Week 58, 59...

Week 57 Denny Yourself of All Ungodliness 10/12/2020

 This week was literally the best and funnest week ever!!! I know I've probably said that a lot on my mission but seriously this week was SO GOOD! We had some weird mid cycles so Sister Hill went up to LA for a week and so me and Sister Romney got to be together again for this week. So #party. Sister Hill and I are going to be companions again starting Tuesday though!

We have been finding a lot of people to teach! Ah God is so good! There's something I've realized about missionary. When you are consecrated and you focus on loving the people and your companion, you are happiest and you seem to have the most success. But when you focus on the wrong things, forget to desire people's salvation and forget charity, it doesn't last, and you're not happy. So focus on people and charity. That's something I've learned.

2 experiences:

We found this lady who was from Taiwan (same lady I met at the farmer's market!) and she was so cute. She showed us her garden over video chat (so cute!) and this week we decided to teach her the Plan of Salvation. We decided to just keep it simple with explaining to her where we came from, why are we here, and where are we going. And we used 3 circles from a plan of Salvation. But then the spirit took over and we ended up teaching the whole plan of Salvation. I was so touched by her response afterwards. She said, "this feels familiar, so thank you for reminding me." She was also telling us that her sister was talking to her that morning about her purpose in life, so she said "I'm going to call my sister and tell her." Then we taught her how to pray and after that she prayed and she said "thank you so much! I've always seen people do it and wanted to pray but have never been taught how!" And she clapped her hands and was so happy. I love this cute lady!

Second experience. We taught one of our friends about the sacrament. The spirit was so strong. Okay I'm not sure what else I was about to say about this experience besides the spirit being strong. It was just really good. We were just really happy.

Spiritual thought: 

Deny yourselves of all ungodliness. Our mission president shared the scripture Moroni 10:32 which says, "32 Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God."

When we are able to deny ourselves or all ungodliness, when we are willing to obey His commandments exactly, follow His prophets, develop the Christlike attributes necessary, deny ourselves of pride and develop humility, work on patience in our circumstances, etc. Then will we have the grace of God. Then can we use Christ's Atonement to become better. Both me and Sister Romney loved that, it became something we focused hard on this week. And as we aligned ourselves more with Christ, we felt Him help us. We felt the spirit guide us. I love this work so much, it is ah just the best! 

Week 56 Made for October 10/5/2020

 The Cubs was a baseball team that hadn't done very well for a long time (if someone can find the year and how long I will personally write you a thank you letter for real. Haha I asked my mom to search on Google but no such luck). October was the playoffs, so they coined the phrase "Made for October." This was their month. And that year, they made it to the playoffs. Then they won the world series for the first time in a long time. They were "Made for October." I don't know the first thing about baseball, but our district leader told us this story in district council and I loved it so much.

Our zone has been struggling to find people to teach and struggling to set baptismal dates. So we started "Made for October." This was our month. Our month to start the rest of the months. Our month to find and set dates. Our month to change our mindset, exercise our faith, and put in massive effort. So in the area I'm serving in, we decided to make some plans. Every day, we think, "Who can we find today?" And make plans for that. We made a calendar for October, and each day we write down who we find that day. Although we can't control the outcomes, we can control what we do. We can control if we asked for referrals from everyone. We can control how frequently we follow up on people. We can control how hard we work and how dedicated we are. The miracles followed. This week we were blessed to find 3 new people to teach which is a start!

Some sweet experiences:

As many of you probably already know, missionaries have local pages that help us find people online. There was a girl from Taiwan who moved here recently that came across this page. She wanted to find a church to attend and so we got in contact with her. We called her on the phone and taught her how to pray. She's familiar with Christianity, so we asked her to offer the prayer. She offered one of the most tender prayers I've ever heard. She was tearing up and was asking God to please guide her and direct her. That she wanted to find the way. We then invited her to general conference and she wanted to watch! After conference, we talked to her about it and she really loved the talk about angels. And then we taught her about the Restoration. We introduced her to the Book of Mormon, and she said she already had one! One of her friends (who was not a member) was given the Book of Mormon by some of her friends who are members who then gave it to her! We invited her to read the introduction, and we'll talk about it next time!

Another lady we found this week was the mother in law of a friend that we taught before. We came by one day and introduced the Book of Mormon. She accepted and wanted us to come by and read it to her!! She has a hard time reading, but she wants to learn. 

Also, every day when we go running, we see this lady who walks her 2 dogs. We've talked to her before and she says she has her own religion. She doesn't speak very much english, but Saturday morning, we saw her and starting inviting her to conference. She didn't understand so she pulled out her Google translate. We typed into her keyboard what we wanted to invite her to, and she said all, "ok, where can I see it?" So we typed the address for her. And then we were just trying to invite everyone we saw this last week to see it. Just gotta go send it. 

Other sweet things that happened this week:

We met this lady in the laundry room, spoke to her in our broke  spanish, and got her phone number and now the spanish sisters are teaching her! During the Saturday morning session of conference, we heard the door bell ring. We opened it to see this sweet lady and her husband! She had brought us empanadas she made!! Let me tell you, these empanadas are far above any empanadas I've ever eaten. This lady knows how to cook. 

THEN this week was 中秋節 (midautumn festival) and every year we will eat 月餅 (moon cakes). I was talking to my mom last week and she was saying how this 中秋節 I'll have to spend it without 月餅。 But guess what mom???? This friend called us on night (the other friend we made this week) and was like, "我有月饼给你们，我们可以在那里见面呢?"  (Basically he had just bought us moon cakes and was like how can I give the them to you?) Ah my day was made. How cute!! 

Lastly, general conference! I hope everyone was listening to the spirit as they wrote down impressions. 2 of my favorite talks were by Sister Craig and Elder Renlund. Love mercy and see people deeply. We also had a friend who watched conference and absolutely LOVED it. He was the one who committed to live the Word of Wisdom last week. I would love to hear all of y'alls thoughts from general conference!! Have a good week!

Also, side note, what's the weather like for all of you in Utah? Haha it's still hot here. I didn't not expect that.