Hey everyone!
This letter brought back so many memories. This was such a great area, such a great group of friends and missionaries, and such a wonderful time for amazing miracles. My faith grew so much there.
I mention a talk given at a general conference for my church at the end of this post. I seriously implore you, whoever you are, to give this one a read. This being the Christmas season, this is the perfect time to think of Jesus. Whether you believe He is the Son of God and the Savior of the world or not, I know that learning about Jesus Christ can bring a lot of peace to our hearts. He is such a good man. He's a radical. He stands for selfless love whether people deserve it or not. The reason that is so beautiful because I can't think of a single person that genuinely deserves love. We have all made vile mistakes and all hurt people. But we're all trying our best and we all want mercy. So when you think about it, none of us deserving love is the reason that all of us deserve it. Jesus was all about loving and helping people. I think there's a vile impression given in the world that God loves to punish and isn't very caring. As I've studied the scriptures, the exact opposite is apparent to me. When I read things like the Bible and the Book of Mormon, all I can see is a message of love, compassion, justice, and mercy. It is amazing. It shocks me how much God cares for us.
I keep thinking of the story of the woman caught in adultery. This woman had been caught in the very act of committing a sin. There was no denying that. People brought her to Jesus and told Him what had been done. The law required that the people throw stones at her. They asked Jesus what He thought of that.
Jesus told the people, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her." (John 8:7)
Everyone is guilty of something. Everyone has done something wrong. So when Jesus asked that, all the people condemning this woman left.
When they left, Jesus asked the woman where her accusers were. They were nowhere to be found. So Jesus told her to go on and sin no more. He told her that she was forgiven; in fact said that He, Christ the Lord, did not condemn her. He told her to move on and do better things with her life.
That's what Christ does. He cares for us, He loves us, He defends us, and He shows us how to become the people we genuinely want to be. He lifts us out of our rut.
Read the sermon linked at the end. Or even better, watch the video. It will change your life, no matter what you believe. There's something we can all learn about that level of love.
Enjoy!
LA LOVE:
Okay, so one of our friends called us one day. His best friend and her boyfriend were over and he really does not like this boyfriend. We talked to him for a little bit and let us just say that he is, to describe with a tame word and not go into too many details, fiendish. As we were saying our companionship prayer that night, we included these two children of God in our prayer. I felt very shockingly prompted by the Spirit to ask Heavenly Father to smite this man as He did Alma the Younger, who, before becoming the greatest prophet since Moses, was "the very vilest of sinners." (Mosiah 28:4) If you don't know the story of Alma, this man sought to destroy the church of God. His father (the high priest over the land), along with many others, prayed for a miracle to change his heart. One day Alma and his friends were visited by an angel and smitten, so overcome by the Spirit that they fell to the earth. Alma's friends recovered pretty quickly, but Alma was left in a spiritual coma in which he cannot move or speak for three days, all the while pondering the horrific nature of his sins and the fate of his soul, until he is saved by remembering the Savior Jesus Christ and changes his heart. I didn't expect to say that, but I felt strongly like I should pray for that, and when we follow the Spirit in prayers, great things happen. So I said it. The next day Sister Allred asked if I thought we would ever find out the results of our prayer of faith. I said probably not. Well, we were wrong. We called our friend that night and he told us that his prayer was answered--the man had left! He said his best friend and her boyfriend had gone to her parents' house for a minute, and when they were outside, the police were there! They arrested him and took him to jail. I literally jumped off the ground. I couldn't believe it. A mere few hours after our prayer of faith, it was answered, and we even got to find out what happened. It was a huge testament to me. The power of a prayer of faith is real.
We decided that a group of missionaries is called a "blessing" (similar to unicorns) as our district rolled up in an epic squad moment to a guy who was fixing his flat tire that had previously Bible bashed our sisters to offer help to him and show Christlike love, and if that's not the most missionary sentence you've ever heard, I don't know what is.
