Sunday, October 27, 2013

EVERYTHING IS GREAT! 
October 21, 2013

Everything is really great. This week we literally taught a whole high school! and by that I mean we have 5 investigators that are in high school. BUT HEY THAT'S A LOT! this is for everyone in high school reading. just kidding it's for everyone, but seriously YOU make an impact! every single one of these high schoolers knows someone LDS and because of that, they are interested in what their friends believe. and even if they don't know them personally, they know who they are! one of them was so interested in why they weren't interested in promiscuity and why they dressed so modestly! another one just really liked his LDS friends and was interested in what they believe. another one has a Mormon best friend and he brought him to church after we started teaching him! the thing is, WE found these people. that just emphasizes how important what they were saying in conference is about member missionary work! think about how much more meaningful it would have been for these high schoolers to hear their friends' testimonies. how much it would have meant for them to hear of the healing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how pure their joy can be. how they can find answers to the questions of their SOUL that they've ever thought about- in the Book of Mormon. how much influence that having a prophet in these days can have on families in any and every situation. I know how much this gospel means to me and how much it has truly changed my life, and how happy it has made me. there are people all around who would truly love to hear just a simple message of Jesus Christ. the feeling of the Spirit is impossible to describe perfectly, but I do know that I have felt it the strongest when praying. when learning about Joseph Smith and reading his testimony. when I'm sharing what is close to my heart, and when I hear anyone else bear their testimony. the Spirit is so real and so unique, and I don't realize how lucky we are to really feel that in our lives to much. I just love this gospel! I want everyone to be able to feel of that overpowering love and healing from their Heavenly Father! it is unreal!

So let's see. I guess I haven't said much about my AWESOME COMPANION! She likes to save spiders and I don't. So I come up with ways to secretly kill them in front of her and then tell her later. It's great. She loves me for that.

I can't think of what else happened. Wait yes I can! we finally met our investigator's wife! I guess that's not really excited to the rest of the world. We were really excited though. I'm just constantly amazed at all of the awesome people we get to meet and talk to. seriously every dinner appointment or lesson we walk out of sister Hilton and I just are amazed at how incredible everyone is. I never want to leave this area! except I feel like I am in 2 weeks. That's the end of the transfer! I'VE ALMOST BEEN OUT THREE MONTHS!

Also we just got to have lunch with aunt Jeanette and Ashley! It was so much fun to see family. Seriously. I was so glad that she thought of doing that! They are so nice to me and I'm so blessed to have family like them around. Aunt Jeanette always makes me the best cookies! We enjoy that. I absolutely love my mission. I learn so much. and I'm extremely humbled every single day. I really could not do this alone and I just love this gospel!

Thursday, October 17, 2013

THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME!
October 14, 2013

THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME AND FULL OF THE SPIRIT! we finally got back on track this week haha. we got to go tracting with Sister Murdock at the beginning of the week and it was one of the best days. it was so awesome to see how excited she was about the work at every door she just showed how much she was in love with the gospel! we taught one lesson with her and she was just so excited she stood up and knelt down right next to the man and read the book of Mormon introduction with him. it was awesome. she was such an example of what i want to be like! you really could just see the light in her eyes and how strong her testimony was just from talking with her for one minute.

One of my experiences that happened last Thursday is that felt really strongly that we HAD to go visit one of these names on the ward list that no one knew who they were and we went and they weren't home. We decided to walk around a little bit and ahead i saw this lady walking a stroller. In my head i was like.. i should talk to her... and then she started walking by and i was like hi! and she didn't answer cause she had headphones in. so i was like okay that's fine we will talk to someone else. but then i decided that no, i really should talk to her. so i tried to say hi again haha and then she took out her headphones, and i asked her if she wanted to hear a message about Jesus Christ and she was like yeah! and it caught me off guard for a second so i didn't know what to say. but we ended up walking around the neighborhood with her and taught her about the Restoration and the book of Mormon! she was so amazed because she said that she never walks that way but today she decided to, and she felt so blessed. the only sad part was that she wasn't in our area haha. but it just was such a testimony to me of how God really has a hand in this work! and it showed me how important it was to listen to the Spirit. all. the. time.


