"God brings us down, just so He can lift us higher."

Oh Ardmore,

What do I even say :) It is quite different than any of my areas so far. Pretty sketchy BUT a lot of people that need the gospel. The work here is pretty slow but that just means I need to square my shoulders and knock on doors. The members and people are really nice haha but all they have said is how sorry they are that we have been sent here. I just find it hilarious. Time to turn things around, the question I ask myself is "Do I have the faith sufficient?" YES Lets do this. It is definitely going to be a challenge. 

Let me just tell you though, God does reward us for our diligence. There is a quote I found in my studies this morning:

"God brings us down, just so He can lift us higher." 

That is my motto for this transfer and I saw that fulfilled this week.

Here we are day 1 going to see 4 different people and they all fell through, several doors tracted, and less actives checked on- no answer. Day 2 just about the same. Day three, a mimic of the day before. They felt like the longest days of my life. Day 4- THE MIRACLE

Our whole day looked about the exact same and then the evening hit.

We went to go check on a woman and there was a girl sitting on the porch who we asked "Is Debra home?" She went and looked and while she did that the little boy on the front porch was trying to get his brother to play football with him. He wouldn't and so I told him to throw it to me. MAN, I love kids, I think sometimes I forget being on a mission because there are so many restrictions on how we interact with them. Then the dad came out and we started talking about the Book of Mormon. He was really open minded and we gave him one. He read several scriptures from it and overtime 5 or 6 more people came out on the porch and joined us. When we brought up being able to be with our families for eternity their eyes were opened and they wanted to know more. We ended up giving out 3 Book of Mormons. 

That night we went to dinner and once we got in I realized I did not lock the car. We went back out and as I locked it, a man in a truck was calling for us. We walked over and he told us he saw the elders get out of the car earlier and so he put his information on a sticky note and stuck it on our car. He used to go to church because his ex wife was a member and he ended up reading the Book of Mormon and felt it was true but was not ready to change. He told us he wanted to meet with us. HOLY MOLY!

Had we not come to dinner at that very specific time, we probably would not have met that man. 

The lesson learned is that- when you are doing things in your life that feel like they are tedious, keep going. God blesses us for our efforts and really does make the difference. We had tracted all week and it was doing nothing, but out of no where the rewards were there. 

I am so grateful that God works in very specific ways in our lives. I am excited to be here in Ardmore but I have a feeling this is going to be a transfer to remember :)

For our crazy moment of the week:

We went to volunteer at the humane society and walked dogs. I picked a pit bull (I love them) and she was pulling on me real hard, I have got marks on my hands from the leash still. When we got done with the walk I went to put her back in the kennel and she launched at another dog and they got into a fight. My adrenaline was pumping. Thankfully someone came and helped us, but there was blood everywhere and on my shoes. That was quite the experience. The next time I just chose a small little harmless puppy...

For anyone that would like it, here is my new address 

1210 10th Ave NW

Ardmore, OK

73401

Hope you are all doing well, would love to hear from ya ;)

Love,

SIS E

Hornets nest

Y'all ready for this :)

Remind me to stop buying ANYTHING. I hate having to get rid of stuff and pack for new areas. ALRIGHT so I am headed to Ardmore Oklahoma Wednesday Morning.
There were plenty of tender mercies this week. I was dealing with body issues again....the email I don't say that in will be a cause for celebration with ice cream...probably not cake that has gluten in it.

I am going to miss everyone here quite a bit. I really do love Texas but God has a plan for me that I am allowed to shape. My missi0n has taught me so much about being positive about situations. I remember growing up and when hard things happened I was so so bogged down by them. I felt miserable a lot when those kind of things happened. BUT that is life right? Hard things are just bound to happen. I have finally started to learn that what mom said about choosing to have a good attitude is completely true. Situations are going to happen and we can either choose to have a good attitude or a bad one. We are going to have to handle it either way so we might as well let it change us. When trials feel unbearable it really is because we are not letting the Savior take enough of the weight. How do we do that though? SIMPLY let go. There is a story of this little girl and a hornets nest, a member told us this week I would love to share.

