September 11, 2017 -- Apparently I am Getting Married
Hey everyone!
First of all, Hurricane Irma did not hit anywhere near me. In fact, the governor of Florida apparently came to Pensacola where I am in order to be safe. It is just a little windy here! The eastern half of my mission got hit pretty hard apparently, so if I was still in Madison I would have been in the cone of influence. Thankfully I'm here in Fox Run, so all is well. :)
There are so many amazing things happening here in the Fox Run area! We had a pretty funny experience a few days ago. We contacted a man named Bobby on the street and set an appointment with him to talk to him more about our message, and when we were driving to his house we realized that all of the houses we were passing were really nice. It honestly made both of us a little uncomfortable, because most of the work we do is in trailers or smaller homes. It made us both laugh to think about how much we have changed since coming out on our missions. There are some lessons you learn that you had no idea you would.
There is also an amazing family in our ward, the Price family, that are absolutely wonderful missionaries. Brother Price invited one of his work friends, Becky, to come to his home and do family history work with the missionaries and they stay for dinner and a message, and she agreed! It was a joy to meet her and she told us that she is interested in learning more about both our message as missionaries and the unique beliefs that we have about the eternal nature of families. She had never heard of a church before that believes that our families will still be our families when we pass from this life, and she loved the idea that she would still be able to be with her loved ones a million millennia from now. Hopefully we will be able to see her soon and teach her a little bit more.
I think this would be a good time to address the interested subject line of this email. As we were biking along a few days ago, we stopped and talked to a man who told us that he was actually a prophet and received personal revelation from God. We were very interested to hear about this, and so as we talked to him he told us that his prophecies were better than any message we could share with him because his message was directly from God. As we were leaving the conversation and began biking away, he called after us, "God wants you both to know that you will be married by the end of this year! Just saying!" I am not sure how that will work, seeing as how I am, in fact, a missionary and will be until November of next year. Sister Adams has a chance though, she is going home in December of this year. So if she meets a guy and marries him a week later, he could be correct. We highly doubt it though, and it lead to some very fun laughs and conversations about our future plans after our missions. For me that is a long time away. Sister Adams however... she needs to start thinking about all that. How strange!
We also had a surprise schedule change. We were going to have zone conference today, but because President wanted to be there with the missionaries on the east side of the mission as they go through the storm, it got changed to last Saturday. We got a call at about 9:30 Friday night that we would have to drive for an hour the next day to be in Alabama for the meeting. The next 30 minutes was a crazy flurry of calling every person that we had appointments with for the next day, because she had actually been planning on meeting with someone every hour of Saturday. Zone Conference was amazing and very spiritually uplifting. I got to see Sister Burnham again, who I haven't seen since my very first day in the mission field. It was so amazing to see her and to notice how much she has changed in the past few months. She was okay with my craziness and the vast amounts of times I wanted to hug her, and I loved seeing how strong she has become. She truly is an amazing missionary, and her testimony blew me off my feet. The rest of the conference really helped re-motivate myself to the work that we do each day, and helped me to feel the love God has for me and for everyone. That is why every missionary does what they do- love! When we got home, we had about 30 minutes of time to try to get done as much as we could and do all the work we could squeeze in there. We prayed to have God help us, and as we left our house I felt impressed to grab a handful of pass-along cards with our information written on them. As we went about seeing people, we contacted exactly the number of people as the number of cards I had grabbed. Miracles happen everyday in this work, and we got a whole bunch of new contacts out of it!
That night we were able to meet with an amazing young lady named Kat. She is a college-age girl who recently moved here to Pensacola from Chicago. She left behind all her friends and her family, and she is looking for a place that she can feel that peace and calm that only comes through Christ. She actually just showed up to church last Sunday and she asked US if we could meet with her, which is something that never happens! When we asked her about her decision to find out more about our church, she told us that she had a friend in high-school who was a member, and when she went looking for peace and happiness she remembered her friend and the joy she felt when she was with her. This was years ago, and Kat hasn't talked to that friend since the day she graduated. Because of this girl's example, Kat is now learning more about her Salvation and the love that God has for her. How incredible is that? Our examples truly do make all the difference, even years down the road. Kat's old friend may never know the impact she had on Kat in this life, but one day she will. How great will be their joy when they are reunited in the Kingdom of God?
