Happy Easter!
I hope you had a good Easter. When you get a chance, go to mormon.org/easter and you can see people's testimonies of Jesus Christ and add your own!
Well, we found out Deep Run will be closing to sisters. :(
We also discovered that closing an area is awful. People cry, want to know why you are leaving them, and threaten to kidnap you. (94 year old Sis. Sutton has told us she is going to kidnap us...lol. I love her. She is a fantastic lady that is full of energy. I'd be darned if she doesn't have more energy than me!) So, if we go missing you'll have a good lead as to who has whisked us away.
We had a really awesome experience with Clara last week...and I can't remember if I wrote about it or not. So, I am going to write about it again. We were supposed to meet with Clara, but she had to cancel because she had a family event of some sort come up. She told us not to worry though because she had asked her sister if she could read the Book of Mormon with her. Her sister agreed and they read Alma 7 together. Clara then commenced to explain why her sister (Irma) needed the blessings of the Atonement in her life and how the Atonement had blessed her life. Clara is such a good missionary. She is still reading away to her boyfriend. We also were able to hear about a neat miracle in that regard as well. We have been trying and trying and trying to get Clara to set up an appointment at the Consulate so that her boyfriend can get a picture ID and they can get a marriage license. However, every time Clara has tried to call and set up an appointment, no one would answer the phone. We invited to try again when we talked with her during the week. We said a prayer asking that a way would be provided for them to continue on their way towards getting married. Clara dropped everything she was doing, went and called, and someone answered! She and her boyfriend are planning on going to Raleigh on Wednesday to get that all squared away this week. Yay! We are so happy for her. It's the best feeling to see her grow. She is sharing the gospel with so many people. It's amazing! She told us about how she was talking to some people while she was at a friend's house and the topic of church came up. She had the opportunity to share with them about the church and it was really neat. Especially since Clara is "shy". Ha! Hardly so anymore.
We also met with Claudia and Sis. Anderson this week. Claudia is stuck. She wants to change, but is struggling to find the desire to put up the necessary collateral in order to make any progress. However, we rediscovered an amazing talk by E. Bednar before he was E. Bednar called, "In the Strength of the Lord" and it is my favorite talk ever. It is all about the Atonement and how there are two functions of the Atonement. The part that allows us to be forgiven and receive remission of sins and also the part that enables us to do hard things. It is a great talk. I would highly encourage you to read it. We want to share that with Claudia at some point in the near future. We were supposed to go hiking with her today, but she bailed. :( Hopefully we will be able to see her before we are gone from Deep Run. She is a super sweet lady. She and her family are getting ready to move back to Cali in July.
We had the best district meeting ever on Wednesday. We had a great discussion about the relationship between faith and agency. There is another really good talk by E. Bednar that talks about this. It is called, "Seek Learning By Faith." I would also encourage reading that talk. It is fantastic. Anyways, we talked about agency and read from 2 Nephi 2 and how we were given agency to help us develop our faith. When you destroy agency, you also destroy faith because those two priniciples are very much so intertwined. We learned about having faith to meet our expectations, and how humility is a prerequisite to faith.
Among other things, I was study the act of "becoming" this week and how there is a difference between being converted and having a testimony. Testimony can lead to conversion, but having a testimony alone is not enough. We need to become converted by sharing our testimony. I also have the question (that has yet to be answered) of how we can teach people so that what we teach becomes part of those we teach and not just something they do. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I'd love to hear!
Mmmm...what else...Oh! We had Sisters' Temple Day this past Friday. It was fantastic! The weather was great, the sisters are great, Pres. and Sis. Cotterell are great. I also got to see Sister Carman again! I love that woman. She told me to come back to Greenville. I told her she would need to put in a few words to Pres. Cotterell and God and then maybe it would happen. :] The temple was all wonderful. We had a very good session. A very full session too. I finally met the other new sister, Sis. Wilson. We have such great sisters in our mission. I sent some pictures...
We went to the mission home afterwards and had Hawaiian Haystacks. Those are so good! I love home food. Yum! We then had time to share our thoughts and testimonies of what we had learned from conference. It was really good. It was like getting my battery recharged.
Sunday was Happy Easter! We had a wonderful Sacrament meeting in Woodington. The talks were on repentance and how it pertains to the resurrection (see E. Chirstofferson's talk, "The Divine Gift of Repentance") and then a talk on the Atonement. I got to play the organ. I didn't even know what I was doing. She just told me the preset to use and we sang "I Know My Redeemer Lives." I guess it went okay...even if it was awful, the people singing made it all better. It is amazing how music can bring the spirit. While we were singing, you just knew that the words in that song were true. It was like hearing 265 people bear their testimony all at the same time. We had dinner with the Pates AND the Grays. I was very full. Very. Full. We were able to have a good lesson with the Pates' son who has been less active for quite some time. We talked about the Atonement and the blessings of the Atonement and how reading the Book of Mormon had strengthened us and invited him to read. He said he would and asked if we had an extra reading chart so that he could start reading. Hooray! Sometimes I wish I could stay in an area forever. Maybe not. It sounds nice right now, but probably not in the long run.
I am so thankful for the knowledge we have of our Savior and Redeemer. I don't know what I would do without that knowledge. I know that Atonement can make all things that seem unfair in life right. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I am thankful for the hope that He brings to our lives.
I hope you have a great week! Love you lots!
Love,
Sister J
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