Ya'll outdid yourself this week! No but really. I got 3 packages and quite a few letters! I loved it all and I definitely am not starving anymore :) I will write you back. Promise.
This has been a great week, despite some setbacks. I really feel like my happiness and joy in the work grows each and every week, and when before I saw my members as a "duty" that now I see them as people that I love and yearn to help and serve!
I want you all to know the importance of member missionary work, I'm not going to preach to you or anything, but honestly I think Heavenly Father (more than anything else) is preparing me to share the gospel for the rest of my life. I know all of you do things everyday, and I am so proud of all of you. Every "mormon" word that you pop into a casual conversation, every time you write a blog post on your source of strength, when you tell people about yourself and always include the gospel. I really love the spirit of missionary work in these YSA wards and am so proud of these students that live their lives in such a way that they are able to talk about Relief Society and Family Home Evening to their friends as a casual reference to their lives. I know that by living our religion boldly and genuinely, that people will know where to turn when they have questions, and the "myths" of mormonism can be resolved one faithful Saint at a time.
I love our wards! They have such a spirit of missionary work but we know that they have even more potential! We have been coming up with small ideas to help them.
Last sunday a Ward Missionary helped us and announced a missionary moment. She stood up and asked who in relief society would be willing to find a missionary moment during that week and share it with the class the next sunday. I was shocked with the amount of hands that popped up, willing to find one this week!
Yesterday the girl that had volunteered stood up and told the Relief Society how she was able to share the gospel to her own sister who had fallen away a few years past and that had been unwilling to hear about anything religious. She had been praying for a missionary experience since she accepted the challenged and she said something like this: "The Lord presented me with an opportunity to share the gospel with my sister. Her baby has been very sick, and she has been to the doctor multiple times without an answer or solution. She asked me if I would pray for her baby. I told her absolutely! It came completely out of the blue! She hadn't mentioned anything religious to me for a very long time. But because the Lord had provided me with this opportunity, I asked her if she had asked our father for a blessing. She said she hadn't thought about that, but that she would." She continued that her sister's baby was given a blessing, that it was a beautiful experience, and that she was blessed with peace. Her sister called to tell her about what had happened, she was so glad that the conversation about the gospel had started.
She said, "Because of that door opening, I asked her if she would accept a Book of Mormon, and she said that she would like that. I wrote my testimony in it and sent it to her. I just want to thank you for asking me to find an opportunity this last week, because I was praying and asking for one, the Lord blessed me with an opportunity to bless my Sister's life, and my testimony of missionary work has really grown. "
It was amazing. We gave the ward missionary M&M candies with a paper "Missionary Moment" taped on for the girl that shared. She loved the idea and it really was so cute to see their enthusiasm and happiness of our care and effort towards their ward.
We have really been striving to work with our YSA wards in an effective way - working around their very busy schedules and their personality as a young ward. I would love any ideas that you have about the best way to work with young people and how we can help them spread the gospel. They love unique ideas and fun activities. We were praised for our marshmallow spaghetti towers that we had them build at the BU FHE on monday.
I ponder about how to help these students all the time - especially because we are around their same age, women, and inviting them to change. We only meet with the women, and we have certain struggles of how to motivate them as we are not two cute young men wanting to meet with them. :) I think of how I would have reacted at BYU, and realize many times that these girls are just like I was. I feel guilty about my apathetic nature when it came to missionary work.
I love all of you and I pray for you! Keep up the GREAT work and know that the Lord needs you wherever you are!
They have Dunkin Donuts EVERYWHERE. This city really does run on Dunkin, I feel like you can't walk more than 4 blocks without seeing one, as my father would say, "You can hardly swing a dead cat without hitting one!"
The roads are SO NARROW. They are insane. I feel like there isn't enough room for two cars. The other day we got splashed so badly from a car that zipped by us in the rain. We walked into the church soaking and the Elders said we got "hobo-splashed."
Also the water that comes out of the tap is practically at boiling temperature 3 seconds it comes out. Random. I know.
Love you all,
sister HRP
and YAY! We have a few pictures! (I'll have to ask her what specific captions to put on each of these, but this is what it looks like:
 |
| Cute companions! |
 |
| Temple day! |
 |
| Selfie Sunday? |
No comments:
Post a Comment