Sister Van Buskirk: I'm 69 years old and when I cry, I cry

This was such a fantastic week! Mostly because it ended so great.

So on Monday the senior couple that serves in the South Philly Branch took us to get cheesesteaks. The Moulders have a really cool mission. They work at the historical society scanning documents for FamilySearch and then they go to the South Philly Branch. They actually live right next to the Temple (which is in our ward) but President Randall asked them to go there. Anyway, they feed us sometimes and they came with us to teach the judge and I just love them. But Pandora's. Best cheesesteak I've had yet.

Tuesday we had another Skype lesson with Misha and it was SO GOOD! We decided to keep talking about repentance and we read Alma 38 where Alma talks to his perfect son Shiblon. One thing we were really concerned about was Misha's relationship with Christ. We really wanted to emphasize that it is through Christ that repentance is possible. We decided to ask him, "What have you learned about Jesus Christ as you have read from the Book of Mormon?" His response blew us out of the water. He said, "Can I flip the question around? Would you say when you learn in the scriptures you are learning ABOUT the Savior or FROM the Savior?" We were just like.... Then we listened to what the Spirit was saying and Sister Horsley was able to testify how having the Holy Ghost teach us is just as powerful as having Christ there teaching. We are having an in person lesson tomorrow and hopefully we can let the Spirit do a lot of the teaching then.

Wednesday we had another good lesson with Lila. She's the cutest. Her and Brother Harris are at church by at least 8:30 but then they always leave after Gospel Principles. We aren't sure how to get them to stay but we'll talk to them this week and say, "Hey! What's up! Do you not like us or something?"

Saturday one of the boys in Primary was getting baptized and the Primary President, Sister Wilson called us a few days before and asked us to play the piano and lead the music. We had to call her back and tell her we would love to lead the music but neither of us can play the piano... Before the baptism she came up to us and jokingly said something like, "What kind of Sister Missionaries are you? You can't even play the piano." Don't quit piano kids! You'll regret it for the rest of your life! Okay maybe mostly just as a missionary. But the baptism was at 1 and we showed up at 12:50 and the font wasn't filled.... All you returned missionaries know it takes a good minute for the font to fill. We started filling it and then we found a giant red bucket to fill and carry over but it still took like an hour to fill the font. It was totally fine though because the kid that was getting baptized and his family didn't show up till like 1:30 anyway. So the baptism starts and Kevin and Brother Winians (who is a pretty recent convert) get in the font and he says the prayer but he didn't like hold his arm and put his hand on his back like a normal baptism. He kinda grabbed his shoulder and his head and tried to shove him under water. Kevin didn't really want to go under like that so it took a few more shoves until he was immersed. Oh the Independence Ward...

But Sunday. So Sunday was Fast Sunday and I now know that miracles come from fasting. We didn't have a lot of lessons set up so we decided to do a lot of finding. For some reason we were really excited about doing 3 hours of finding because usually it's like pulling teeth to get us to do like an hour of finding. But we found an area that we don't go very often but there are a lot of former/potential investigators. We decided that when we stopped by one of them, we would knock like 3-5 doors around them. Not a single person that we tracked was interested but we still had a miracle.

But first Enrique Santiago. We are walking down the street and this guy sitting on his step starts yelling at us. We walk over and ask him what his name is. "Enrique. E-N-R-I-Q-U-E Santiago Junior." He was a little tipsy and didn't speak English too well. Partly because he was drunk but partly because he is Hispanic. Basically what we got out of the conversation was that he went to jail when he was 8 (We think he might have been talking about Catholic school by what he was saying about it) and he keeps the street clean for him and his neighbors. Also, " Guess how old I am. I'm 69 years old and when I cry, I cry" We were so confused so we asked for his phone number so we could send the Spanish elders to him and so he gave us his phone and all his medical cards because he could remember his number. We gave him a Book of Mormon and his stuff back and then walked away. He was so funny.

Back in June we received a referral for a man named Jose that lived at 7th and Turner. Well, there is no such thing as 7th and Turner but there is a 5th and Turner but he was not there. So we knocked on this random door and a lady named Maggie (shout out to Magatha) answered and we asked if we could share a video (Prince of Peace). She said right now wasnt a good time but she asked if we could come back tomorrow. Well we went back the next day and she wasn't home. So every now and again we would stop by and see if she was home but she never was. Finally, yesterday we caught her. We knock on the door and she says, "Hey! Come on in!" Which like never happens. But she remembered us and let us talk to her while she prepared dinner for her husband. She has some family relationships she wants to improve and she knows that she needs to improve her relationship with Christ to be able to do so. She recognizes she needs to change and we are here to help her. Her husband has a crazy schedule but we made an appointment with her and hopefully soon we can start meeting with him. When we prayed at the end she had tears in her eyes. She is amazing. Heavenly Father knew we we had a good attitude and we would continue to knock doors even after the miracle. All we had to do was show up and the Spirit did the rest.

Lots of Love!
Sister Van Buskirk

This is supposed to be a district picture but half these people aren't even in

our district and Elder Madsen isn't even in the picture.