"pretty sweet miracle"

Man what a week it has been! The weather has really picked up quite a bit here and we've had a pretty hot week. Well hot for white shirts and slacks at least haha. It's been high 70's here with some really dense humidity. So perfect weather for some shorts a t-shirt and some flip flops but man not missionary attire haha. We had a pretty good week though with a good amount of lessons taught. We found a new investigator this knocking on doors at like 1 o clock in the afternoon this past Wednesday too. Which was pretty sweet because most missionaries think that knocking on doors during the day is a complete waste of time but I say if we can't find any appointments to be at then we might as well be hitting the doors haha. Elder Anderson still hates the door knocking but he's really grown to love almost every other aspect of missionary work (waking up at 6:30 also isn't included haha). We did have a pretty sweet miracle this past week though. We are teaching this Muslim girl from Egypt who has taken a sudden interest in Christianity. She has really been wanting to learn more about the Bible and about Christ but she was always a little hesitant when we would talk about the book of Mormon just because she has had a lot of friends really talk our religion down. But this past week when we were reading through the new testament explaining things to her she asked us to go to a bunch of different chapters based completely on what topic they were which really tested my knowledge of the scriptures, but she would ask things like "Okay take me to a good chapter in the new testament about why people talk bad behind my back sometimes" or "Where is a chapter in the new testament about how God will always help us" and fortunately we were able to share chapters with her about each of them. But as we were getting ready to leave she asked "Okay now I want you guys to read with me one more chapter that can really apply to me and help me out personally." So I thought about it for a second and the thought came to mind of Alma 32, out of the Book of Mormon, (Faith being compared to a seed) which really I didn't see how that would apply to her at all but the thought was there and it could have been a prompting from the spirit so I decided to follow it. As soon as we finished reading the chapter she was just totally shocked and asked "What? How did you guys know?" So of course we were like, what are you talking about? She then explained to us that earlier last week she had been praying in the Mosque and out of nowhere a little boy ran up and gave her, out of all the people in the crowd praying, a little seed and then ran away. She felt at the time that it could have been some sort of sign from God but she had no idea what it meant. So of course after that she expressed how much she really believed that the Book of Mormon must really be the word of God as well as that we were really put in her path by God so she could learn about Him. Man it was an awesome experience! The Lord really does use us as tools out here to spread his Gospel. There's no way we would have been able to give her that experience without his direct
guiding hand in that lesson.

On another note though, as the subject to this email hints a bit, we have apartment inspections this week! So that means cleaning like crazy! We were given a list of stuff that had to be done before the inspection by president and man I never realized how filthy parts of the apartment could get if missionaries didn't clean them over the years! I found like 5 containers of various foods from months and months ago given to the missionaries by members that they didn't finish and man it was gnarly. There wasn't a thing in there that didn't have mold all over it haha it took all I had not to throw up while cleaning out a bowl of chicken casserole that had more fungus in it than anything else haha. So we spent the entire day today just cleaning the kitchen out haha woo p-day. So overall it was quite a sweet week here in Sterling. The work moves on like always haha. Ihope all is well with everyone back home!