Canada cannot get it on tv. It was so awesome...and guess what? Noreen came and watched!!!! For about 5 years missionaries have been trying to get her to come to the church. And she finally came! Hooray!!!! We are meeting with her after this to see how she liked it. I certainly hope she was able to get an answer about the Book of Mormon.

I could go on and on about specific talks that I liked and different thigns, but that would just take up my entire email time! :) So I guess I will just mention Elder Scott's talk and how much that impacted me. Isn't it awesome how different talks affect different people in different ways? Fascinating :) I had quite a few questions going into conference that I was trying to get answers to. Well, Elder Scott happened to answer almost all of them! He gave me so much comfort and strength just listening to him. How grateful I am for modern day Apostles and Prophets!!!

So Sister Okano and I are trying something new that has taken a lot of faith. We are teaching quite a few people at this time, and we are very grateful for it. However, we are starting to realize that maybe we are teaching some people who are not necessarily truth seekers. If we were to not spend that time teaching them, then we would be able to have more time finding others who ARE truth seekers. Well, we thought that the best way to do this would be to be BOLD! SO we have been. We are bringing up baptism in every single lesson, which makes it very simple for us to be able to find out through the Spirit who are truth seekers and who are not. Yesterday Sister Okano was able to be very bold with one of our investigators. She said "Patt, The Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints is the only church on earth with the same Priesthood authority that Jesus Christ had". Wow! Talk about following the Spirit! Although Patt disagreed, we were able to decipher through some of the things she said and we felt very strongly that we should put her in a reflecting pool. Later in the lesson she gave us the name of her son who lives in Ontario, and told us he was searching for truth at this time. So perhaps we were led to Patt just to get her son's name so we could send missionaries there! How interesting how the Lord works!

We visited Amanda again yesterday. Guess what? She hasn't smoked in over a month!!! She is doing so amazing! AND she said she talked to her boss and convinced her to hire another staff member so that she could have Sundays off and come to church. UM....what just happened? Oh, a miracle. That's right. The Lord is so amazing! The truth of the Gospel has such an impact on people when they embrace its teachings!! I am so excited for her!!!

We met up with a farmer, Allen last week. We were kind of nervous because we have asked him a few times to meet with us, but he keeps declining. The Spirit told us to keep trying, so we did. Finally he set up an appointment. We get there and he is this huge first nations man with tatoos everywhere and a lot of peircings. I will admit, I was a little nervous. But oh how grateful I am for what the Spirit can do for us! He was probably the most humble man I have ever spoken to. He has 4 children, all of which he loves so dearly. The way he talks about them melts my heart everytime I think about it. I was able to get just a small glimpse of how Heavenly Father felt about him. I felt such a DEEP love for him when we left. I didn't want to leave because I just wanted to stay there and continue talking to him. He thoroughly enjoyed speaking with us and asked us to come back and teach him more about the church. Gladly!! It just goes to show that prejudgements never do any good. I didn't know I could have such an instant love for somebody in that manner, but the Lord can do all things. We are meeting with him again tomorrow!!

I just wish I could tell each of you every single thing that I experience throughout the week. But unfortunately, time does not allow. I just want each of you who are mission age to take this into consideration as you prepare or consider going on a mission. I have one piece of advice for you - GO!!! That's all. I hope that is clear enough for you. Please go on a mission if you are thinking about it. The Lord so desperately needs people to spread His Gospel. And He blesses you in incredible ways if we do so in this capacity.

I love how much my mission has taught me to be selfless. I did not realize before my mission how selfish I was! I prayed for myself constantly without thinking of others. Sometimes now I forget to pray for myself, besides repenting for all the dumb things I have done :) It is incredible to be able to be so devoted to helping others. I am SO worried about so many other people that I just want Heavenly Father to help them!! I realize I certainly need His help to teach them though. But I love having my prayers focused entirely on other people. I feel like I get so much more out of them!!! What a blessing!!

