This week was insane and supppppperrrr packed!! It was so much fun!

We had an amazing fhe with a couple families from the spanish group
and it helped a ton with unity!

We finally had the soccer event that we have been planning since I got
here and it went so well. We had a ton of people show up, the weather
was beautiful, and we had a ton of food. It was just really cool how
to see it all come together after all the hard work that we put into
it. We had a great turn out and everyone who went asked us to let us
know if we do another activity like that. Again it helped with unity
and we have seen a lot of miracles with that helping us get the
members fired up about helping grow the spanish group here. There is
so much potential and I know if we all work together that we will see
some really great miracles and growth here in Culpeper.

We also had the coolest most spiritual most faith building miracle
that is currently in the process. Long story short we had just had a
revelatory experience with our mission president of what the Lord has
in store for this area and we saw that come to pass. Really it is just
a special experience but we found exactly what we were looking for in
a man named Hector. He is amazing! We were literally led by God to him
through different turns of events and he is so prepared. We are
obviously still teaching him so we will have to see what happens with
him but we have the faith that we are going to see amazing miracles
with him.

Also shoutout to my brother for getting his mission call this week. I
am so excited for him ad so proud of the decision that he has made to
serve a mission. I was thinking about how Sam is going on a mission
the other night and I just was overcome with love. I am so grateful
for this mission experience that I have lived so far, I am so grateful
for everything I have learned, all the people I have met, etc but I am
especially grateful though for the close relationship that I have been
able to make with my Savior Jesus Christ. It is priceless to me.

Until next week!

Love,

Hermana Stewart

Great week in BEAUTIFUL Culpeper. I am pretty sure this is one of the
most beautiful places I've ever been to. It really is just a little
paradise:)

-We are finding the greatest people and I already just love them so so
much. We have an investigator Reina who is honestly our mom. And she
already loves the gospel so much. I feel grateful to be able to meet
people like her during my mission.

-We were able to see Ada get baptized this week. It was great and the
ward just really really fellowshipped her in so well. It was a great
baptismal service!

-We are working with tons of members and really trying to build up
trust so we can see a lot of growth and progress in this little
spanish group.

-We put our awesome investigator Silvia on date:) She is great and
coming to an FHE tonight with us at a less active family's home!

Really just an amazing week but sadly I don't have more time to write
it out better! Just now I love it out here and I couldn't be happier.
Something cool to think about is that if we are on the Lord's side we
are on the winning team. What we get to decide now is what kind of
player we are going to be. This week I thought of something I could
change to be a better "player" on the Lord's "team" and I would
challenge you all to do the same.

Love you!!

Hermana Stewart

Hey it's Hermana Stewart! Currently sitting in a library in my new
area, Culpeper! Let me just tell you that this is one of the most
beautiful places ever. I love it! Its a small little town with tons of
fields and cows and sunsets and rolling hills. It is really beautiful
I think I might come back here to live!! Well probably not but I
really do love it here! Its super different than all of my other areas
because we are just over a spanish group and there are very few but we
have been thinking of a lot of ideas and a lot of different things
that we can do to help change that. We have been SOOOOO busy and I am
exhausted. I love it!

We have seen a lot of miracles this week one of them being our
investigator and her three kids coming to church with us this week. It
was her first time and she LOVED it!!! She told us that she wants to
come back every week with us. It was so amazing! People have also just
been so receptive to us and everyone has been answering their doors
and wanting to learn more! The other day we were out walking and we
saw this hispanic family jumping rope together(I know, so cute!) so we
decided to walk over and talk to them. The mom smiled and waved at us
and acted like she already knew us. She is super open and we are
teaching her now. She is awesome!

I know that Heavenly Father is in the smallest details of our lives. I
know that I need to be in this area surrounded by these people. Today
we went to the Shenendoah mountains and I was just in awe at all the
things that Lord has done for us. This week we also had the oportunity
to go to a funeral of a fallen Ranger who was killed in combat in
Afghanistan. There were about 300 people there and it was amazing. My
appreciation of the men and women fighting for our freedom grew so
much. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to live in this
country. And I am grateful God gave me the opportunity to have that
renewed appreciation. We are so lucky to live in the USA!!

Love,

Hermana Stewart

So the subject helps express a lot of our week. This morning my companion told me that I was having a full on conversation in spanish asking people if they have gone to the temple and if so when they are coming back. And that just kind of describes a big chunk of our week of trying to get all of our members to go to the temple because a lot haven't ever gone. So I have the same invitation for you! Go to the temple:)

But wow what a great great week! We have seen some good progression with our investigators but have also seen some sad things happen this week. But obviously the good outweighs the bad:) we had some great lessons with the best investigator ever Iris! I just love her! She is progressing so well and always talks about the change that she has seen in herself since she has started meeting with us. She is still in the process of trying to get work off on Sundays but this week she found out that her boss is Mormon! And he got super excited that she is meeting with missionaries. So now she is just training someone so that that person can work for her on Sunday. Milagros! She is on date for baptism for June:)

We had a cool experience to see how the spirit really does work through us. One day Hermana Stacey and I both had the prompting that we should go over to this certain members house. So we went over sat down, sang a song, said a prayer and then I was just like "the truth is we are here because the spirit told us to be and because we think you are sad, are you sad?" When I said that I was like hmmm... that might have been kind of a weird thing to say.... but after she just started crying and told us what was going on. It was cool because something I had read that morning went along with her situation completely so we were able to open up the scriptures to find the comfort she needed. She was so appreciative:)

Carlos got the priesthood on Sunday! Yay! He is doing so well, he comes to lessons with us all the time and really is just a wonderful member present, he helps us out a ton. He is so sweet! The other day he called us and was like asking us how he could get involved or sign up to pay for our groceries and help us out with food(he already takes us to dinner every Friday) he is such a sweet guy and loves the gospel with all his heart!

Thanks for the prayers and support! Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Hermana Stewart