My district, after zone meeting: Sisters Carling, Wahlen, Bonner, and me, and Elders Graham and Armacost
Hey y'all!
This week has been absolutely fabulous. :D Have I ever said
how much I love being a missionary? Because I do. :) I LOVE BEING A
MISSIONARY!!!
Well, to be honest, the whole week wasn't that great. We did a
lot of tracting, and tracting isn't that bad, just not the best. I'd
rather be teaching, you know? But the really awesome parts of the week
completely drowned out the not so good parts of the week. That's the
great part about life - yeah, hard times are, well, hard. But when you
look back, all you really remember are the good times. :)
Anyway, like I said, we did a lot of tracting this week. And
we happened to tract into a less active who isn't on our records. Her
name is Ninoska, and she joined the church when she was 19, married a member,
and then went through a divorce and hasn't been to church since. But when
we were talking to her, she only had good things to say about the church.
And she still believes it's true. But she won't set foot in a
church building... :/ But she said we're welcome anytime, so we'll start
visiting her more regularly, and hopefully her heart will be softened and
she'll want to come back.
Later this week we had an AMAZING Zone Meeting. Seriously -
the best ever. The Spirit was SO strong and everyone was participating
and we were all learning and growing together. It was awesome. We
talked about agency, and how it affects us as missionaries - our agency, and
the agency of those we interact with. Obviously, we can't control how
other people use their agency, so we focused more on what we should do with
ours. We talked about how we need to choose to be humble, because it is
when we are humble that the Lord can make something better out of us. Of
course Ether 12:27 was brought up, and we talked about how our weaknesses can
become strengths when we are humble. One sister said something that
really stuck with me. Sometimes we are humble, and we see our weaknesses,
and we recognize them and turn to the Lord. And we think that they should
be immediately fixed. Well, it doesn't work like that - it says in the
scripture that our weaknesses will become strengths, not that our
weaknesses will be replaced with strengths. Oftentimes, we
will recognize our strengths and turn to the Lord, and he will help us see how
we can use our "weaknesses" to help others. Another Sister
talked about how it seems like our weaknesses are highlighted in bright colors
as missionaries. It doesn't really make sense - we're coming closer to
the Lord, so shouldn't our weaknesses be turning into strengths? She
explained that when we are coming closer to the Lord, we are becoming more and
more perfect - going through the last stages of the refiner's fire. We
can see more of our weaknesses, because we are coming out of darkness (where
it's harder to see everything) and coming towards the "Light of the
world". When we come closer to Christ, he lets us see more of our
weaknesses so we can turn to Him and He can help us change.
We also talked about how EXTREMELY important it is for us to open
our mouths and talk to everyone. If we don't talk to people, we are
denying them the chance of hearing about the restored gospel. It is SO
important that we use our agency so we can give other people a chance to use
theirs - hopefully to choose to listen to our message.
At the end of every Zone Meeting we do a role play where we practice
certain aspects of missionary work - usually in a teaching setting. This
role play we were to teach someone a brief message, and then ask for referrals.
In our area, Sister Bonner and I have been issuing individual pass-along
card challenges - the challenge to give them out within a week. And we've
been trying to remember to follow up with everyone once their week is up.
We have one family in the ward that we gave the challenge to about a
month ago, and have followed up every week since, and they still hadn't given a
pass along card out... so we decided to role play in that scenario, the sisters
that we were practicing with were the family, and we were "teaching"
them. We do role plays so we can receive revelation and get ideas for our
area, but I think this was the first time that I've really ever had such a
clear idea come into my head - We used Moroni 10:3-5, and had a mini testimony
meeting where we asked them to share their experiences with Moroni's promise.
And then we switched it to missionary work - how blessed we are to have
the gospel and everything that it gives us - the Book of Mormon, the Holy
Ghost, the Priesthood, a living prophet, continuing revelation... the list
could go on and on. And if these things make us so happy, shouldn't we
have a burning desire to share it with everyone we meet? Don't they deserve
to be as happy as we are? The role play went well, and then later in the
week we actually had the lesson with the family - had a mini testimony meeting,
and role played with them (a suggestion that one of the sisters we practiced
with had given us) so they could practice giving out their pass-along cards. :)
It went really well, and the spirit was so strong, and I really hope that
they'll give out their cards this week so we can quit nagging them about it. ;)
And so other people can be blessed, of course. :)
I told y'all about Santana, right? He was the guy that the
Spirit made sure we had the chance to talk to him. :) We've been trying
to get in contact with him again, but haven't been able to. Until
Saturday. We tried by in the evening, because he told us nights work
best, but he wasn't home. We talked to his wife for a bit, and she said
she would tell him that we had stopped by. So we went on our way, trying
to contact other people in the neighborhood. About 20 minutes later, we
got a call from Santana, and he told us that tonight was a really good night
and that we should come over. So we went, and ended up having an awesome
lesson with him and his whole family - he and his wife have two kids, a 16 year
old son and a 4 year old daughter. He and his wife hadn't been to church
since they've been married - for over 17 years now. But they're looking
at maybe trying to start again. We had an awesome discussion with them,
and invited them to church. They didn't come... this time. We'll
keep visiting them and teaching them more. They're an awesome family, and
I'm excited to keep teaching them!
Now for the big news of the week - The Memorial Springs ward is
being split! Well, they're re-drawing the boundaries for us and 3 other
wards in the area and creating a new ward! It will be weird to see how
they split it. And I thought the area was already small... guess it's
only getting smaller! But that's a good thing. :) There have been
rumors flying about a ward split coming up since before I got here - well now
it's finally happening. I wouldn't be surprised if they create a new
stake in Houston before I leave the mission - this will be the 2nd ward split
in the Klein Stake in 2 months! The church is only growing - it's
awesome. :)
And 2nd big news - I'm staying in Memorial Springs!!! I am SO happy
- I LOVE it here! Unfortunately, my companion is leaving me... she's only
been here for two transfers, but I guess she's needed somewhere else.
I'll miss her, but I'm also excited to meet my new companion. :) If
there's one thing I've learned on my mission (and if I had a dime for every time
I've said that phrase with a different ending... anyway...) If there's one
thing I've learned on my mission it is that change is good. Change is how
we really grow. And while it's nice to be comfortable, we need to be
moving forward if we want to really progress and be better - not just standing
still. So Sister Bonner and I are looking forward to the opportunity to grow.
:)
I love ya'll so much! Thanks for the love and support! I hope
y'all have a great week! :)
Sister Ririe
D&C 64:25
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