The challenge for this week is this - I challenge each of you to watch or read at least 3 general conference talks this week. I also challenge you to keep this up until next conference comes!! Before my mission, I was able to listen to conference on my iPhone all throughout work. That is 8 hours of conference a day, and I could not be happier about it. I can honestly say that that is one of the reasons I am here on a mission. We need to take advantage of this incredible technology the Lord has provided for us.

Well, I love each of you ever so much. I think of each of you often and hope that all is going well wherever you are at this point in your life. This Gospel is true. Jesus Christ's Gospel HAS been restored on the earth through a living prophet, and will never again be taken away. I hope and pray that each of you will do your part to come to this same knowledge. I love you, and I will talk to you next week!!

Love,

Sister Biggs

Letter Twelve

Hello there my wonderful friends and family!! I hope this letter finds you well.

I know I say this every week...but what an incredible week of miracles this has been here in Oliver and Osoyoos!! Seriously though. I just hope to remain worthy of the MANY blessings Heavenly Father has bestowed upon us and this area. I am thoroughly convinced that the Lord knows exactly where we need to be and when we need to be there.

I hope everybody had a great Easter!! What an incredible time to reflect on the Savior's sacrifice and resurrection. Only through Him are we able to overcome physical and spiritual death. We are eternally indebted to Him! How blessed we are to have an older brother like Him!! Easter was great here. My companion and I sang in Sacrament meeting "I Know that My Redeemer Lives". This branch hardly ever gets musical numbers, so it was quite a treat for them. The Spirit was felt really strongly, especially after the incredible talks that were given. President and Sister Fields invited us over for dinner again. We eat there every Sunday, but we did not expect them to have us for Easter! They said we are part of the family though, and that they would be hurt if we did not go. How blessed we are to be in this branch with these incredible people. We went and ate with them and their family, and it was wonderful. They even included us in their family Easter tradition of giving out chocolate bunnies and different things. They treated us like one of their own. This was another testimony builder to me of how much the Lord knows us and where we need to be. I will be completely honest - when I first came to this tiny area I was a little nervous. I did not know anybody and  I did not understand how not having a ward of a few hundred people could ever be great?? How wrong I was. As most of you know, when I first got here I had quite a bit of homesickness. It was very difficult for me to not think of home and long to be there. However, I can honestly say that the homesickness has not been felt in weeks! The Fields have been a great aspect of this happening. They are like my family here in Osoyoos. Their love for me is felt in ALL that they do and say. I am so blessed to have them. How can I be homesick, when part of my family is right here?? I would have never guessed that I could feel this way. But oh how the Lord strengthens us in our weaknesses!!

 So, there was a former in our area book named Mary who we called last week to set up an appointment with. We had never talked to her before. She hesitantly set up an appointment and then told us that we were wasting our time. She is Catholic and "Never going to change that". Well, we boldly set the appointment and told her we did not mind! How grateful I am that the Lord directed us to do that!! We went there and she invited us in, still with the same mindset. But within 10 minutes, the atmosphere began to change. She was feeling the Spirit as we taught her about the Book of Mormon. She began shifting in her chair and looking at us intently as we spoke. The Spirit was almost overwhleming as we spoke. After we paused she said, "you girls are so young. How do you know these things?" Well, that was simple to answer! Then, she immediately asked if we could set up another appointment because she wanted to invite her 2 granddaughters and her sister-in-law over to listen to us. Look at what the Spirit and the truthfulness of the Gospel can do to people!! Within ten minutes she was already inviting everybody she knew to hear our message. This message of the Restoration of the Gospel is TRUE. I would not spend 18 months of my life preaching something that wasn't. And watching Mary experience that same truth for herself helped build my testimony!! We are meeting with her on Thursday and we cannot wait to teach her about the Plan of Salvation, as that is what she has questions about. I have great hope for our lessons with her.

