This week was Great! I'm not sure where to start! It's hard because my days sort of all mash together and I can't remember if something happened last week or this week. I got the letter from Grandma Stoddard! It was so sweet:) That is great to hear that Grandpa Stoddard is feeling well! Dad, I love what you said about how you could feel the physical manifestation of the prayers and faith of those praying for you. I especially felt that it my first week in the field. I would be down and then all of a sudden a BLAST of energy and love came and those "down" feelings flew a million miles away. It's hard to explain, but in short, prayers work. Heavenly Father IS listening. Have faith that he is, even when it doesn't feel like he is. We can use those moments,when it isn't answered the way we wanted, to OPEN our eyes and see how he is answering our prayer.
"..God is the greatest scientist in the universe, and he has complete control over all elements and matter. Prayer is our conduit, our access, to controlling those elements."
That was a cool quote by My Dad:) Although he does control all things, sometimes rotten stuff happens here in this life, such as loved ones passing. We have to trust that even though God COULD have kept it from happening, he see's the big picture, while we don't. He has far greater plans and blessings for ourselves and those individuals than we could imagine.
My companion is from Alberta, Canada! She has been out 15 months! She always says, "DON'T Blink your Eyes!" We exchange once a transfer! So that is super great! Next exchange I think one of the STL's will come to my area and my comp will go to theirs, which is terrifying because that means I actually have to learn which bus stops and which metro's are by the investigators houses etc. [Note from editor: I assume that an STL is a some type of Sister leader]. Right now I sort of just follow Sister Mendenhall.......
Sister Mendenhall says that if she could give me a nickname it'd be "Trance." Because I am always caught in this trance....We will be walking down the street and then all of a sudden I look and Sister Mendenhall is wayyyyy ahead of me. "Coming, Trance?" haa I am like Walter Mitty in Canada. I tried explainng that to her....one she hasn't seen the movie and two....I don't think we are supposed to talk about movies...becuase I always get the cold hand when I do--which is hard because I'm always relating something to a movie I've watched!
Dad, I laughed while reading about Jeffrey's Stick Shift learning experience! It made me think back to my struggling times.
My personaly study was SO GREAT today.
Mom! So I was reading your letter for last week this morning and your thought abut how we need to diligently seek him with real intent struck me! Here is what I wrote:
"Wowza helman 12:2 rocks. My mom wrote explaining that it is not alwas easy to share the gospel. We would become lazy and stop studying to find the answer if it was aways given to us. Helaman 12:2-3 goes along nicely with that thought.
2 Yea, and we may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives, and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; softening the hearts of their enemies that they should not declare wars against them; yea, and in fine, doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people; yea, then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One—yea, and this because of their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity.
3 "Except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflicitons...they will not remember him"
This weeks attribute is Hope! So I started reading "A priceless Heritage of Hope" by President Eyring. (AHHHHHHHHH PS. WHO IS NOT SO EXCITED FOR GENERAL CONFERNECE!!!! I AM PUMPED!!!)
Okay back to the thougt. Here are some quotes I really like:
- "Every day and every hour you can choose to make or keep a covenant with God"
- "Choosing to keep or makea covenant with God, leaves an inheritance of hope to those who follow your example"
To those that aren't familiar with the LDS faith, a covenant is a two way promise with God. We promise to do something and in turn he blesses us. Go to mormon.org to learn more about covenants you can make and blessings you can receive.
So I thought. How is us keeping our covenants leaving an inheritance of hope?
When we keep our covenants, we treat other people (those to whom we might be examples) better and more lovingly because we are striving to be more like Christ. They desire to have what we have (hope). They will desire to make covenants as well because they'll want to be like us and feel and understand what we do. They will want to have hope in their lives. When we live the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we have hope. Others can have it too.
We are teaching this lovely family, Caroline and Shadayne. I connect so well with Caroline because I feel like I have felt a tiny part of what she is feeling right now: that God doesn't totally love her. I am so excited to teach her because through having faith and hope and living the Gospel of Jesus Christ I was able to know that He does love me! I sort of have been where she has been and I want her to know what I know now.