A little girl is walking down the street and she sees a little puppy following her. She is so enthralled in this sweet little brown eyed puppy following her and so she keeps walking waiting for him. As she looks back he falls into a big hole with a hornets nest in it. The poor puppy is yelping and is being stung all over. She knows that if she were to go get help then he would be stung too much by the time she got back. Instead the little girl bows her head to pray and just begs God for the help. She says she cannot stand to see the puppy suffer and so she is going to save him, but she needs help. She leans down puts her arm in and grabs the puppy out. Her arms are not stung at all. God helped her with something that she KNEW was impossible to do on her own. This actually happened and the woman that was once this little girl made the connection to the Atonement later in her life.
If we walk forward in faith, letting all our fears go, the Lord will carry them and we will come off conquerer. I absolutely KNOW this to be true. Try it this week. One thing that you need to change but you just don't want to or think you can. I know that you can.

I am so grateful for the people in this area that have helped my spiritual growth and my physical growth (from my belly out). I am going to miss them. My district leader goes home this week and poor kid is struggle bussing. I am grateful that I still have a while!!!
Love you all,
Sister Engelbrecht

Shorty

Hey everyone :)
A shorty today. It has been a good week but I thought I would let you know I am being transferred back to OK, not quite sure yet where but I will let you know when I do find out :)
If you have not read the story of Alma the younger lately (Alma 26) take a look, the Lord really does love everyone!
LOVE,
SIS E

A lot of times you get to see Heavenly Father's children for who they are.

Hello :)
It has been quite the week. Honestly it has been one of those weeks where I really don't know what to tell ya. Lets just say, we did not burn up in flames, our area did not burn up in flames, and that was probably due to the surplus of fake tears that we were too stressed to cry. HOWEVER, there was no boring part this week.
We could say that the highlight of our week this week was Wednesday night. It was another really tough day with many things coming up unexpectedly and so at the end of the day my sanity was pretty much gone. I was craving a cookie dough brownie blizzard from DQ (Shoutout to BRADY). We typed in the gps Dairy Queen and the only one that popped up was in Holliday Texas 10 miles away. I WANTED ONE and so did Sister Esplin. Well we pull up to this dinky little dairy queen at 9:00 pm btw our curfew dont judge and then we headed home. It was quite literally in the middle of nowhere. We got home and the next day we told the elders what we had done. They said " you know there is one right across the street right?" OH MY GOSH....I am such a ditz. There definitely is one that you can see from our apartment. ONLY me. I just have to accept it I guess, and pray hard for my future FUTURE husband.
Even though it was a really hard week I had a moment this week where I was sitting with a 62 year old man and as he was crying I realized how special my calling is. The walls are able to be broken down as a missionary. A lot of the time you see Heavenly Father's children for who they really are. That is the greatest gift of all.

Here are some other not AS amazing gifts but maybe PRETTY CLOSE :)
It was a fun morning.

He KNOWS your name

Well my friends I am super excited because I got me some boots this week and they are wrapped up for my Birthday next week. There is a fair in town and I LOVE fairs so we are going to see if it will be open for Monday- pday. I totally lucked out because my birthday is on a Pday. Okay now enough of completely vain thoughts.
This week has been another really good one. It went by quite a bit slower but nonetheless it was a good one. The highlight of this week was definitely going to the temple in Oklahoma City on Wednesday. Can I just say God protects his missionaries. Mom and Dad I drove 2 and a half hours and we did not die! It was nice though to be there. The temple is such a blessing. It never seems easy to get there but I have a testimony that the peace we feel there is worth every trial we face to get there.
Miss Emily (deaf)! We were able to teach her on Tuesday and it actually worked. It was not without struggle but the spirit was there so we did something right. However, the whole time Sister Esplin would say something and Emily hardly understood her so then I would have to sign what it was and clarify and it went like that back and forth until we could get a sentence out. Well, when we got to the first vision it landed on Sister Esplin to say it. She looked a bit panicked and I was on the edge of my seat waiting to have to clarify things. You will not believe it but: She said the whole first vision and not once did we have to stop. She understood EVERY word. The church is true :) The spirit taught her in that moment and it was a miracle.
Yesterday at church I had a really neat moment.
I was sitting in the relief society and on my left was a deaf woman, on my right was a schizophrenic, and in front of me was a recovering meth addict. I was struggling to help the two on both sides of me and Sister Esplin was helping the woman in front of me but after a few minutes the spirit opened my eyes and whispered to me how blessed I am to be able to minister to them. I have the opportunity to be Christ's hands as I sign and his voice as I clarify to my right. Goose pimples (as they say in texas) filled my arms and I could not be more at peace. The savior will give us strength to do the things we think we cannot do on our own. I love Him, he is my saving Grace :) Turn to Him, HE KNOWS  YOUR NAME. YOU ARE NUMBERED AMONG HIS FOLD.
In the name of Jesus Christ Amen
Love
Sis E

There are no poor connections and the wifi is perfect!