Quick side note - does anybody who served missions or has experience with being exhausted have any tips about staying wide awake in studies or having more energy throguhout the day? If so, please send them my way :) We are just so non-stop every second of eevry day that I am so exhausted! I have certainly seen the Lord give me strength to do things that I did not think I could do myself. But any little tips would be great :) Currently I am doing jumping jacks every 10 minutes in study. But I am up for anything :)

A man in our ward is a dentist, so he offered to clean my teeth for free because I was complaining about them haha. How sweet was he!! So this past Saturday we went and got my teeth cleaned by him. It was so funny because his 2 little girls were there because his wife had to be there. So the whole time they were like right up in my mouth and poking me and talking to me. Talk about an exciting dentist experience...but how blessed we are to be in this area with these amazing people who look for opportunities to serve in all capacities!!

We are still teaching Noreen a couple times a week. We are actually going to teach her right after emailing today. She is having a really hard time coming to church, but we are really hoping to be able to get her to General Conference at the church next week! How lucky and blessed we are to be able to hear from a prophet of God twice a year in this manner!! I cannot imagine why anything else is played on the internet or on tv??? People...a Prophet is speaking!! Drop EVERYTHING and listen!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok. Sorry I just had to get that out. I want to climb to the top of a mountain here and shout that. But that might be frowned upon in this establishment. All well. This will do :)

Another great experience yesterday with some Spanish!! We were personal contacting on Easter and we ran into a man that only spoke Spanish. Well, here we go! I opened my mouth and the words just flowed! I don't even really remember what I said haha. But the Lrod was speaking to him through me and we are meeting with him again this week! Luckily I have some Spanish Books of Mormon. I hear there are quite a few Mexicans here in the summer. I know now why I was sent to this area at this time!! Hooray!!! 

I could go on forever about the incredible miracles that the Lord is blessing us with here. But unfortunately time is limited. (It is probably best, because I would have you reading an email for like 2 hours if I could!). Haha. I love serving the Lord in this capacity. I love training Sister Okano and learning with her as we are both new to this!! I love relying on the Lord in situations when I have absolutely NO idea what to do or say. And finally, I love being able to study the scriptures for 2 hours every single day. This is time that I wish I had for the rest of my life. But I can promise each of you that as you study and really put your mind to listening to the Spirit, that the Lord will open the windows of heaven and pour out His blessing upon you. So much that you will not be able to receive!! So that is my challenge to you this week. Set aside at least 30 minutes a day to study the scriptures. If we cannot devote 30 minutes a day to the Lord and His word, we may need to reevaluate our priorities. This was me before my mission for sure. But how grateful I am that I now have this opportunity to see the importance of studying daily!!

I hope that each of you know how much I love and care abut you. The Lord is watching over your girl here in Canada in more ways than one. I pray that He will guide each of you to a knowledge of this truthfulness if He has not already done so. May the Lord be with you in all things.

Love,

Sister Biggs

Letter Eleven

Hello there from the Okanagan! (I am running out of ways to introduce my letters...that's awkward). Anyway, what a great week the Lord has blessed us with!!

First things first, Sister Nuttall headed home yesterday...who knew I could be so attached to a companion so quickly?? I cried quite a bit when I dropped her off. But there was not much time to cry because I am still training Sister Okana and I have lots of work to do! I guess it is great to be so busy because it helps keep my mind focused on my purpose as a missionary. I find that we have grown so close to one another and we are able to teach so well together as we rely on the Spirit! I love putting my full trust in the Lord and knowing that He will help me as I strive to help Sister Okano learn what she would have learned in the MTC! What an experience and a blessing.

