Rough start, Great end!

Hello everyone!

Well this started out pretty hard again but it ended up being so good! To start off the week, on Tuesday we were helping someone move. We are teaching her but and also her neighbor. While we were on our way back to our car, a bunch of guys who stay near the neighbor (Her name is Kederleng) all came up to us and started yelling. They told us that we were dragging her life down, that we were only hurting her and her kids, that we were horrible people, that we were racist, and that if we ever came back to teach Kederleng they would hurt us. We were so scared. But mostly we were just sad. Kederleng is one of the sweetest people I have ever met and the thought of not being able to see her anymore was really upsetting. Luckily some of the Elders were there helping move too and they were able to calm the guys down and get them to back off. But Sister Anderson and I were really upset. We both got back in the car and just cried. We knew that the Lord had led us to Kederleng and we were not going to give up. That night we knelt down as a companionship and just poured our hearts out to the Lord. We didn't know what to do. We were working our hardest but for the past week and a half, things were just not going well. The most incredible feeling of peace came over us. Then that night I did the same thing in my personal prayer. I basically just told Heavenly Father that I was about at the point where I couldn't go on anymore and I needed help. Once again I got this wonderful peaceful feeling. When I woke up Wednesday morning, the words of D&C 121:7-8 were stuck in my head. I had not read that scripture in a really long time and I don't have it memorized. But somehow the exact words kept playing over and over in my head. I know it was my Heavenly Father letting me know that everything was going to be ok.

And they have been! On Wednesday we were doing street contacting on the UB (University of Botswana) campus which is in the nicer part of our area. We weren't having too much luck but we knew we were supposed to be there for some reason. I saw a girl a little ways off who was talking on the phone. I knew we had to talk to her. So we waited till she was done and we went and told her about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. She was really friendly and she invited us to come back on Friday to teach her more. So we went back on Friday and she is pretty much the definition of a prepared heart. She told us that she had been wanting to make changes in her life but didn't know how. She told us a lot more too but basically the Lord has completely prepared her to receive this message.

Then we have seen so many other tender mercies throughout the rest of the week too. While we were teaching one of our new investigators in this park area, another woman came up to us and asked if she could join cause she was feeling sad and wanted to listen to the word of God. Saturday night we were finally able to get ahold of a woman who we though had been avoiding us. When we went to see her we found out that she had just been really busy with work but that she had been taking the Book of Mormon with her wherever she went. She said that she loves reading it, completely understands it, loves the feelings she gets when she is reading, and knows that is is true. She's already in 2 Nephi! We only gave her the book 2 weeks ago! Then while we were visiting another family who we have been trying to work with to get the dad to start joining in the lessons, without us even having to invite him to join us, the dad came right up and sat for the whole lesson! And when we were finished, he asked us to come back at a time when he'd be home so he could start participating. A woman we are teaching who deals drugs for a living called us and asked if we could help her quit smoking and drinking before we even taught her the word of wisdom. And lastly, yesterday I was able to attend the first ever stake conference for the Gaborone Botswana Stake. It was incredible. We had a couple members of the 70 come and speak and a lot of prayers were answered. It was so wonderful. Plus there have been countless other things that have happened that have just really helped me see that I am being watched over.

I still love it here so much. I'm starting to see what everyone means when they say that mission is the hardest but best time of their lives. I cant believe my 1 month mark was on Saturday. (we had a happy-one-month-on-mission-slash-happy-cinco-de-mayo taco party on Sunday night to celebrate) The time is going so fast! But it has been the best month of my life so far. I can't even express how grateful I am to be here.

Lots of love and thanks,

Sister Chelsea Gehring
Oh! and p.s. I forgot to say that we went really felt like we needed to go back to Kederleng's house to ask her if she really wanted us to leave or if that was just her neighbours  So we went and talked to her and she said she definitely does want us to come back. So we will just rely on the Lord to protect us and continue on with the work!