"Would you like to stand?"

Hey!

Well this week was great. Especially Sunday...here's why.

A cool hindu mural walked past. I'm telling it a secret.

It was fast & testimony meeting. A member in our ward got up because her little boy kept saying he wanted to. So they get up there and of course he just stares at everyone and doesn't say a world. You can tell the mom just is kind of embarrassed and our investigator, Jacob, was sitting with all the YSA in the front and says, "can i help him out?" hahaha he walked up to the pulpit and tried to whisper what to say in the little boys ear but he still didn't say anything. Well, Jacob stayed up there and bore his testimony too! It was classic I couldn't help but smile and he looked down and saw sister cross and I as he was speaking and smiled and said, "and these sisters have given me tools to help me quit smoking,

would you like to stand?" I about died. We both just shook our heads and S. cross audibly said, "nope." It was a classic moment for sure. Jacob is one of a kind. He tries to make things difficult as we teach, kind of making smart comments but you can tell he knows that the gospel is changing his life. His baptismal date is set for this coming Sunday. We'll see how following the WoW goes this week. We may move it back. Hopefully not!

Sunday night we were walking to an appointment from the subway and met Gidey, a younger guy from Ethiopia. We were introducing ourselves and telling him what we do and how we teach about Christ. He was like, "I want that. I was Christian when I was young but fell away and now the devil holds my life. I was at my apt and he was tempting me to do bad things and so i left and came on a walk." That kind of sounds fake but he was so sincere! We taught him about baptism and how he can have a fresh start and he basically asked when he could be baptized. So we prayed, taught and committed for baptism on the sidewalk. We're meeting him on Tuesday-that's when we'll see if it's all for real.

We also started teaching Alice this week. She's from mainland China. She's very sweet, we hope things start progressing for her. With great things come bad ones too...haha We met a false prophet on the bus this week! I heard there were false prophets in Toronto. It was pretty classic. We got on and I saw him and you know how sometimes you can just tell someone isn't very nice? Ya. So he read our tags and scooted to the nearest seat to us and pointed directly at me and yelled, "Sister, sister, when you go home you need to pray..." and then went on about all sorts of wonderful things. You know me, If I started talking back to him I'd get feisty so I just smiled and kind of shook my head and then said, "have a great day!" and got off at the next stop.  Oh crazy people. I also had someone ask me if I was a nun this week. I told him no and he said, "well that's good, i didn't think you looked very much like a nun!" We taught him the Restoration on the bus. He's super cool but lives out of our area.

I guess this week was full of cool experiences. One of the bus drivers smiled really big at us as we were getting on. We exited at our stop out the back door and were waiting at the stoplight when he pulled forward at the red light and opened the door and yelled, "where are you from?" I responded and he said he had member friends who served missions and that they always told him to watch for people with tags get on his bus. We prayed that we would be able to meet him again (we'd never seen him before now) and the next day, on a different bus route, he was the driver! We rode it to a subway station and everyone exits the bus there. So we got off last and talked to him for a minute, gave him our information and stuff. THEN we saw him a couple of days later pass us and he just smiled and waved really big. It's great.

At ESL this week there were only a couple of students at our class and they were both at very different learning stages so we did a one on one lesson. I taught a man named Jimmy who is from China. He came to General Conf last week and noticed the prophets picture on the wall in the classroom. That started a big discussion about who he is etc. He had never prayed before so I was teaching him about prayer. at the end of the class he said the closing prayer! He was so excited, had a huge smile on his face. The mandarin speaking elders are teaching him and he's actually progressing towards baptism now! yay!

So it's been a pretty good week. We've found some great new investigators and the weather is getting warmer...i'm not wearing tights today! Sadly my nice tan from last summer isn't showing anymore. haha I'll have to work hard for one in the next few weeks ;) Pray for Jacob! Hopefully he'll get baptized soon!
Love Sister Messer

p.s. Sister Chidester fwd this in her email- i thought it was pretty cool!

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is making adjustments to the way its 405 missions are organized, to better utilize the skills and abilities of all missionaries in training and leadership….. Each mission in the Church will organize a Mission Leadership Council that will include both elder (males) and sister (females) missionary leaders. The new mission leadership council will consist of the mission president and his wife, assistants to the president, zone leaders, and sister training leaders — a newly created role….. The role of sister training leader has been created as more female missionaries serve in missions around the world. Sister training leaders will be responsible for the training and welfare of female missionaries assigned to them, and will be members of, and participate in, the new mission leadership council. Assistants to the president and zone leaders will also participate in the council, and those roles will remain unchanged. Missions will continue to be organized by zones and districts, with district leaders being responsible for baptismal interviews, but the Mission Leadership Council will replace the Zone Leader Council….. Sister training leaders will continue to proselytise and will also spend time each week training and evaluating the needs of female missionaries. They will report directly to the mission president on the needs of sister missionaries. Additionally, the wives of mission presidents are now being asked to play an enhanced role in training and caring for sister missionaries….. Councils assist in Church governance at every level. In councils, assigned members meet to discuss individual, family and organizational needs and work together to determine how to respond to those needs effectively. Full expression from all participants is invited in council settings, unifying the efforts of both male and female council members.”

The Lord is hastening His work, and it's a joy to be a part of it!