Come Unto Christ

Another transfer has somehow come and gone. We had no clue what to expect but miracles do happen because sister Peck and I stayed together to tear it up in coos bay for another transfer! We are so pumped to continue to get work done here, and I know something big is coming in these next 6 weeks! Even in this last week a much goodness has happened. 

Last Tuesday we were trying to find a member to come with us to a lesson with M. and we finally found someone, but the spirit promoted us to ask a different member, so trusting in that promoting we asked sister Pedersen to come with us and luckily on short notice she was able to come. We had our lesson at the coos bay library. We saw M. sitting at a table near the back so we went to sit with him, and after we said the opening prayer he got pretty serious and told us that he wanted to make sure this was going to be something he would stick with his entire life. He wanted to be able to be committed to the gospel his entire life, and then he told us that he was scared that if he came to know the truth and know his worth that he become too comfortable with himself and stop becoming who he wants to do. In that moment we were at a loss for words. I had no clue what to say, and then sister Pedersen without hesitation started to tell him that understanding who we are helps us to want to become better. It's that worth that drives us to accomplish the things we want to. She gave an example of how she wants to always strive to become a better mom, and she had certain goals for herself, but knows that god has even more goals for her to become better. He pushes us to be our best. And M.'s attitude changed. He said is made sense and then sister Peck chimed in and told him how this gospel has helped to push her to do better every day. We were planning on teaching him the plan of salvation, but when it came to it the spirit prompted us to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Luckily we had just role played this lesson that morning for training, and this was sister Pecks first time teaching this lesson. We talked a lot about faith and read the scripture Alma 32:21 which talks about how faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things, and then it talks about how it is to have hope. To have "hope for things which are not seen, which are true." I love this scripture a lot because hope to me is to see the bright side to all things. So we explained to him that he can have faith and hope that through Christ he will accomplish the tasks that he needs to do to help his situation. This lesson was 100% guided by the spirit. And it was just what M. needed to hear. Everything that we went on to talk about revolved around helping him in his situation and we could all really feel of gods love for him. I'm so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost in my life because without him we wouldn't have been able to teach M. 

Later on Tuesday we had to go on splits with two members because we had two lessons at the same time. I was with sister shank teaching another M. and sister Peck went with sister Mathias to teach V. My lesson was pretty good. We were only able to talk for about 30 minutes but in that time we were able to teach about the priesthood and invited him to be baptized. He said he would in time. Sister Pecks lesson seemed to go well with V. She came to church on Sunday and told sister Peck that she felt good when she was there and that she needed to make a change this winter or else it wasn't going to happen. I hope she sticks with that commitment to herself and makes a plan! 

Wednesday we went to Eugene for a "special meeting" with the northern half of our mission. Sister Russell and President Russell taught us about the doctrine of Christ. So faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We learned how to make sure we teach it to the fullest and also be living it as well. We talked about how we prepare ourselves for the sacrament and it really made me think about how I prepare. I like to read the hymns during the passing of the bread and water to feel closer to my savior, but Then I asked myself "what do I do to prepare" so before i even get there what am I doing to prepare? I am going to work on focusing on this more as I continue each Sunday. It was mostly about living a virtuous life and ways that we can better avoid satans temptations. It was all about self mastery and learning how to control our minds and actions. We are in control of what we do and think and so when we learn to master that we can accomplish even better things than we know. It was really well done and you could feel president Russell's love for each of us as he taught. I also got to see sister Sowter before she leaves to England :( 

On Friday we had a zone training meeting and President and Sister Russell came. It was such a spiritual meeting and it seemed like mostly everything we learned was for us. A lot of it was about how we can show our love for Jesus Christ. We made commitments with ourselves on how to better show him our love. I am going to focus on loving the people I meet more. We also talked about having more charity and love for these people and how we can't teach unless we first show love. Then sister Peck, me, elder kellerstrass, and elder Deppe sang "come unto Christ" in front of everyone for a musical number. I was way nervous, but we did it and I love this song. It has a lot of beauty behind it. 

On Saturday night sister Dobbs and I were able to Skype a family we found in grants pass. A and B were baptized. A. was a referral from a woman who was bed bound in grants pass. We showed up to her house on day and met her outside then we helped her move. You might remember this story from a couple months ago, but it has a huge place in my heart and so do they. When we got on B.

said "it was you two who started it all. Thank you" then we started to cry. The hard times, the times when you just want to give up but don't are all worth, the times when you feel like you're not getting through to anymore is all worth it because of moments like that.

I hope you all have a great Week! I love you all!