This
week was interesting. It started snowing on Saturday, so we were not allowed to
use our cars on Saturday and Sunday. And then we got a call telling us that
church was cancelled because of the snow/ice! (There was only about three
inches, but it was pretty icy). I totally ate it in the snow yesterday! It kind
of stunk because I'm not feeling the greatest and I was soaking wet, but I'm
alive so it's okay. That was kind of a bummer because we really wanted some of
our friends to be able to make it to church. We had a good week though. We do
have 2 baptisms coming up. We have one on the 22nd, Nicole, and one on the
29th, Kennedy. Kennedy is the younger girl. She is a pretty smart girl. Her mom
reminds me of Ginger. It has been really cool to see them begin to embrace the
gospel again as a family and the impact that it is having. We met Nicole about
3 weeks ago. She is the most prepared person that I have met so far on my
mission. She is already about halfway through the Book of Mormon and has
accepted everything in stride. She is the one that bore her testimony last week
on her second Sunday at church! We are really excited for her baptism coming up
in a couple of weeks. We planned a temple trip to go visit the visitor's center
the day before her baptism, so that will be awesome! We have a temple trip
planned with a couple that we are teaching for this weekend as well. We are
really excited for them to be able to feel the Spirit that comes from just
being on the temple grounds.
One
thing that I studied this week was conversion. Life is sort of like walking on
one of those flat escalators in the airport. But it is like walking against the
flow of the escalator. Conversion takes effort! You have to give constant
effort towards becoming more and more converted to the Savior, and ultimately
fulfilling your divine destiny. But the moment that we stop doing the little
things and stop putting the effort in, we go backwards. It is really easy
to go backwards. We have to make sure that we are constantly focusing on giving
effort too becoming more converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and doing His
Father's will. We can't get complacent or we will go back really
quickly!
Another
thing that I really liked in my studies was when I was reading in Ether about
weaknesses. The Lord gives us weaknesses so that we can be humble and grow
(Ether 12:27).. But it is up to us to recognize our weaknesses and go to our
Father in Heaven for help to overcome those weaknesses. If we do that, then
those weaknesses will become strengths. In Ether 12:37, Christ tells Moroni
that because he was able to see his weakness (which in turn led
to repentance, asking for strength and divine help, basically just being humble),
he was going to be blessed with "sitting down in the place which I have
prepared in the mansions of my Father". This made me think about my
weaknesses and what I need to do and change to be more humble before the Lord
and have an opportunity to receive that same blessing as Moroni.
Transfers are tomorrow. Elder Pinkston and I will be here another 6
weeks at least (no surprise because training is 3 months). I found out that
Elder Hala will be in our zone which will be cool. Our ward mission leader is
excited that we will be here longer.
We
also got a ton of big news on Thursday. Firstly, we are now able to view our
emails throughout the week! We just can't respond to them until p-day. That was
kind of surprising, but still pretty cool to hear! So if anyone ever gets bored
and wants to send me a quick email of randomness, that would be sweet! We are
also now having interviews with President Tateoka once every transfer rather
than about every 2 or 3 transfers, so that will be awesome to get to talk with
him more and more. We also found out that we are having a worldwide missionary
broadcast on the 25th, so I am really excited for that! And they added
two new books to our approved missionary library here in the mission: The Power
of Everyday Missionaries & Miracle of Forgiveness.
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