So, after P-Day yesterday, we went out tracting for a couple of hours. We went to this trailer park that was pretty big. About halfway through, a woman got mad at us and told us that we are not supposed to be soliciting in the trailer park at all. We normally follow those rules and respect those areas that ask us not to knock on doors. We got a little nervous, and then after consulting with our Father in Heaven, we still felt as though we should stay and keep knocking on doors. So we put our faith in Him and kept going. Boy am I glad that He knows His children better than we do! Only a few doors down from that woman, was an elderly woman who used to be Mormon, and has not been associated with the church in years. She let us right in, ad we talked quite a bit. We then taught her from the Book of Mormon, and she invited us back to teach her more! A new investigator, how grateful we were! But it gets better. Our goal for the day was to get one new investigator, so we were pretty excited about that. But a few doors down from her, we met Robert. He is a Jehovah's Witness, but said he is open to learning and would like to talk to us more about the Bible. We shared a quick principle with him about how God is our Loving Heavenly Father, and said a prayer right there on his door step. We are going back Friday night! Can you believe it, 2 new investigators just in the trailer park! How grateful I am that we followed to promptings of the Spirit as we put our faith in the Lord! We were quite excited. We also found quite a few people in that area, another great miracle!

So, we are still teaching Amanda and Ramsey...and guess what?? Amanda quit smoking! She has not smoked in 17 days!!! I almost came to tears when she was telling me how great she feels and that this is something she wants to do for the rest of her life. Look at what the Gospel can do for people!! She says she feels incredible and wants to continue learning from us, as does Ramsey. We are planning on setting a baptismal date with Ramsey this next vist. I will let you know how it goes!! I love being able to see just a little glimpse of how our father in Heaven feels. My greatest happiness comes from seeing others find happiness through the Gospel. What a blessing!!

So, we have taught Noreen a couple times since my last email...and guess what? We set a baptismal date with her this morning!! May 4th! And even better, she committed to start living the word of wisdom! She is just progressing so quickly, the Lord is certainly working with her each day as she studies the Book of Mormon. She says she thoroughly enjoys meeting with us, and cannot wait to take this step in her life. How blessed I am to have met her!!

Well, I have been driving for this past week and it is pretty weird. After not driving for the past couple months, I thought I would forget how! It felt super weird having to turn in my AZ license and get a BC one. But it's official now I guess :) I enjoy driving and having a 2013 Chevy Cruise entrusted into my hands! This car was right off the lot when we got it last  month. I cannot believe that they put these things in our care, what trust the Lord gives us! How I hope to always maintain that trust!

One of our investigator's names is Zultan, he is from Hungary. I absolutely love meeting with him! It is so funny though, because he feels so terrible that we use our gas on him and he keeps wanting to give us money to pay us back. But as missionaries, we are not allowed to accept money of course. So we keep turning him down. So he thought of another way. He just gives us a giant chocolate bar everytime we go over! How great!! Haha you know me...I don't mind being paid back in food ;) Haha he is the sweetest old man and I cannot wait to watch him progress in the Gospel.

I absolutely love this Gospel. I love the things that I am learning here as a missionary, especially as I watch Sister Okano grow each day! I love being a part of her training (even though I still need training myself!). I absolutely LOVE reading from the Book of Mormon each day. I find that as I focus my studies on my investigator's and their questions, that I have so much more effective studies!! When I am just trying to learn for myself, they are not as great :)

I want to testify to you that this Church is true. There are a lot of great churches out there in the world that teach great things and that have truths in them. But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the Lord's restored Gospel here on the earth. I have come to know this through the incredible evidence of the Book of Mormon.

 I challenge each of you to read at least one verse from the Book of Mormon every single day this week. Whether or not you are a member of this church, I can promise you that you can receive guidance and peace from reading it. If you do not have one, ask ANY of your Mormon friends and they can get you one for free :) I testify that the Book of Mormon and the Bible are God's word! For YEARS it has been ripped apart and studied. And yet it has endured all persecution. If you prove the Book of Mormon wrong, then we have no religion. But I can promise you, that as you pray sincerely about it, that you too can receive a spiritual witness of its truthfulness. I love this Gospel, and I love being a missionary!! Take care and be safe this week. I love you all, and may the work press forward!

Love,

Sister Biggs