On Sunday we got to go to a fireside by Matt Holland, Elder Holland's son! it was a really awesome fireside, the way he talks is so similar to his dad. i really liked when he talked about his own testimony of the Book of Mormon. because so many times we are told that a spiritual confirmation of the Book of Mormon happens if you pray, and so many times people don't feel that so they doubt their testimony! he said that happened to him. and he prayed and prayed and read and read and didn't understand why he didn't feel anything. so one day he was hiking outside and was so confused, and the quote "line upon line, precept upon precept" kept coming to his head. he decided to call his dad, and he just poured out his heart to him. his dad's response was- that IS your testimony! the fact that that quote keeps coming into your mind is your answer. he explained that he had the book of Mormon his whole life, he has read it over and over and he has felt the influence of it since he was young. ever since he was young he was building his testimony like that scripture says- line upon line and precept upon precept. he realized that he LOVED the book of Mormon with all of his heart. he realized how much it really had in it and how much it showed the REALITY and POWER and SPIRIT of the Savior Jesus Christ. he knew he had a testimony of the Book of Mormon because he loved sharing it. he absolutely loved sharing it and that right there was the Spirit confirming to him that it was true. The Spirit confirms truth not always in huge ways, but in feelings of peace and happiness, and really anything that edifies and directs one towards good. 


Tuesday, October 1, 2013

A DAY OF MIRACLES
September 30, 2013

This week. this week this week this week! I don't even know where to start. okay my new companion! is sister Hilton from Temecula California! and she went to BYU and ran track and she is awesome. I attached a picture of her. she is such an awesome missionary and we have a great time! so her first day here was so crazy haha. sister rodriguez (another girl who just arrived) had to stay with us for the day until her companion got here from the other side of the mountain. I was so scared, I was giving them a first impression of a mission! haha oh my gosh and it turned out to be a crazy day. we had 4 set appointments and they all fell through, we tracted for EVER and no one would even talk to us, and they were like uhhhhh, what is this place!? and im really bad at directions so I didn't know where to go half the time (jk it was fine we had a gps). and so at the end of the day we had zeroes all the way down for lessons, investigators, and everything. which had never happened before, but something I learned from sister jones was that you have to have faith in your goals, and you truly can accomplish anything. so for the next day, we planned to find 3 new investigators and we had a few set appointments. and IT WAS A DAY OF MIRACLES. we found three investigators, and I extended the baptismal invite for the first time!!! (sis jones always did it before) and then at night we showed up at a less actives home RIGHT when she needed it. she could not believe that we had come that night and we studied with her and the Spirit was just overwhelming. The love from our Heavenly Father is SO REAL.

So what ive learned this week is the power of prayer. I love Mosiah 27:14? I think its 14, I could be wrong. but its all about how Alma the Younger was trying to destroy the church and he was just rebelling against everything. but in this verse it talks about how much his father (Alma) prayed for him, and how much his father had faith that something would happen. it then says that an angel came down and talked to Alma the younger to tell him that he needed to stop destroying the church! it said that BECAUSE OF HIS FATHERS FAITH, this happened. I could not believe it! this was the strongest testimony of prayer I had ever heard of. Alma's father had SO MUCH faith, that Heavenly Father had to send an ANGEL down to talk to Alma the Younger in order to be heard. OUR PRAYERS ARE HEARD, AND ANSWERED. there is no doubt about it. it is all according to our faith. if we truly believe something can happen, it will. I cant even handle it it makes me so excited! yesterday we had a goal to find one new investigator. we prayed and prayed that we could reach this goal, and we knew from our experiences that week that Heavenly Father would help it happen if we believed it would. we were knocking on doors and we just really weren't getting anywhere, but I really felt like we were in the right place. it was getting late and close to the end of the day, but I looked up and I pointed to a house a little ways down and thought- WE GOTTA GO THERE. the VERY LAST door we knocked on, he let us pray with him and we told him about Christ's restored gospel and how much it meant to us, and how our purpose as missionaries is to just invite people to learn about what we believe- but NOT to take our word for it. we told him that he needed to ask God if it was true, because we sincerely want him to know for himself what is true, and he could ask God because He is the source of all truth. and he was so excited and we are going back tonight! we could not believe how blessed we were. we found 7 investigators this week! these new goals are really stretching us but it is truly possible. every day is so amazing.

Overall Saturday was the best day ever! we had a lesson EVERY HOUR! we were running from appointment to appointment and it made the day go so fast. oh also the weather is super random here so and on saturday I swear the house was like 20 degrees so we dressed up in boots and coats and like snow things while we studied because we were so cold then that day it ended up being like 80 degrees and really hot and every where we went people thought we were weird for being in boots. but its fine haha OH I SAW BONNIE IN THE RELIEF SOCIETY BROADCAST! (Bonnie is a BYU friend of Mikilahs) it made me so happy that's such an awesome experience. Also that broadcast was so good and I cannot wait for conference this weekend!