Birthday in the South

April 25, 2016

Hey Family,

Thank you for all the Birthday wishes and the gifts. I really loved them and am grateful for all y'all do for me. I especially loved the two books and the color guard shirt!

So this week, we got to help out again at St. Vincent’s and that is always so much fun. We do that every Tuesday and Wednesday. The lady's that help out there are so great and very friendly. It's great to be able to help out the community. After we got to go out with Sister Herron to go visit some people and we got to visit with an old member of the church. Brother Bennett is a very nice old man, but a problem that we have is that he is about 90% blind and can barely hear. Bishop wants us to work with him and to see if we can get him back to church. So we were able to see Kyah this week and we had a pretty good lesson. She told us that she hasn't has coffee for the past 2 weeks. We are so proud of her and being able to make it this long. Also we talked a lot about Faith and also about how Heavenly Father hears our prayers. It was pretty cool because I had read during personal studies about "Turn to Him and Answers will Come". It was very comforting to share this with her and also for it to help me out. I learned a lot from it. We also got to talk a little bit of her concerns. She doesn't want to leave her church because of the friendships that she has there. But she promised that she would come to church because I am speaking. After we got to go help Mike and Amy Turley get all moved. We got there early and helped with cleaning the apt. Then everyone showed up and helps get them all loaded up in the van. We got a pretty good workout because they lived on the second floor and running up and down them for about 5 hrs. was pretty exhausting. But everything was able to fit in the van and we got to rest after and have some pizza. It felt really good after to be able to help them.

Saturday was a pretty good and busy day. We went and saw Ms. Flowers in the morning. Sister Durtschi and Sister Demo helped them out during the floods. So we got to visit with her and she is a super sweet lady. We got to share with her the Restoration and she had really great questions. The spirit was very much there and it was just going great. We asked her if she would be baptized and she said that she would pray about it, so hopefully when we see her next we can set her with a date. Later we got to go try DeAnn (Demo and Durtschi tracted into her) We got to visit with her for a little bit. She is super busy with work and I am grateful we got to catch her. Then we went down the street to see Melissa. We aren't completely sure what to do with her. She hasn't really read from the Book of Mormon. So we are just trying to figure it all out. After we had lunch and went to go help Ms. Debbie out. Ms. Debbie is an older lady and we go over about every week to help her do house work. She is a very nice lady and isn't ready right now to hear the gospel but we still go over to help her out. Over time her heart with soften and maybe one day she will be converted.

Sunday was my birthday. I was awoken by Sister Durtschi and the elders on the phone singing me Happy Birthday. It was very sweet, also Sister Durtschi decorated the whole apt with things that you had sent. She also made me breakfast. She is the best!! Then I got all ready and opened up my package. It was great to read all of the letters and also the books and shirts. I am truly grateful for everything. Then we got to church and was waiting for Kyah to show up. Finally I had to go up to seat in the front. I was the first speaker and was just asked to introduce myself and tell a little bit about me. It went really great and just shared with them how I decided to come on a mission. Right when I sat down, Kyah and her kids came in and she did a little wave to me. I was so happy that she could make it. Also during sacrament, a young adult from the ward came up to do a musical number. He sang, "I Heard Him Come". It was really good and could really feel the spirit and was filled with Christ's love. After sacrament meeting, I hurried and went down to catch Kyah. I got to give her a hug and she wished me a Happy Birthday. It was so great that she could come but we were really upset because no members introduced themselves to her. We are trying to get her socially converted and we are having problems with that so we just hope that next time the members are more friendly. After church, we got to go out with Sister Morrill and her daughter (Bishop's wife and daughter). We got to go see Bro Bennett and got to review the Restoration with him. He remembers a lot of it but we slowly turned to talking about war. He is a veteran of the Vietnam War and has 3 purple hearts. This man has gone through a lot and we are hoping that we can just help him out. After they dropped us off and we got a couple things done, then we walked over to the Turley's. They are such a great family and I love being with them. We had a really great dinner and had great conversations. Also when we were there, the STL's (Sister Burgess and Sister Mitchell) and the Zone Leaders (Elder Hill and Elder Eggimann) called me and sang Happy Birthday to me. It was really nice of them to do that. I had a really good day having my birthday out in the mission field. So very thankful for all of the love that I feel from everyone.

Guess what, I get to talk with y'all in about 2 weeks. I am so excited to talk with y'all!! I love and miss y'all and hope you have a blessed week!!

Sister McKenna O'Connor

Thank you for all the birthday cards and gifts