Thursday, December 17, 2020

Adventures in the CLAM: Keeping the Family Together (June 29, 2020-July 5, 2020)


 Hello one and all!
LA LOVE:
We had a breakthrough in our cute little family of missionaries in the Casa de Oro apartments. One day we get a knock on the door. When we open the door no one is there, just a walkie talkie. A few minutes later, we hear the elders say, "Sister Nault?" Sister Nault's mom sent us walkie talkies so we can talk in our little family. It's been a pretty good time. And, when Elder Judd was at the elders' apartment for lunch with the boys (their words, not mine), he was disgusted to find out that we had had walkie talkies for multiple days and didn't have code names yet. So for those of you wondering, yes, we do have code names. Mine is Mrs. Potts.
I love that I've gotten to the point in my relationship with the Palos Verdes zone missionaries where Sister Allred can have the SIM card and not have any contacts saved in her phone, ask who wrote the text, read the message to me, and before I can check the number I say, "Probably Elder Judd."
EVENTS OF THE WEEK:
The world's craziest p-day of running errands.
We had a wonderful district council this week about making goals and organizing Sabbath worship experiences. I love my district family.
I hit sixteen months on the mission! For those of you that were wondering, that is a terrifying number. My STL's wished me a happy sixteen months though, and it meant the actual world to me. I spend many of my days thinking about how much I don't want to leave the mission. I have the most amazing life right now.
We had the best Independence Day ever! We had a special 4th of July makeup look for Makeup with the Sisters, and then we had a family dinner together as an apartment! Elder Mangum and Elder Breinholt live in the apartment right below Sister Nault and Sister Torkornoo, so we went to the sisters' apartment and we all went out and sat on our balconies and ate dinner together! Everyone made food so we dropped food off for each other before dinner and just had a great time together as a family. I love my little team of missionaries.
Sister Allred and I did a live Book of Mormon study on Facebook! We read Alma 24, one of my favorite scripture chapters. It is one of the most beautiful stories of faith, conversion, and sacrifice taht I have ever head. I simply adore it. You can still check it out on my page.
We had a special Independence Day fireside in the mission! It was beautiful! I had the privilege of participating in singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" with a few other missionaries! And let me just say we had a good time making that video... but that's a story for another time.
FRIENDS:
We had a lesson about faith with Cathryn! She is thriving post-baptism and so eager to serve. She made an incredible note about how when she obeys the laws of God, it grows her faith.
The WORLD'S LARGEST MIRACLE happened with Craig this week. First of all we taught him about tithing and talked about the beautiful doctrines and purposes behind this divine law! He really loved it! Later in the week we were thinking about him and wondering what we could do to help him. We really wanted Craig to grow in faith and humility. So we decided to say a prayer of faith. I won't go into the details of the prayer right now, but I felt the Spirit strongly urging me to use very specific words in the prayer. It felt crazy, but I did it. The long story short of the prayer is we asked for something to happen that would shake him enough to grow his faith tremendously. Again, not going to go into the details, but in our next lesson he said he had had a really bad experienced that really humbled him and opened his eyes. AND HE USED ALMOST THE EXACT SAME WORDS I USED IN MY PRAYER. It was amazing, and we prayed right after the lesson and thanked God for answering our prayer. Craig's heart has softened tremendously. We are so happy for his process in conversion. Things are going great and Craig himself said he needs to change a lot of things about his life.
We met with Leticia! She referred herself to us awhile ago and is interested in developing a relationship with God!
We started teaching Beverly the Restoration this week! We have been wanting to do that for a long time and it has already proved to be amazing. There are so many miracles lined up here. We can't wait to finish the lesson and see what she thinks.
We had a lesson with a new friend, Jan! He has a very strong faith and shared his convictions with us. We taught a little bit about prophets, dispensations, and the priesthood. He told us where he lived nad he lives in the Downtown/Filipinotown area. Wilshire! When I tell you I was overjoyed to hear that. I can see the exact place he's talking about clear as day in my mind. I miss it every day. So we have been working with one of my old friends from Wilshire to pass him off to his missionaries and it has been the greatest joy to work in Wilshire again even in this small way.
We talked about the character of God with Raquel this week! A common note that came up in our discussion was how He is loving and always is showing us the right way. Raquel is so amazing and I love her.
Tomm is doing so amazing! We dropped a Book of Mormon off for him at his house and we talked a little more about what it is this week. The lesson covered a WIDE variety of topics but was SO amazing. Tomm is really starting to understand the Savior's sacrifice for us, and is understanding the steps we need to take to accept him. We also talked about what it means to be clean enough to enter into God's presence and the role Jesus Christ plays in that.
To close, I wanted to say that we have sacrament meeting together every week as a district, and I sit there and weep every single time, but for a different reason every week, so I wanted to share my specific reason this week. My companion has health issues that make it difficult for her to take the sacrament, so we have to take special precautions to make sure it is safe for her. This week my district leader and companion used gluten-free bread; broken, blessed, and passed in a plastic bag; carefully washed the tray that the plastic bag sat on; and still asked her if she wanted to use her own Corn Chex that she brought just in case. I was overwhelmed by the love that my fellow laborers had for  my companion (because listen everyone your companion is your entire world), I couldn't help but cry. There is nothing like the love missionaries have for each other. We are saving the world together, serving Christ together, seeing everyone (including ourselves) for who they truly are for the first time together. As Addison Pratt so accurately wrote about his own mission: "I have friends here that nothing but the bonds of the everlasting gospel could have created." In short, we are learning to love like Christ together.
It reminds me of a scripture, 1 John 4:7-9:
"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him."
Our Heavenly Father and His Son set the perfect example of love for us. So beloved, let us love one another, for then we will know everyone, including our loving God, for who they truly are.
Thanks and much love!
--Sister Day

No comments:

Post a Comment