Gretna Greatness!

Dear Family,

I am attaching some pictures of the bipolar weather we experience here in Nebraska. They were all taken within two hours of each other last Friday night. I'm actually very pleased with my photography skills. The lightning was flashing so frequently it was insane! Kinda like a strobe light but less predictable. So I just pointed my camera in it's general direction and took pictures randomly. About 1 in twenty of the ones I took had bolts of lightning in them. The rest were just black or so bright that you couldn't see the actual bolt in the midst of all the light. It was a pretty cool storm.

This past week has probably been one of the best on my mission so far. We had several good lessons. We're still teaching Beth, Kyle, and Patricia. We even set Patricia for baptism on June 12th! She will be out of town for a lot of May so that's why it's so far off. She actually came to Stake Conference yesterday! We were so pleased. She really liked it too. She loves the Bible and it seemed like most of the speakers quoted the Bible a lot. So, she said it was all things that she already knows and believes in. I hope Sister Kunz's talk about the first vision helped her understand even more the significance of the first vision. She loved the restoration DVD and believes it could have happened, but it took some explaining for her to see why it is such a big deal for Joseph Smith to have seen Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Patricia also told us that some of her children and grandchildren have expressed curiosity about the gospel and the things we are teaching her. She is going to ask them if they'd like us to come teach them too. In fact, her son-in-law is a member here in Gretna that never had his records transferred from California. So hopefully we will get to teach his family. Basically Patricia is an amazing woman. She is this super smart, fun loving grandma that has a story for everything. Sometimes that makes it hard for us to stay focused on the lesson, but she really enjoys the things we share and we are excited for her to be baptized. She has tried all kinds of churches before so we are excited to be teaching her about the true church of Jesus Christ. Once she is baptized she will be a great missionary for her family as well.

We also found a family this week! John and Michelle are the mom and dad and they have four kids. They haven't been to church in a while but want their kids to grow up with good Christian values. They loved learning about the restoration and were excited to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. John even said that he already felt that the Book of Mormon was "good" from reading those few verses in Moroni 10. He also felt that as we recited the first vision account. Those words that we memorize and recite are sooooooooooo powerful. They bring the spirit every time. I just love teaching people about the restoration. How blessed we are to know that Heavenly Father still speaks to us today through a living prophet. And we can know that there is a prophet because God speaks to us individually as well, through personal revelation. I know that God loves us. He will answer our sincere prayers by the power of the Holy Ghost. What a glorious message! The heavens are open! We don't have to be confused or lost because we can follow God's living mouthpiece, our prophet, Thomas S. Monson. I am so grateful to know that we have a prophet today. How grateful I am for Joseph Smith who sacrificed so much to restore the fullness of the gospel to the earth in these days. Everyone needs to know this! And they can! If we will just share this knowledge with them and they will pray and ask God if it is true, they will receive the answer from the Holy Ghost that it is. I love this gospel. It is so simple and so uplifting. I have probably never been so happy in my life!

I love you all very much!
Love,
Sister Bailey Mortensen