Faith, Trust and Pixy Dust

Sally and Jessy got Baptized!  

Hola mi Familia!

I just want to thank you all for your love and suppport!!  I love the package that you all sent me with the Bear!!  I push its palm everynight and hear Grove and Eloise and Mels voice telling me hi and hearing that you love me!  Also i love the notes of love that everyone sent me.  They make me cry tears of happiness and i feel your love everytime i read them.  i have the best family ever!  How blessed am i!  

Well this week was amazing because we had two baptisms!!  Sally and Jessy, two beautiful little angels made the most amazing choice they could ever make in their whole entire life!  What a perfect day it was!  I have never seen two little girls shine and glow so much.  I am so happy to have been just a little tiny part of this.  When Sally came out of the water she got to watch Jessy standing on the steps.  She said to Jessy "jessy its so wonderful.  I feel so warm, i just want to go back.  You are going to love it." i litterally broke down in tearing hearing her say this to her sister.  How blessed are these two little girls to have this gospel in their lives now.  They will always be in my life, my little hermanitas! :)

So this week was kind of a bumpy week.  Not a lot of sucess happened.  I have never had a week where so many appointments fell through, but needless to say it was still an amazing week!  

So i actually have a lot of cool things i have to share, because even though alot of our planned appointments fell through we still saw so many miracles!

First i just want to tell you something so amazing.  So the first sunday i was here in Chamblee i think i counted something like 15 people sitting in the congregation.  Yesterday i counted 102 people in the congregation.  Wow this branch is getting stronger and stronger every sunday.  The members here are amazing and are doing great things.  By small and simple things great things are truly brought to past.  Its really cool to witness a group of people getting stronger and stronger because of their love and devotion to this gospel.  The members here are some of the strongest and most selfless people i have ever met.

We had a lesson with an investigator that has been investigating for 3 years now.  he knows everything is true but he wants to have a dream that tells him to get baptized.  so on saturday we had a "come to Jesus" kind of a lesson.  I have never been so bold with someone in my life!  I was just trying to use some of Elder Hollands techniques haha!  We just had an amazing lesson with him, read 2 nephi 32 and talked about how there is more than one ways to recieve revelation than just dreams.  The spirit was really strong in the lesson and we had just got done bearing our testimonies.  I looked at him, and i told him "tengo una pregunto para usted...no Dios tiene una pregunta para usted.  eschucha el espiritu, y abre su corazon...and then i asked the baptism question and told him a date to be baptized.  (sorry i wrote it in spanish because everything just sounds so much more intense in spanish haha) but we sat their in silence.  All three of us (me and my companions) really believed that he would say yes....but then he went on to talk about dreams again.  Then he asked me if i believe he has faith....I didnt even know what to say to him, all i said to him was "sin accion, fe es muerte" (faith with out action is dead ).  Anyway so thats all that really happended during that lesson.  It was the first lesson that i actually have ever been bold with an investigator.  He still wants us to come back...phew thank goodness we were a little scared haha!)

My first baptism in the mission!!!!

So on friday (sorry i say so so much haha i really like saying "entonces" which is so in spanish so now its just a habbit) we had an amazing day planned.  We had such a sprititual study session that morning and we had three kick-butt appointments planned with Walter(a 33 year old guy that is really close to baptism and we had planned to put him on date when we met with him) then a appointment with Maria (a refferal from our Branch mission leader and she is really interested in us) then a appointment with Jon (the nine year old boy that is on date for sept 12...but hasnt came to church yet so wont be getting baptized the 12 unfortunelely :( ) so that was what we had planned and we were ready and excited!!  Well we went to Walters...not home.  Went to Maria...not home.  Went to Jon....not home.  We were so bummed.  We were sitting in the car figuring out what to do.  I told my companions that we should go know 6 doors in this one appartment complex.  Hermana Gallardo said a prayer asking for a miracle.  We knocked on 6 random doors.  Out of those 6, 5 answered, let us in, we taught a lesson, and got return appointments.  That just does not happen!  The first lady we met, she had actually visited with missionaries before but they gave her a english book of mormon.  We whipped out our spanish books of mormon and she was soo happy and we gave her one and she said she was going to read it.  

Three of the doors were families so that was awesome!  And then the last one her name is Jenni and she has two little girls.  she wants us to come see her every day...i think she is a little lony in the house all day long haha but heck ya we will visit her lots!  It was such an amazing miracle.  I wanted to cry i was so happy when we got back in the car.  This story is the reason for my title this week.  Just like in Peter Pan, in order to fly they need to have faith and trust (and think of happy thoughts) but they needed just that little umph of help from the pixy dust to actually get off the ground.  We had faith and trust in the Lord to recieve this miracle, but we definitely couldnt do this by ourselves.  We always need that Pixy Dust which i would say would represent the Lord.  "oh Lord, I have trusted in thee, and i will trust in thee forever.  i will not put my trust in the arm of flesh; for i know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh.  yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm." 2 nephi 4:34  If i ever put trust and faith only in myself, then i would never accomplish anything.  Without that pixy dust, i could never fly, or even get close to getting off the ground.  We could be standing on the highest building and if we jump off with with faith and trust, and pixy dust (in the Lord) we will fly.  I know we can.  We can do anything with the Lord with faith and trust!

Ok funny story time now.  So we were on the phone with the zone leaders and i was trying to get a cockroach at the same time....well not a good idea to be doing that when you are on speaker with the zone leaders.  Long story short...it was in the box and we were running to put it outside, then it fell on my foot...and i screamed really loud which in return made both of my companions scream really loud.  Then we had to explain ourselves, that was really embarrasising and you could just hear the elders laughing at us.  They probably think we are such whimps, but these cookarachas are huge here!!!!  

Oh also so i got to meet "the bishop" off of meet the mormons movie.  turns out he is our stake president...how what do ya know!  

Well i hope you all have an amazing week!  I love you all so much and i hope you feel of my love and appritiation for you every day!  I love this gospel and i love being a missionary!  I love the Book of Mormon and i find more and more appritiation in it every day i read it! "feast upon the words of Christ, for behold, the words of christ will tell you ALL things what ye should do." 2 nephi 32:3 Have a blessed week and be safe always!

All my love and prayers,

Hermana Abby Jean Stewart

xoxoxoxo

​Eating dinner with an investigator named Lucino