Elder Dallin Schipaanboord: WE FOUND HER!!!

This week was pretty dang stellar! First and foremost, as you can tell by the title, we found Sarah again!!! We were driving down this road and saw her walking, so we turned around and pulled over the car to talk with her, I totally felt like a stalker but I wasn't going to let her slip through my fingers again! So we talked with her and told her to give us a call sometime and then she walked away and came back and said "What was your number again?" and we realized we didn't get her number, so we said that we would text it to her and she gave us her number and went on her way. Right when she left, Johnson and I started flipping out and screaming hahahahah it was so funny!! We then saw her and her sister a few more times while walking around and talked with them some more. While talking, they said "Man, we like you guys, you guys are cool, I hope y'all don't get moved any time soon." It was sick! We tried to set up an appointment with them, but they were still flakey, so Johnson and I decided that we are just going to teach them on the street the next time we see them, the Lord keeps putting them in our path, so we need to take advantage of it.

Last week on P Day, we went over to Bro. Aukema's farm and climbed up on top of his silo, it was so sick!! But super sketchy too!! We climbed up this crazy ladder, which wasn't too bad, but going down was so scary, although it was all worth it!! We saw so much of his farm land, and we could even see the horizon, something we haven't seen in quite a while!!

We also saw Carl a few times this week, and taught him about baptism. We showed him the object lesson with the pepper in the water and the soap being the priesthood. When you dunk your finger, nothing happens, but when dunked with the "priesthood" all of the pepper disperses. He has had a pretty crazy past, and we told him that because of the savior EVERYTHING can be washed away. Carl got super excited and said "So when are y'all gonna baptize me?" Johnson and I looked at each other and just smiled! We set a date for the 11th and got him interviewed on Saturday, and he passed!!!! We just have to make sure that he doesn't smoke a cigarette, or we will have to push it back a week, but we have been praying and fasting for him, so we have faith that he can push through!

It truly is amazing how the Gospel can take anyone, no matter their past and turn them into something amazing! In Malichai 3 it talks about how the Lord is going to be our refiner. The cool thing about a refiner, is that he sits there carefully watching the metal while all of the imperfections are burned out. If he pulls the metal out too soon, there are still imperfections, and if he waits too long, the metal will burn, so how does he know when to take the metal out? When he sees his own reflection. The Savior is our refiner and is patiently waiting for all of our imperfections to be taken out, and the second that he sees his own reflection in us is when he takes us out.

"We see ourselves as yesterday and today, but the Lord sees us for who we can become tomorrow"

I love y'all so much and hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Schipaanboord