In the scriptures it explains that God's purpose is to give/help us have Joy. But I thought "well, he isn't fulfilling his purpose because there are some people who do not have joy." I had mistakenly correlated happy, smiling faces to joy. A little conflicted, I began to research this idea of joy. My journal entry reads (with excerpts from true to the faith) "Heavenly Father feels so strongly about protecting our moral agency that he will allow all His children to exercise it--for good and evil." Unfortunately, sometimes people are adversely affected by their agency. This makes God sad, but his eternal perspective allows him to understand that "whatever pain and suffering we endure in this life, regardless of it's origin" it is but a moment of our existence."
As mortals we rarely view our adversity with an eternal perspective. "We feel pain and anguish. But faith in our Heavenly FAther and His plan can be a source of inner strength through which we can find peace, comfort, and the courage to cope. As we put our faith and trust to work HOPE is born." This hope can comfort us in the face of adversity, give us strength and peace when there is every reason for doubt and anguish"
Conclusion: Perhaps this is what Joy is: the ability to Find solace in adveristy.
Unfortunately, we had to drop Eileen and Mike. Eileen is great! But becuase of health problems she has been counseld not to add something more to her plate....ugh. Ebony has been dropped and Lucy's family is in the area I exchanged in! But this week the Zone had the goal of baptismal dates and guess what! We invited and got 8 baptismal dates! So that is great. Pray for Caroline and her daughter, Duval and Danika, Mila and Futita and Maria Samirra, Ricardo and Gerrald, Marvin, and SJ! I will tell you about all of them next week. But real quick, Mom, remember that 14 yr old boy you taught on your mission who was amazing? That is Danika! It is super cool:)
We REALLLY want all of them to attend a session of conference!
Yesterday a guy came up to me and said "Hey! Do you remember me?" I sort of did: we talk to sooooo many people a day, but it was blessing that I sort of remembered his face and two front teeth. I took a shot in the dark and said, "Are you Muhammad," which kind of is a running joke between my comp and because basically it seems like everyone that is from the middle east name is either muhammad or ____ Islam. So I had a 50/50 chance of being right. I was wrong it was. Rojo Islam. ha
Love you all!! I am so excited for this week. I loved General Womens Confernece. I encourage all people to read it!!!! The obvious theme was temples! One missionary said that was because the world is ending soon and we need to get as many peopple as we can back to the temple ha. Oh eyah!! WE went to the temple!! It was so great! We got up at 4:30 so I had a pretty hard time staying awake....hahaa But the celestial room was even brighter and welcoming than it has ever felt before. My friend Corrie explained that she felt the same thing. It's as if we are living lives in which our light matches and feels comfortable there. :)
I could sense that the girl for whom I went through also enjoyed it.
I was thinking about how to make Reeves family scripture study more meaningful--here is an idea. Give one person a responsibility to guide the study and to pray to receive inspiration about what to study that week, etc and then guide the study?
Food is great! I have made corn bread, enikorn bread (can I get more grain here?), muffins! We have had dinner apts. like 1 every week. Hosnee fed us! It was good. Indian food still has a hard time settling in my stomach, though. This time something in the food was so spicy that I was dying. Tears were coming out of my eyes and my stomach was screaming. Hosnee is soo great, though. She is trying to find you on Facebook. Look for her "Arzu Moon Zarin." She kept putting more and more food on my plate. I tried to clean the plate....I felt so over-full with crazy spices. She felt AWFUL that it was spicy. I felt bad and tried to hide what was going on inside my stomach. Then her little girl jumps off the chair and falls and her plate flies, food going everywhere, a lot of which got on my white shirt.. so she felt more stress. But anyway, we talked about Elder Hollands Talk "Like a broken Vessel" which is amazing. She really liked it and said she wants to start working on getting back to the temple.
Sister Reeves
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