I loved this week!!!

So many great experiences. I have such a testimony that as we are paying attention, God works in the details and that is what can bring us joy in this life. We are placed in certain paths for very specific reasons but we just have to be looking. 

Yesterday during church the bishop came into relief society and asked if anyone knew ASL. Both an investigator and I did but she wasn't real confident in her ability so she had me go. There was a non member woman who had come in the doors with a pamphlet to give to the bishop about getting a system for her to be able to come to church. She is deaf but does not know sign language completely, so an interpreter would not work. I was able to translate as much as I could to the bishop as she read lips and signed a bit. My heart was so full because we were able to set up an appointment to teach her this Tuesday. Such an incredible experience, I am so excited. 

Something that I have noticed about the members here is that they have such a profound understanding of building a relationship with God even though He is not right there. Because many of the families are military families, the husbands are deployed quite often and/or gone from the home. It is so cool to see these families make things work normally as a family with dad being out of town or overseas. Skype is a miracle. Our "skype" is prayer. Heavenly Father wants us to show Him that we want that relationship. When we do, He ALWAYS picks up. There are no poor connections and the wifi is perfect as long as we listen. I am so grateful to have been able to experience this by their example.

Steve got out of the hospital this week and he is doing well. He found out he won't be able to ever walk on his foot again so he has been a bit discouraged but we are keeping him in our care :) 

Sister Young and I had some fun car moments this week! We got quite lost and it was so stressful, but 30 minutes later we ended up getting to dinner. The best part about it is that we had been there several times before. Some things never change.

I am so grateful for the scriptures. TRULY and 100% as long as we are reading them the spirit will direct us in ALL things. This week sister young and I were studying for someone and when we came together the things we shared were EXACTLY the same. There was no doubt in our minds that the spirit directed us so perfectly. The spirit in the room was pretty cool and there were definitely tears.

Love you all,

Sis E.

Each day is a gift!

You never know what each day will bring. We had some unexpected things happen this week that had us on our knees more and exercising more faith.
        We got news Monday that our investigator Steve was sent to the hospital for hallucinating and shaking. We went to go visit him every other day and came to find out his Kidney had failed and he would have to be put on dialysis for the rest of his life. Steve was just waiting to get out of the nursing home (by then his foot would be healed enough to get wet) we were hoping for October, but now we are not sure what the plan is. The first day we went to see him, I almost did not recognize him, the poor guy was twitching and hallucinating and would start talking and then trail off. The next time we saw him he had rapidly decreased and it was clear he was in quite a lot of pain. The prayer we said with him that day was one of the most spiritual experiences. The spirit is strong even when the body is weak. We prayed holding each other's hands and at the end of the pray I felt him squeeze my hand with the little strength he had in him. I am so so so grateful for that simple gesture of fight in him showing us that he knew what we were doing and why we were there. That night we prayed so hard for him and God delivered. We went to go see him a couple days later and he looked at us right when we walked in. We said "it is the sisters!" He said "Thank God, I love you guys so much" Granted he was just out of surgery for his dialysis and was a bit loopy but he looked 100 times better. Even though he was crying the whole time we felt so blessed to be able to experience such a miracle. We were able to pray with him that time and he mustered up a smile in the tiny corners of his mouth. Let me say this again, the human spirit is strong. 

        This weekend we went to go see Melinda and it was the most fulfilling lesson! We have been working on teaching the Restoration the past few times. This time we were trying to get her to understand the importance of priesthood. She finally got it, and it took quite some time but I lit up so much and stood up so excited. There is nothing better than seeing someone be able to learn and know Christ better! It is going to take some time but now she has been at church three times and is taking notes. I love that girl!