Hello one and all!
(The above title is paraphrased from a Phineas and Ferb song. The actual lyric uses the word "lies", but whenever I sing the song I replace it with the word "moms", just because it is so true.)
LA LOVE:
My district leader, Elder Platt, and I have started a new tradition during our follow-up calls. We have a poetry hour together where we share our poems with each other because we both like writing stuff. It's been a pretty good time so far and I took some time this week to gather up all the finished poems I have written on my mission so I can be prepared for the next poetry hour.
The Redondo 2nd ward put on a special Mothers Day virtual church service this week, and Sister John and I were asked to do a musical number! We sang "Love at Home" for the ward. We didn't get to see it, but a few people texted us after and said they enjoyed it, so it seems it was a success!
EVENTS OF THE WEEK:
I hit fourteen months! The mission is flying by. I'm shocked at how much time has passed and even more at how little time I have left. What shocks me even more is how much I've seen myself grow. When people get home from their missions they talk about how unshakeable their testimony is and how much undying love and commitment they have for missionary work, and to be fair I have always had those things, but not on the level people described, and I wondered if I would ever become the person I was supposed to be, because even well over halfway I still felt like I had so far to go. Now I feel like I am really getting there. Never give up, folks.
On p-day, now that we are allowed to hang out in our clusters, we had breakfast together as sisters! It was so fun just getting to spend time together! I sure love those ladies.
We had a wonderful zone conference this week! We are seeing even more great opportunities of how to find people to teach using technology. And guess what--missionary is not going to go back to the previous normal when this is all over. We are going to do a lot more combined online and live teaching than we did previously. This pandemic has been a huge blessing in that we have learned how to do missionary work in a new and more effective way. There is a lot more coming in the future. I can't wait to tell you all about it.
District council was wonderful. We learned how to love our friends more, and it was cool to gain some insights on that topic.
This week Sister John and I got a shocking and exciting phone call. Keep in mind that this was the same day that I found out that Southern University, my school, will be opening exactly one week after I get home--which means I will be going back to school after my mission, something I wasn't planning on. So while this news was exciting, I was definitely already in a lot of shock that morning because my immediate future post-mission now looked very different. so if that wasn't enough, then, just as we were starting weekly planning, Sister John got added to a group on Facebook Messenger by President Cordon, with him and all the Nauvoo sisters from our mission. We were freaking out. President started a call. Sister John was scared to answer but I was so excited. When she answered, President and Hermana greeted us. He said he had bad news. He said we were going to miss her, because we were losing her! She and the sisters from Nauvoo will be going back on the eighteenth of May. That was a lot sooner than we expected! So we were definitely in a ton of shock that day. Sister John wasn't sure how she felt. She loves Nauvoo, but of course she will miss LA. Sister John is a great missionary and I love her a lot, but I am happy for her. I've watched Sister John give presentations about Church history, and it is incredible. As President told her and the other sisters, she is needed there. We were definitely losing our minds out of shock that day though.
Sister John and I got invited to zone leadership council this week to help plan some Come and See events for the zone! We have been leading a lot of the planning with the help of the zone leaders and it's been super fun!
We had a great mission prep class this week! The turnout is increasing and we are having a super fun time. We talked a lot about charity and love, asking questions, and listening. We made some super tricky roleplays for the class, but the kids did great! A truly marvelous generation of young missionaries is being raised up. I am so impressed by them.
What a wonderful Mothers day we had! Wow I could go on forever about how much I love women and how much I love moms and how much I love Mothers Day, but I'm really tired and the words definitely would not come to me even if I tried. I got to talk to my mom which was of course awesome. And we had the great opportunity to call some of our favorite local moms in the ward and sing "Love at Home" for them, the essence of motherhood. On our last friend, Shari, it felt a little different while we were singing it. She was crying and when we were done, she told us that was her grandmother's favorite song. She said as we sang in her mind she could clearly hear her grandmother's voice. It was the most beautiful thing. We knew she was singing with us and telling Shari she loved her.
For the virtual fireside this week, we had a special Mothers Day program! We watched "Behold Thy Mother" by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland (give that one a read) and a few moms from the CLAM were featured in a special presentation!
FRIENDS:
We had a Bible study with Andre! Let me tell ya Andre has a lot of faith. He has always turned to the Lord and his desires to do what is right is so impressive.
We taught the Ten Commandments hand signs to the W. family! They are such a fun bunch!
We talked about the Lord sustaining us during trials with Kelene! She is just so sweet! She has so much faith in the Lord.
We had a lesson about teaching and learning in the Church with Craig T. this week, and Bishop Anderson got to come! The next day, however, we got terrible news. Poor Craig said he couldn't do this anymore. We gave him a call and talked to him about it, but he is still bent on not being baptized. We honestly know that deep in his heart he knows that he should be baptized, but he just needs to accept it. So please pray for our friend that he may accept his salvation.
Our lesson with Cathryn was SO amazing this week. She is feeling pretty good about being baptized sometime soon. We talked a lot in this lesson about opposition and how we can take our challenges and turn them into strengths.
We talked bout faith in Jesus Christ and His Atoning sacrifice with Gisele. She has a lot of faith in Him and has relied on God when facing challenges.
Had a good Come, Follow Me study with John!
We introduced The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ to Mary this week, and we are going to send her one! We also talked a lot about what Jesus did while He was on earth. She loves how He healed and helped people.
Sister John and I led the lesson with Jessie and Mari this week. We talked about prophets! They loved it so much! The Spirit was definitely there, we are all learning a lot together, and they are becoming very dear friends of mine. I love them.
We had a great talk with Ariana about baptism this week! She told us the story of how she was baptized and her faith and receptiveness to the Spirit is really amazing.
We taught Judi and Sophia about the Ten Commandments hand signs this week! Ethan joined us later by saying the closing prayer.
We shared the story of the woman with the issue of blood with Beverly this week. She said that when we call and tell her stories from the Bible, it really keeps her going.
We did a Come, Follow Me study with Marian about standing up for what is right even when we stand alone!
Diana is so sweet and amazing. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation this week. She was so interested and had a lot of great questions! She had never heard of the three kingdoms of glory before so she was pretty fascinated by that. The next day she had a Sabbath worship experience with Ariana where Ariana told her her conversion story!
We taught the K. family, yep, you guessed it, the Ten Commandments hand signs. (It was the Come, Follow Me theme for this week.)
We were planning on doing a Bible study with our new friend Chris, but he only had the Book of Mormon with him so we did that instead! We read about Jesus Christ in Mosiah 14 (also a must-read--gotta love those Isaiah quotations). Chris has shown a lot of faith in the Lord throughout the years.
Sophia is amazing! We did a Come, Follow Me study with her. I am so impressed by how much she knows. She almost had me crying in our lesson because my purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ, so I have absolutely no idea what to do for her--she is already standing right next to Him. I'll invite her to stay next to Him I guess. We told her the story of Abinadi, who is a great example for us missionaries!
We had a great Sabbath worship experience with Monica and the Nakamoto family about the influence of mothers. It was really special, especially since this was Monica's first Mothers Day without her mother. We talked about the joy of seeing our loved ones again.
I love you all, but Christ loves you more. A common theme that i have talked about many times lately is that grace is not the absence of work and it is not earning our way to heaven; it is trying our best to show God that we WANT to be good, but no matter how good we are, we can never obtain perfection. That's okay, though--when we put our best foot forward, Christ fills us up. We don't need to be perfect, we just need to show that we care. Christ does it all for us.
Thanks and much love!
--Sister Day
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