Sorry for the late night posting, everyone. I think I finally understand how it feels to be a college student. I am drowning in reading. I am exhausted. But I am coming through for the post. Some edits made for typos' sake, but that would be all. Thanks for coming, I love you!
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Hello one and all!
LA LOVE:
Sister Thawornniwat couldn't believe it when I first said this because to her LA is so dry, but CALIFORNIA IS SO HUMID. NOTHING EVER DRIES. I WASH MY MAKEUP BRUSHES AND CAN BARELY USE THEM THE NEXT DAY YIKES. Problems that come with being from Vegas.
I want you all to know a favorite quotes list IS being made for the CLAM and will be posted in about seventeen months! We have some gems so far!
Also, I know you have all been anxiously waiting on photos. I will have some for you next week. I apologize for the wait.
I've nicknamed Sister Thawornniwat Zeke from High School Musical because she is literally obsessed with baking. She's constantly wanting to make cookies and loves presenting them to us. She once started cheering and jumping for joy because there was yeast in the freezer. She's obsessed with food in general. Whenever someone brings us treats she gets so excited and whenever anyone in the apartment is thinking about eating more food she will say (even if she's in another room) "Yes!!! Do it!!! Eat more!!!" ONe time I was pointing out the resemblance between her and Zeke by saying "she bakes, she loves to bake" and she responded with "Yes I do!!!" We love our apartment mom.
EVENTS OF THE WEEK:
P-day was spent cleaning in preparation for my first apartment inspection. Sister Sanerive really wanted to get a celestial apartment (a perfect score) WHICH WE DID.
District service at Operation Gratitude. I love our district. We live to roast each other and it's the best.
Sister Rydalch came to the Reseda rea with us to do a small twelve-hour exchange with both me and Sister Sanerive and it was so awesome to have her with us for the day!
We helped Sister Wall in the Chatsworth ward clean her house so that was awesome.
We had a great district council about introducing ourselves as misisonaries and using the Book of Mormon in our teaching, which was especially awesome because Sister Sanerive and I got to practice the skills we learned right after when a person we met started asking us about our religion!
TRINITY'S BAPTISM!!! More on that in a bit.
FRIENDS:
We stopped by and got to visit with the H. family (I'm not to give out full names) and we got to talk for awhile with the wife/mother of the family Carolyn, a member of our ward. It was awesome getting to meet her and her family.
We had an awesome experience with Sukki this week. We finally got to read some of the Book of Mormon with her! I think she really enjoyed the messages in the verses.
The Northridge YSA elders joined us for a lesson with Jose. Elder Cameron and Elder Kao are the sweetest missionaries you will ever meet! It was awesome getting to work with them as we read the Book of Mormon with Jose. He has some awesome missionaries teaching him now and I know he will have a great time in the Northridge YSA ward.
We had an awesome member training with Sister Fornelli! She is a strong woman of faith and we love her willingness to help us with everything and with sharing the gospel. (I also got to talk to her about her daughter's theatre program!!! They are doing Sister Act this year and Little Shop of Horrors next year! TWO ALAN MENKENS IN A ROW. I got a little too excited tbh.)
An awesome dinner and member training with the R. family! We met with Rosa and her three kids, Jacquie, Anthony, and Christian. (Another theatre side note, Anthony is in his school play too so we spent a ton of time talking about theatre too and wow I didn't realize how much I miss it until I got to talk about theatre the whole day.) They are a powerful family. They bore testimony to us about the power of sharing the gospel through love and being an example.
Trinity had one more review-type lesson with us this week and then her baptism was on Saturday! The Spirit of God was definitely present as she made her first covenants with Heavenly Father. The next day at church she received the gift of the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. We are so happy for her.
We got to visit Leilani, Efren, and Sebastian and deliver some gifts to them! Efren told us he read about God in the Book of Mormon that week. Awesome!
We met a new friend, Lanee! She was referred to us by the sisters from the Hawaii visitor center and she is the best! WE gave her a Book of Mormon and got to talk with her a little bit about it and our religion. She is so sweet and so excited to learn!
This week something very special is coming up. We have general conference, an awesome opportunity twice a year to hear the words of God's representatives on the earth! I am so excited to hear the messages we will receive this week. In preparation for general conference, I want to invite you all to read a previous general conference talk by Tad R. Callister, "God's Compelling Witness: The Book of Mormon". It's about, to me, how Joseph Smith, the first prophet of this new and last dispensation, was just an ordinary man, but it was the power of God that made him a prophet and allowed him to translate the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith nor any other prophet would ever say it was their own knowledge or talent that allowed them to preach as they did/do. It is all a sacred power and calling from Heavenly Father.
With that said, I would also like to make a statement regarding President Russell M. Nelson, our current prophet. Since President Nelson was called to be the prophet just over a year ago, many changes have been made in Church policy that are beautiful and exciting. Many people refer to them as "President Nelson's changes". President Nelson is an absolutely wonderful man, and a very well-educated man at that. However, I testify to you all that they are in fact no President Nelson's changes. No mere mortal man could come up with anything that effective and powerful. They are God's changes, and President Nelson, as God's prophet upon the earth today, delivers them to us for Heavenly Father. I love and sustain President Nelson. I know he was perfectly called to be the one to deliver these changes and words to us and has the energy, personality, and experience Heavenly Father wanted his words to be delivered with. When President Nelson speaks as a prophet, he speaks on behalf of God. These changes were not his own idea, they were revealed to him from Heavenly Father and given to us at the time we were ready for them. And they are beautiful.
I know that God has not abandoned us and truly provides living prophets. He also provided the Book of Mormon, containing the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was translated by the first living prophet of the last dispensation, Joseph Smith. If the Book of Mormon is true, then the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. It is all or nothing.
President Ezra Taft Benson, another prophet of God, said, "...All objections, whether they be on abortion, plural marriage, seventh-day worship, etc., basically hinge on whether Joseph Smith and his successors were and are prophets of God receiving divine revelation....
"...The only problem the objector has to resolve for himself is whether the Book of Mormon is true. For if the Book of Mormon is true, then Jesus is the Christ, Joseph Smith was his prophet, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, and it is being led today by a prophet receiving revelation."
We should keep that in mind this weekend as we hear the messages of God. Preach My Gospel says on page 115, "For example, sincere people might object to what you have taught about the Word of Wisdom. Help them see that their real question is whether Joseph Smith was speaking as God's prophet when this commandment was renewed in this dispensation." If Joseph Smith had just been a man saying not to use tobacco and other substances, that would have been different. But he was actually a prophet of God telling us Heavenly Father's will. That's why it matters. And we can know he was a prophet by reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know of its truth.
Similarly, if the prophets and apostles of today say things that confuse or trouble us, the real question is whether or not these people are speaking as representatives receiving revelation from our Father in Heaven. If they are not representatives of God, then what they say doesn't matter. But I testify to you that they are. They speak for Heavenly Father and deliver His will to us. Because that is true, which we can know by praying about and acting on their words, then what they say matters and we must follow what they say.
Jesus is the Christ, God sends us living prophets today, and that is all true because the Book of Mormon is true. You can all come to know this by following the promise in Moroni 10:3-5:
"Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."
Thanks and much love!
--Sister Day
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