Letter on July 1st

Hello Family,

How are all of you doing?  This week Sam was baptized and it was amazing!!!  It was way too easy to get him into the water.  Every investigator has problems before they get baptized thanks to the father of all lies but not Sam.  Every night and every morning I would pray that he would safe from Satan's influence and God is a God that answers prayers:  he was safe!  It was truly a miracle.  I think his mom was praying for him too and also protecting him from the spirit world.  She was converted years ago and passed away not too long ago and I just kept thinking about how happy she was that her son, who's still alive is being baptized.  It's quite an amazing thought.  I had a feeling that I should have Sam chose the hymns at his baptism even though he didn't know of any.  So my companions and I sang 5 hymns to him on Monday.  One of the songs we sang was "Nearer my God to Thee."  It was his mom's favorite hymn!  I'm pretty sure I was inspired to chose that one.

On that same day however we had an investigator tell us that he had received an answer to His prayers and that it was that the Book of Mormon wasn't true.  I didn't understand he thought that because we've prayed with him before and I've felt the spirit witness to us and to him that the Book of Mormon is true.  I know that he's received witness that the Book of Mormon is true!  It was really hard for me but I just had to remember that everything will happen on the Lord's time and just because Satan managed to deceive him now doesn't mean that he'll never be converted.

This week I've really been working on being positive.  I didn't realize that I was naturally a pessimistic person.  But I also think Sister Laurent is a little over-the-top optimistic so it's quite a comparison.  Like I don't think me saying "I don't think we'll be able to see as many people as we normally do because I feel like a lot of people will be out of town for the 4th of July" is pessimistic but I said that and then companions said, "Sister Naylor be positive!"  But it's something that I've been working on regardless.

We've been very successful lately.  We can see the hard work and obedience pay off.  It's been wonderful.  On Friday we got all of our daily goals except for new investigators (we set five which is really high but we got three.)

I've also had the chance to get really close to Grandpa Roskelley recently.  I've been reading his biography, I didn't know he had such a sense of humor.  He talks about Grandma a lot, I can tell that he loves her so much.  There are some great stories in there, some of which I share with my companions.  It means so much to me that I can be so close to my Grandpa because I know that he's just in the spirit world and because he wrote that biography.  It truly is wonderful.

I love you all so much.  Yesterday I said how hard it would be for me to move far away from my family to a member and she said "Well, you're away from them now."  I told her, "Yeah, but they feel so close."  I can feel the prayers that you have for me and that makes you feel so close.  I hope you're all doing wonderful.  The Lord answers prayers and I've been praying for you so I know that you're doing okay for the most part.

Love,

Sister Ashley Naylor