August 16th, Shes doing great!!

Hi Guys :)

"Ye shall go forth in teh power of my spirit, preaching my gospel, two by
two, in my name, lifting up your voices as with the sound of a trump,
declaring my word like unto angles of God." D&c 42:6

Thank you all for all the letters. I love reading them. It always makes my
day a little brighter. I love all the encouragement and support I get from
everyone. I have the best family :) I got a package from them this week. It
had amazing nuts, pictures, and notes in it. Thank you Thank you. I enjoyed
it all. Oh and it had my picture card. I will send home my picture new.
Thank you for all that you do :)

Last Monday Sister Iwamoto spent around two hours in Wal-mart and other
places looking for food and shopping around. I don't like shopping as much
as I use to love it. It is not the same when your on a mission. I hope to
one day find that love for shopping again. haha We started teaching a LA
named Jeff. Jeff is a family friend of the Lester family. His parents are in
the Temecula ward. He is about 20 years old. He doesn't see any purpose in
his life and lost his testimony of the gospel. I am excited to get him going
back to church. We are teaching him tonight at the Lester's home.

We invited Chelsea Smith over to the Smith Family's home for family night.
It was fun to feel the spirit of the family and be able to teach with
testimonies of everyone. We focused mostly on pray and the role of the Holy
Ghost in getting answers. Chelsea loved talking with girls her age and girls
that are doing some of the same things she is doing( hair school). We love
the spirit of members homes. Chelsea has been really having a hard time in
her life and needed that spirit.

We watched Faith in Christ with Tessa and Samy. Tessa understands the
Atonement. It was amazing. She didn't understand some other parts. She has
really opened up and feel like she can ask us questions. The Lord is really
straighting her family. We talked to Samy about bapitsum. She has thought
about it, but not lately. We are working on them being baptized :)

We taught Lizzie, Colby, Kenzie :) The spirit as we teach is so strong.
Colby opened up and was straight forward with his questions. He understands
a lot about the gospel, but does think he is getting answers to his prayers.
That is always hard to try to teach someone how God speaks to them
personally. The Holy Ghost is the only one that can really teach someone
that. We helped with some scritupers. Colby also does understand why God
would let his children suffer in 3rd world countries. A lot of people ask us
that question. We told him what we believe the Holy Ghost would have us say.
He understand it, however I have no idea what I said or what Sister Iwamoto
said. But whatever we said answered his question. I kind of wish I could
remember and understand what we said. That way next time that question comes
up I could have a better answer. I will just have to trust in the Lord on
that one.

On Wednesday we tracked into a football player looking black man who was
very smart and know his bibles. He talked with us for awhile. haha He
believes that aliens and UFOs are all among us and he was telling us where
to look in the bible to back him up. It was great. I loved listening to him.
We did have the change to let him know what we believe. He did invite us
back haha however we will just let the next set of missionaries track into
him.

Anna is wonderful. The more she learns about the gospel the more she
understands. It is amazing how the Lord has people ready for missionaries to
teach. Anna is one of these people that God has put in our path to share
with her the light of the gospel at this time. We taught her the Plan of
Salvation. She understands all of it. It was her first time hearing most of
the information, but she kept telling us that it all makes since. She asked
us some good questions and I am excited to get to go back.

We got to carve with Ron Arrington again this week. He hates the world for
the most part. He is LA and his wife Carol is one day going to get baptized.
The missionaries have been working with this family for over 10 years. One
day they will come around. Carol has all kinds of questions about the
priesthood, polygamy, wards, and other little things that don't matter. Well
they do matter, but you don't need to know that before you get baptized.
Both of them believe that we are the only true church and want to go to the
temple together one day. Faith without works is die.... :)

Sister Escodro came to church on Sunday :) One more LA that is coming to
church. On Saturday night we went over to her house and watched the
Restoration DVD in Tagalog. You guessed it... I had no idea what was going
on. Good thing I have already seen that DVD. The spirit was so strong was we
watch it and as they talked. I just listen(because I don't know Tagalog).
She made up her mind that she was going to go to church and she did. It was
amazing.


Love,
Sister Amanda Christine Lusk