I just wanted to let you all know that Sister Allred has a favorite Dr. Doofenschmirtz quote and she has never seen Phineas and Ferb.
EVENTS OF THE WEEK:
It was our last dependent p-day of the week! Sister Nault and Sister Goodrich bought groceries for us one more week and then we were set free on Wednesday! We are COVID-free queens! Which featured us going outside for many adventures, including our sacrament meeting held in the courtyard of our church (no indoor meetings are currently allowed).
We hosted an English class where we practiced words in preparation for Haruka's baby!
We had a great district council this week where we focused on how we can find part-member families, and what will best help them. Sister Allred and I gave a short review of the conference talk that we read with our Preach My Gospel implementation calendar. More on that in a bit.
We had a great Bible storytime where we taught about Jesus feeding the five thousand!
A wonderful mission prep where we learned about leaving something behind. It was really cool to work with our elders and sisters and see everyone use their talents to teach mission prep this week.
I had my fateful My Plan interview this week. I literally had the whole district pray for me becuase I was super nervous haha. But it was honestly very wholesome and wonderful. It was a great reminder of how good my life is going to be, the great opportunities I have, the things I have to work on.
We had a great Makeup with the Sisters this week! A lot of my missionary friends came so it was a super fun time. Plus Sister Goodrich let me borrow a makeup palette of hers so we had a great time experimenting with new colors!
Sister Allred and I got to go to a virtual tour outside the Nauvoo temple hosted by my dear friend Sister John! It was beautiful. I miss that girl and I miss Nauvoo too.
FRIENDS:
We made a new friend, Nick! He is wonderful! He was a referral from a former friend a few months ago that never responded. We called him awhile ago and he finally answered! So we set an appointment with him and he is great! He has a beautiful faith in God. He's been through a lot and is hoping he will get an answer as to why these things have been happening. He is in need of more spiritual experiences, so we figured the solution was to tell him about the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and reading the Book of Mormon with him! He is loving it so far!
Kris is amazing. He said that when he prayed to feel God's love for hi that he felt it immediately, even before he started his prayer. We were blown away by Kris's testimony. We had a lesson about the Restoration and he fully believes it. He says he feels that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was blowing our mind because he was so prepared. He is very good at studying his scriptures every day. He had watched the film Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration the night before our lesson. He used words we had never mentioned to him before. He asked us to join him in a fast the next day. (We had never mentioned that to him either.) We love Kris; he is so awesome.
Tomm now understands the necessity for authority in baptism! He is looking forward to being baptized somebody! The main focus with Tomm this week was on how to hear the voice of the Lord featuring prophets, the Holy Ghost, and praying to know the truth.
As we promised by the Spirit of th Lord, Craig's desire to break the Word of Wisdom has been weakening! It is getting better all the time. He is so awesome. Please continue to pray for him. We talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon this week!
Some great stories that we shared with Beverly this week were of the man who was born blind and Jesus's final words to His apostles before He ascended into heaven!
We had a great lesson with Sophia where we just read our favorite scriptures with each other. Then later in the week we had a lesson with her and Khiara together! We dropped off some of my famous mac and cheese before the call so we had a little lunch together over video. We learned about the importance of the commandments.
We passed Raquel off to her local missionaries this week by teaching the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She is such a gem. She just knows the gospel is true. We are going to miss her, but she will do great with Elder Shaffer and Elder Hjorth--who are actually going to be my missionaries when I go home too!
To close, I just wanted to strongly invite you all to listen to the previously mentioned talk that our mission studied this week. Please check out "The Purifying Power of Gethsemane" by Bruce R. McConkie this week. Elder McConkie was terminally ill when this talk was given. He knew these would be his final words on earth as an apostle of the Lord. He knew the most important thing he could speak about was the atoning power of our Savior. Listen to the final words of a special witness of Jesus Christ who knew the time was not far distant that he would be with the Lord. I know the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ is the center of the gospel. It is the most important thing that has ever happened, the most important thing to understand. That is why I am here.
Thanks and much love!
--Sister Day
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