Yay, Sister missionaries! With your own set I know you'll be seeing them a lot more :D do they have a lot of work going on? I was looking at our ward boundaries and it's actually a smaller area than I thought. Huh. But good for them! Sometimes, with all the stuff that I know now, I wish I could help them more. But Sis. Flinders said her husband was the new ward mission leader, so per his request I sent my two cents. Hopefully that'll do for now :)
Ah! Grilling! We've been having that pretty much all weekend. It's still not as good as Dad's, but it'll do. I'm glad you mentioned that picture! That's one of my fav's :3 d'you think you could send me a copy via email? Mine's a little whitewashed. :D I was thinking about this day a year ago, even just yesterday! It's crazy it's been a year already!! We went to the parade, came home, grill'd (the Smiths came over, didn't they?) and yes, I did get set apart on Mondaynight. Pres. Clark was late since he was working on his youth conference talk and spaced it. So we got ice cream before I was set apart, haha! ThenTuesday was our flight. I still remember Matt and Craig in the garage watching us leave, and Craig was in tears and Matt was being all stoic... haha. Then we flew off, got in late, stayed at Greg&Marlenes, and reported on Wednesday! And laughed at all the people crying in the park across from the MTC, bahaha. We're such sadists. *brick'd*
I heard about the hawks. I'm flailing a little bit, but thank goodness it's Monday! I'm sure I'll hear if they're booted! *flail* *dodges tomato*
Zone conference was soooo good! It was really neat, we actually talked a lot about repentance and how critical it is for us as missionaries, people who are learning about the gospel and members as a whole. An important point I thought about was how repentance is supposed to be a daily thing- it's possible and totally okay to have to repent about something more than once, just as long as you're sincere about it. If we say we're sorry and then go off to do it again, how sincere was it? So that was an important thing that I picked out from it. Also the fact that repentance is just a change of heart- if nothing's changing, you're doing something wrong. And we have to remember that the Atonement covers ALL THINGS- literally, everything! and as stated in D&C 88:33- "For what doth it profit a man if a gift is bestowed upon him, and he receive not the gift? Behold, he rejoices not in that which is given unto him, neither rejoices in him who is the giver of the gift." Repentance is a gift the Father has given to us, and He rejoices when we use it to be able to be better! That's the point of this mortal life- to learn and to grow. We don't have to feel sorry for everything all the time- it's already been paid for. Why not?
If you couldn't tell, it was awesome. Basically. :)
ALSO, d'you remember that sweet referral we told you about, like a month ago? His sister is a member in San Diego I think, and she texted and asked us to go see him. His name is Les and yeah, he's been coming to church every week since we met him :D but we've had a hard time meeting up with him until this week! and it was AWESOME! Holy cow I can't even begin to tell you!! We went over to the member's house that he's pretty much best friend's with, and we taught him about the Restoration, the priesthood, God's love, the whole bit. (When you see the Sisters next, you should ask them to give you a quick version of lesson 1. Or in that nifty PMG that Matt has now. Muhar!) Anyway, so we got to the end teaching him about the Book of Mormon and how to pray to know of it's truthfulness, and how that's the convincing evidence of the restoration, and he said he would! And- this is the thing with new missionaries, they get to basically extend all the commitments so they can be awesome- Sister Smith asked him to be baptized and he said YES! We set a date for him for June 22!! SO GREAT! So that's the goal! And before we ended he said, "And Mormons don't like the whole drinking and smoking thing, so I'll get right on quitting that." We nearly fell out of our chairs we were so excited :D :D SO prepared, SUCH a miracle!!
And then yesterday was awesome too... I was teaching the gospel principles lesson on repentance (hah?) and in the middle of the lesson he said, "I'm 61, and I feel like my whole life I've been like a ship out at sea- going in circles and not getting anywhere. But now there's the church in my life and I feel like it's a compass, giving me direction for my life." Aaaah! He's so AWESOME! :D *stoked*
SO, yeah. Also, there was an earthquake here last week! We didn't feel it tho cos we were driving at the time. Phooey. Kinda bummed about that.
In terms of that "busy Sunday" I was telling you about last week, we basically had another earthquake- figueratively, of course :) all the RS, YW and Primary callings got mixed up and reassigned. So that was an adventure haha.
how do I end up writing so much? meep.
I LOVE YOU ALL! Great things are happening- the Lord seems to be requiring more of us now than he did before, that's the conclusion I'm coming to. Hopefully we'll be steadfast enough to keep up :) Thanks always for your prayers and support! They mean everything!
LOVELOVELOVE,
Sister Nelson
p.s.- look what I did to my hair! no seriously- I did it :)
May 2013 |
May 2013 |