Dearest family,
It has been one crazy week! As you know, I was transferred to Nevada, Missouri. It is VERY different than Bella Vista! However, we are being blessed immensely for our service.
I got to Nevada on Wednesday. We cover about 15 different small towns. Most of them don't have a hundred people living in them. We mainly stay in three main cities: Nevada, Rich Hills (don't be fooled by the name :) ), and Butler. My experience here is going to be a very humbling one. I am amazed at the condition the people here live in. It helps me realize how truly blessed I have been to be born in the place that I was, to the family that I was. Every day I grow more and more grateful for the upbringing that I've had.
I'll tell you about a few of the people that we are teaching that I've met.
Sister Swarnes. She is a less active lady who is struggling to come back to church. This last week, we read "Mountains to Climb" by President Eyring. I absolutely love that talk! The word 'faith' is in it a lot of times and it just goes to show that we really need to have faith in order to get through the things that we are going through. Heavenly Father will never allow us to have a trial that we can't handle. If we think we can't handle it, then we aren't having enough faith in ourselves and in our Heavenly Father. Sometimes people think that the Atonement of Jesus Christ will take away all the pain that we have and will take away our trials. In reality, it helps us get through them. If it took all our trials away, we wouldn't learn anything and then we would have no purpose of being here on this earth. We are here to gain a body and gain knowledge. If we don't have hard times, we won't learn anything or gain any knowledge. The Atonement allows us to have a friend who knows EXACTLY what we are going through and He will help us get through anything we ask Him to help us with.
Since I've been transferred, I'm now in the Joplin Zone. As you should remember, last year, a massive tornado hit Joplin. Well, that's the Stake that I'm now serving in. We had a Zone Meeting on Friday in Carthage and it was really great! When I left Bella Vista, Sister Knutson told me that I'm going to the best Zone in the mission. I believe her. The missionaries in this Zone are willing to work really hard and do what we need to do in order to complete the Lord's work while we are on our missions. Every transfer they work on a different Christlike attribute as a zone. This transfer we're working on diligence and next transfer we've decided to work on obedience. We are striving to obey even the little miniscule detailed 'rules' we've been given as missionaries. Like President Uchtdorf likes to talk about, if a plane is one degree off in it's travels, it could end up somewhere completely different than it wanted to be. It is exactly the same with missionary work and in our everyday lives. By small and simple things are great things brought to pass. If we are disobeying the simplest commandments like reading our scriptures and saying our prayers, we could end up on a path that we don't want to be on and that we never intended on being on. BUT if we are reading our scriptures everyday and saying our prayers morning and night and always have a prayer in our hearts, we are going to become the people that our Father in Heaven wants us to become. He didn't give us commandments for nothing, they aren't to control what we do, they aren't there to stop us from having fun, they are there so that we can become like our Father in Heaven and qualify to live in His presence again. We should not think of commandments as a fence that is keeping us in, but rather as a guardrail that is there to keep us safe and from falling off the edge of the cliff.
So something pretty cool happened last Friday. We had received a referral from Mission Headquarters so we went to their house Friday afternoon. They weren't home. After the Ward Activity we went to another lady's house but she wasn't available right then so we got in the car and almost at the same time, Sister Boone and I said we should go try the referral again, INSPIRATION! :) So we went and tried again. But again, they weren't home. The Assistants to the President in a recent training told us that if we get a referral and they aren't home, we should tract around that house and see if anybody else is interested. So there was a house across the street that had lights on so I said to Sister Boone, "Let's go to that house." She agreed and we went over and knocked on the door. As a surprise to us, they let us in! A guy by the name of Tony lives there with a roommate and they have some challenges so they have 'staff' that is working there all the time. Tony was interested in what we had to say so he wanted to listen to us. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation and he thought it was great! We also gave him a Book of Mormon to start reading and he said he would do so. After we left and were walking to the car, Sister Boone said that earlier she thought that we should go to that house but we had somewhere else to go. It just goes to show that God works in mysterious ways! I love this work and am grateful more every day that I decided to come out on a mission!
On Saturday we taught another lady. Her name is Sis. Gilkey. Sister Boone and her companions have been trying to meet with her for a while. She was a referral from a member but they hadn't been able to teach her. So finally we were able to meet with her! Her husband passed away in May, so we taught her about the Plan of Salvation. While we were talking about death, she shared an experience that she had with her husband passing away. She said she was listening to he radio one day and she heard a voice through the radio. It may sound weird but she said it was either her husband's voice or Heavenly Father's voice. They said that her husband is in heaven and he is alright. They said that he goes into a room and learns things about God that he never knew before. Once she said that, my mind said, "Spirit world!!!" And that's what we were going to talk about next! We were able to tell her that her husband was in the spirit world learning about the things that we were teaching her about and that he would have an opportunity to be baptized! She thought that was the coolest thing and she thinks the Salt Lake Temple is beautiful! She also accepted a baptism invitation! We call it a "soft commit" where we ask them to be baptized when they come to know the truthfulness of the things we teach. She's great!
We also had Stake Conference this weekend and it was AMAZING! The adult session was held in the new Stake Center in Joplin. It hasn't been dedicated yet and they are still working on some touch ups on the outside but it was amazing!! I don't have a whole lot of time to say what I want to say but let me just highlight on the importance of taking notes in meetings like that. It is super important to take notes. We should go into church meetings expecting to receive revelation and if we don't write them down, we won't receive as much as Heavenly Father wants to give us.
I love this Gospel and am so grateful that I've been blessed to be apart of it!
Thanks for all the support you give to me!
Love you all!
See you soon then!
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