Sister Van Buskirk: James James James James

Okay let me think, the best part of the week. Probably when Sister Neuffer and I went to the Jay-Z concert. No we didn't actually go see Jay-Z but we definitely heard him. There was a music festival this weekend on the Parkway and we live like right by the Parkway... But this week was pretty great. Nothing too exciting but there were definitely some miracles.

Short story: We meet a lot of middle-aged, black men named James. Before Sister Neuffer became my companion we had about 3 or 4 in our area book. This week we met like 3 or 4 more. They don't usually give us a last name so we give them one.

Examples: James 19th Street, James 18th street, James Jefferson Street, James Church Tour, James Camac Street, James Poplar Street.

Thursday we had Zone Conference which is always like my favorite part of the transfer. Mostly because I get to see President and Sister Randall and Sister Summers. We talked a lot about prayer and personal revelation. The missionary department has written basically a new chapter 8 of Preach My Gospel. It has changed the planning session to help us missionaries make it more of a revelatory experience. I'll give yous the short version - Pray for a specific investigator then plan specifically for them and then pray again. There's more to it than that but you all probably don't care too much about that.

But Sister Neuffer had a cool experience with that. During Zone Conference we practiced this planning session for a specific investigator and we decided to pick Tom. The day before we had planned for him but I think we were both feeling like there was something more we needed to do for him. This new chapter 8 is 100% inspired because we were able to set goals and make plans for him that were so much better than what we originally had planned. Later during Zone Conference, we practiced teaching people how to pray and resolving concerns. Again, we picked Tom. It's amazing how the Spirit can help you in a role play and tell you things about your investigator that you need to know. I don't know if that made any sense but just know that I have a testimony of revelation.

After Zone Conference I went on exchanges with Sister Kuta and on Friday we saw another amazing miracle. A few weeks ago Sister Garner and I met a lady named Regina on the street. She was so nice and seemed interested in our message and she told us to give her a call to set something up. Sister Kuta and I went to her apartment but she wasn't home. So we walked down the street and tried a couple more people and then as we were walking back toward her house the Spirit told me to knock on this house. We walked over, knocked on the house, told this lady about Gladys Knight but she didn't seem super interested so we just kinda left. Then we were walking back down the street and there is this line of cars and the people in the cars are looking at us. So the Spirit tells me to start smiling at them. I do and then we see this lady and she looked familiar and she saw me smiling and she yells, "are you the ladies that called me earlier?" We yelled back, "are you Regina?" It was in fact her and she was so excited to see us. We also had an amazing lesson with her and she is so excited for us to come back. I know that if I had not followed the Spirit and knocked on that lady's door, we wouldn't have seen Regina in her car. And if I didn't follow the spirit when it said to smile, she might not even had noticed us to call out to us. Follow the Spirit all yous guys!

Saturday we took a member, Sister Marco that just moved in out with us. She served in France and she was such a good missionary. We know because of how she acted when she was with us. We stopped by a less active's house but she was busy but there were other people in her house so Sister Marco asked if we could share a message with them. She's fantastic.

Nothing too exciting but you know what is? The Gospel. If the gospel isn't fun, you're doing something wrong. Yesterday, Andrew, one of the young men stood up to bear his testimony. He said he's been getting into conference talks. He said he tries to make time for them in his day. I love testimony meeting because not only do you hear other's testimonies but you can feel their testimonies in the room. I just love the Spirit. And Heavenly Father. And my Savior, Jesus Christ. Have a great week. I love you all.

Lots of Love!
Sister Van Buskirk

Our district plus the Zone leaders. They are on either side and it's blurry in the middle because it's a pano.

One started the picture and then when he got to the middle,

the first elder came and got the iPad and that elder ran to the end. It was pretty epic