Mon 1/20/2014 10:54 AM

This past week has been incredible!  So much awesome stuff has happened I don't know where to begin.

W had our interviews with our Mission President, which was awesome.  Then we had a lot of great visits with members, less actives and our investigators.  On Thursday we went out with our Branch President to meet with a part member family (the man I described as the "not yet Paul.")  We weren't sure what to share, but then the thought came to mind to share the BYU Devotional by Tad R. Callister with him and his family.  That talk is very bold in the way where it uses the Bible to point out the organization of Christ's Church from the bible and how there is only ONE church today that fits that blueprint perfectly, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It addressed a lot of his concerns and questions as well, with some of the greatest questions and points I have ever heard.  The best part is that he was actually listening to it!  It was a very wonderful visit.  I hope that the things in that video are playing over in his mind and helping prepare a place in his heart to finally progress.

 

We had a great family home evening with a less active family who invited their sister who is less active and who's husband is not a member and their 3 kids are also not members and they are 8, 9 and 11 years old.  Also, Ramona, our investigator, was at it with her kids as well.  We watched the "Patterns of Light" videos for part of the message and Ramona wanted to watch the second one again!  It was a great opportunity.

 

There are so many more wonderful things that happened this last week as well that has been causing my heart to fill with such sweet joy and desire to sing the song of redeeming love with even more gusto than before (Alma 5:26).

 

This last week as well I felt I needed to start looking up ways to recognize and develop the gifts and talents that I have been given from our Heavenly Father to help those around me.  I am not close to being done yet but as I have found them and written them down  my soul has been expounding and it has been helping me to have yet another way I can exercise my faith in the Lord and better be able to help others come to him.  That is something that I would encourage each and every one of you to do, to start looking for the unique gifts and talents that you have and strive to develop them and share them with others.  I promise that you will find it will yield wonderful results, filling you life with more meaning, joy and happiness, for truly as we strive to magnify the talents and gifts the Lord has blessed us with, we will gain more and find more fulfillment in life.  It is important as well to remember that since we all have different talents that we should not compare ourselves to others when they seem to have another talent or gift that we do not. Rather, we should strive to develop the ones we have and strive to develop others as well.  For example, one of my wonderful sisters has the divine and great gift and talent of handling children, loving them and teaching them in very creative ways.  My other sister has a wonderful and great gift and talent of making people feel welcome and loved and is aware of how others may be feeling. These are two magnificent things, but cannot be compared to each other, for each is as important as the other because they are gifts and talents that are used to enrich the lives of others. WOW. I do not know where all that came from.  I am suppose to be giving an update and seem to be giving a discourse instead!

 

Well everyone just know that I love you all very much and am grateful for all that you do.  I do strongly encourage you to strive to come to know yourself better and our loving Heavenly Father as well by coming to recognize, develop and be faithful to those wonderful and beautiful gifts that each and every one of you has.

 

I encourage you to take time to remember daily all of your many blessings from the Lord and as you do these things you will find that your life will be enriched, that you will be filled with the Love of God, a love that will not fail you and will cause you to rejoice even in the most difficult of times as you strive to turn outward.

 

I leave you with these things and with my testimony that I know that these things are true, that we are all unique children of a Loving Heavenly Father, having our own special gifts to bless our lives more abundantly as we use them to bless the lives of others.  In the very sacred name of our Lord and Savior, even Jesus Christ, amen. 

Mon 1/13/2014 4:12 PM

I do not have much time this week to write so hopefully I will be able to get some of the stuff in that transpired.

 

This last week has been pretty dang amazing!  At church on Sunday we had 35 people there and 9 women in Relief Society and 8 youth at church, 6 being from our branch.

 

We have been working like crazy and Ramona, one of our investigators, has finally been reading the Book of Moromon on her own and asking good questions!

 

We have been able to go out with our Branch President quite a bit which has been awesome.  He sure is dedicated in helping us.  He would be working in New Hampshire or Massachusetts, get off, drive home and come to help us visit with investigators and less actives.

 

The weather has been warming up here a bit which has been a little weird, but good.  We have been having good success coming our way and have picked up some of our previous investigators that we had before and then fell off the earth!  It's ok because they are back!

 

Today for P-day we went bowling which was fun.  Next to us was a small family and there was a very young, little girl who could hardly pick up the ball with both her hands so it was sure funny to watch her bend over to put it on the ground and push it.... She was actually doing pretty good and it was even more precious to see her do a little dance when she knocked down the pens... lol.

 

This last week as we were meeting with a part member family.  The husband is a non-member and is an awesome guy who is very committed already to the Lord and knows the Bible like the back of his hand.  Once he is able to give the truth a place in his heart I feel that he will decide to be baptized and be a powerhouse.

