Jan. 23, 2017 "The Mormons are here"

The Mormons are Here

Happy Monday Family and Friends!! This week was amazing as always, serving as a missionary out here in good old northern Missoura! :)

The week consisted of lots of lessons! Amazing advice from our Mission President President Vest! He truly is the best. Because he is so dedicated to the Lprd. He has helped our mission to be the best we can be, always obedient, always using our faith and striving to be better so we can pull down the powers of Heaven!!

Interviews were on Tuesday and so we basically had a joint district meeting with the other district while we were each doing our interviews. Elder Limon gave an awesome training about faith. He said how you have to be willing to fail, to truly be able to succeed. The natural person in all of us would shrink and try to hide our weaknesses, but when we exercise faith - the faith in the atonement, in gods love for us and the atonement power to change and refine us - we can accept our weaknesses and make them into strengths.

This is exactly what the Book of Mormon teaches when it teaches that when we truly come unto Christ, he will show us our weakness .. and let me tell you, he does! But that is the way that we can be humble and rely on God so he can make our weaknesses into the divine attributes which He possesses! Moral of the story, have the faith to accept your weaknesses so God can make you into what you were always meant to be!

Man I LOOVE our district though. We have the best district leader and zone leaders for real! I so appreciate people who are willing to be real and who truly care because we are all brothers and sisters on the Lords team! It's a wonderful blessing being in the *Far Blest Zone* ;)

We had some awesome lessons this week too! We were able to teach our old (real old) good friend Larry. His wife believes she is a member of the church ... but she's not. Her records don't exist and she claims they were transferred to the Christian church in Lathrop when she moved ... ahh people in Missoura gotta love em! Haha Larry wants to learn more though. The week before he said he didn't want to ever be baptized because he already was and we couldn't do anything to change that.. so we were going to drop them, but then we taught them again and he spirit was there and he's like no I just wanna do what god wants me to do, so we testified that God will give him his answer!

We survived being at the Carnahans once again. They're so funny. The subject of this weekly email comes from them. Every time we go to their house and knock, they always look through the window and say"Mormons are here!" Lol. Hey are also baptized memebers..? Haha. Man those kids are so awesome though, but I really don't know how to help their dad. Brother Carnahan is so nice, but he takes the Bible completely literally. He believes he went to the spirit world after a near death experience and talked to Micheal the Archangel. He is a pretty interesting person but I know God still loves him and wants the best for him so we won't give up!

We also taught Gwen this week! Ah we love her! We went in a little weary because we were teaching about the WoW and she loves her coffee! But she says right off the bat, "oh I know God wants me to live this. It will be hard but I know this is right." So yeah basically she teaches herself. She still wants to take things slow, making sure its all right so she hasn't warmed up to having teamups or come to church... but we are going to invite her to SARAHS BAPTISM SATURDAY!!!

That's right! We have a baptism this Saturday! Our investigator Sarah who's been learning about the church for a long time is finally getting baptized!! She is so awesome and funny!! She is so excited and we are so excited for her!! Man though, Satan works HARD on you when he knows you're going to do the right thing! Literally so many things kept popping up. Her car broke down, her daughters tablet broke and a cap on her tooth broke and something's wrong with her neck and they had strep and her sister wanted her to be in charge of her niece's birthday party the exact time of her baptism..... ahh!! But we beat Satan and those things are getting worked out :)

We also had lunch with our less active Trish who is working toward the temple. And man she has taught me SOO much about faith and trust in God. She has so many trials and hardships that keep coming and don't end, but she never gives up on God! I love her so much.

The other two awesome things that happened this week was we met with this guy from the Cameron ward a little north from us, his name is Brother Pratt he is basically over missionary work for the stake and he is awesome!! He trained our new ward mission leader and us and the bishop were there too and wow! Opened my eyes up so much about what missionary work is like! We truly are supposed to be one in this work! Not only one as missionaries and members, but one with the Lord! For it's His work!

Something I know a lot of members think (because this was me before my mission) that missionary work is really just for missionaries. They're in their own grouping and do their own thing ... but no! What you covenant at baptism is to do what Jesus would do and told us to do. And he says to his disciples, "go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father."

and so, "The work of salvation is given to all of us."

We also had exchanges this week. So we both went down to New Mark to outside Kansas City and basically blitzed our sister leaders area for the day. (They changed exchange policy so both sisters in the companionship go to the sister leaders area. Kinda interesting but it was a good day! Shock to be back in the city haha. But that night, we all met with their ward mission leader for correlation. And Brother Anderson is AWESOME! I learned sooo much from him.

He talked all about how when we set goals, even if it's a number goal to baptize, but we base that goal on the vision we have ... the vision that we are seeking to help gods children to feel His love, then we will still succeed in our vision even if we only have 4/10 baptisms we set a goal for!

THATS what missionary work is about, helping our brothers and sisters to feel Gods love for them and to help them know of His plan. I hope if that we all can change this focus from just getting people "dunked" and checking off a box, to helping people to know they have a father in Heaven who loves them and wants the best for them and helping them to make Covenants with Him so they can live with Him and enjoy eternal happiness.

I am so grateful to be a missionary. It honestly is the weirdest thing if you think about it!

You're a total stranger showing up to people's houses and they let you in and you teach them about Jesus you instantly love each other and they want you to come back!

BUT missionary work is also the best and most amazing experience because of those things!! ..

You're a total stranger showing up to people's houses and they let you in and you teach them about Jesus .. and help them to feel of His love and know of true happiness, you instantly love each other and form a bond as you teach them and so you come back and help them progress to making Covenants with God!