 

This past Sunday morning I had a rather important and beautiful experience as I was praying.  In the Lord's goodness and love He brought back to my mind an experience I had before my mission. An experience that was very powerful for me and one that I haven't thought about for a while.  As a result, the Holy Ghost taught me and increased my understanding of that experience and helped me to apply it to my life even more.  I have come to realize that so often in our lives we seem to ask to have some sort of new remarkable experience without really giving thought of one that we have already had; learning all we can from it.  It seems to me that the Lord has been teaching me lately the importance of REMEMBERING, something, that for me is very hard to do at times, but oh what marvelous things we can learn from these experiences if we but just take time to remember them! I have felt the power from remembering, and would like for those of you reading this do as I have and to remember those experiences you have already had.  There is always something that you can learn more from them and you will find as I have been that they will fill your soul with a new abundance of Spirit and with the ability to remember all that the Lord has done for you in your life.

 

I know that we have a loving Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ who love us beyond measure.  They have given us certain gifts, talents, abilities and experiences for us to share with others and as we seek to remember these things and do our best to learn from them, we will be strengthened in all areas of our lives.  We will have the peace of God even in the most trying of times.  I leave you all with this testimony and my love, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Mon 1/6/2014 11:00 AM

Well, things have been a bit hectic and different lately.  I am sorry that I have not been able to write for the blog recently.

Christmas came, I was able to skype with the family.  That was a great experience for me.  It meant a lot to be able to see the people I love for once and not be limited only to typing or writing.  However, it was very weird at the same time.

The weather out here has been up and down, trying to decide if it wants to cool down or heat up.  I still don't think that it knows what it wants yet.  We had a "red dot" day last week since there was suppose to be a bad storm coming in.  The day we were red dotted nothing happened.  It came that night, so we had a total of 9 missionaries staying over since some of them didn't have heat at their apartments.  It was fun.  The next day it was a steady 5 degrees and at night got in the negatives around -15 F, from what we heard.

Elder Mortenson, our Zone Leader, left us last week as well since he just finished his mission.  It was sad to see him leave, but now he is off to the next step in life; looking for that special some one and going to college.  So, it turned out pretty good.

We went to where one of Taylor Swift's houses is last P-day since one of the Elders here has had a huge crush on her. There were a whole lot of guards there... so we were thinking about maybe, just maybe doing a blitz with all of our zone, to see who the lucky one would be that got past the guards, since we outnumbered them. Don't worry though.  We used our heads and didn't do it =D.

The work is finally starting to pick up again as it is getting back to normal.  Our investigator family is doing good.  The grandmother is not really interested in being baptized since she is content with her religion right now.  But, Ramona has a good strong desire to be, but doesn't want to be somebody who joins the church and then later leaves it to go to another.  Her son Brandon wants to be baptized as well.  He actually brought up baptism that night as we were there.

We are having a family home evening tonight at a less active members house, who invited her less active family over and we will also have Ramona and her family there as well.   It should be a lot of fun.

After Christmas we had yet another musical fireside.  It was great! We got the members pumped for it and so they brought friends from work and we had Ramona and her family come as well.  It was a great turn out.  The Spirit was so strong as well.  It is amazing to me to see more and more in my life, as time goes by, that truly, before and after great spiritual experiences, Satan will try to do everything in his power to hinder that experience from happening.  It seemed like everything was coming at us.  The weather that day was horrible, so if it got just a little bit worse we probably would have had to cancel it again like last time.  But, the Lord was merciful and blessed us with a great turn out and a great night.

I know that this truly is the work of God.  That this is His true church restored on the earth today and that Jesus Christ is truly at the head of it.  There may be times in our lives where we might think everything seems to be dumping on us and hitting us with everything its got; making our knees feel weak and soon to collapse.  But, I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer and that truly his grace, his enabling power, will enable us to do what we otherwise could not do if left to our own strength.

 

For those of you who may be feeling weighed down, beaten and battered from the many things life has to throw at you, I invite you to turn to your Savior Jesus Christ and pray.  You can always pray and talk to a loving Father in Heaven who wants to hear from you and help you.  For those of you whose knees gave way at the heavy burden placed upon you, I invite you as well to turn to Jesus Christ, that he may help you up, and embrace you with his loving arms.

 

I leave you with my testimony that I do know that Jesus Christ lives, that he is a merciful, loving, understanding and forgiving God.  He loves each and every one of us more than we can ever come close to comprehend.  Repent, or in other words, turn back to Him or to Him for the first time.  He is waiting to embrace you with a love and support you will not forget.  I leave you with these things in His name, even the name of Jesus Christ, amen.