Sorry for this crazy long email. This week has just been so wonderful, and I know that each day God is the one who is leading this work. Everything is possible only through him. This past week in my personal studies, I came across Mark 14:6,8. This is the story of a woman who uses precious oil on Christ, merely hours before He suffered and died for each one of us. The Apostles were angry because the ointment was precious, and they felt that she had wasted it. Christ rebukes them and says, "She hath wrought a good work on me... She hath done what she could." That is firmly how I believe the Lord looks at each of us, and how God sees me as his daughter. I am certainly not perfect, or even worthy of all my Savior has done for me. There are those who are upset, who don't believe in what I am doing or who persecute me because I do the Will and the Work of God. But Christ knows that I am doing what I can, whatever little that may be. That is all He ever asks of us- just to do what little we can. Christ's grace doesn't make up the difference, it makes all the difference. I am doing what little I can- that is enough.
God loves you. I know He does. I think I am learning to understand that He loves me too. How grateful I am for that.
Love you all. And hey, read the Book of Mormon okay?
First of all, Hurricane Irma did not hit anywhere near me. In fact, the governor of Florida apparently came to Pensacola where I am in order to be safe. It is just a little windy here! The eastern half of my mission got hit pretty hard apparently, so if I was still in Madison I would have been in the cone of influence. Thankfully I'm here in Fox Run, so all is well. :)
There are so many amazing things happening here in the Fox Run area! We had a pretty funny experience a few days ago. We contacted a man named Bobby on the street and set an appointment with him to talk to him more about our message, and when we were driving to his house we realized that all of the houses we were passing were really nice. It honestly made both of us a little uncomfortable, because most of the work we do is in trailers or smaller homes. It made us both laugh to think about how much we have changed since coming out on our missions. There are some lessons you learn that you had no idea you would.
There is also an amazing family in our ward, the Price family, that are absolutely wonderful missionaries. Brother Price invited one of his work friends, Becky, to come to his home and do family history work with the missionaries and they stay for dinner and a message, and she agreed! It was a joy to meet her and she told us that she is interested in learning more about both our message as missionaries and the unique beliefs that we have about the eternal nature of families. She had never heard of a church before that believes that our families will still be our families when we pass from this life, and she loved the idea that she would still be able to be with her loved ones a million millennia from now. Hopefully we will be able to see her soon and teach her a little bit more.
I think this would be a good time to address the interested subject line of this email. As we were biking along a few days ago, we stopped and talked to a man who told us that he was actually a prophet and received personal revelation from God. We were very interested to hear about this, and so as we talked to him he told us that his prophecies were better than any message we could share with him because his message was directly from God. As we were leaving the conversation and began biking away, he called after us, "God wants you both to know that you will be married by the end of this year! Just saying!" I am not sure how that will work, seeing as how I am, in fact, a missionary and will be until November of next year. Sister Adams has a chance though, she is going home in December of this year. So if she meets a guy and marries him a week later, he could be correct. We highly doubt it though, and it lead to some very fun laughs and conversations about our future plans after our missions. For me that is a long time away. Sister Adams however... she needs to start thinking about all that. How strange!
We also had a surprise schedule change. We were going to have zone conference today, but because President wanted to be there with the missionaries on the east side of the mission as they go through the storm, it got changed to last Saturday. We got a call at about 9:30 Friday night that we would have to drive for an hour the next day to be in Alabama for the meeting. The next 30 minutes was a crazy flurry of calling every person that we had appointments with for the next day, because she had actually been planning on meeting with someone every hour of Saturday. Zone Conference was amazing and very spiritually uplifting. I got to see Sister Burnham again, who I haven't seen since my very first day in the mission field. It was so amazing to see her and to notice how much she has changed in the past few months. She was okay with my craziness and the vast amounts of times I wanted to hug her, and I loved seeing how strong she has become. She truly is an amazing missionary, and her testimony blew me off my feet. The rest of the conference really helped re-motivate myself to the work that we do each day, and helped me to feel the love God has for me and for everyone. That is why every missionary does what they do- love! When we got home, we had about 30 minutes of time to try to get done as much as we could and do all the work we could squeeze in there. We prayed to have God help us, and as we left our house I felt impressed to grab a handful of pass-along cards with our information written on them. As we went about seeing people, we contacted exactly the number of people as the number of cards I had grabbed. Miracles happen everyday in this work, and we got a whole bunch of new contacts out of it!
That night we were able to meet with an amazing young lady named Kat. She is a college-age girl who recently moved here to Pensacola from Chicago. She left behind all her friends and her family, and she is looking for a place that she can feel that peace and calm that only comes through Christ. She actually just showed up to church last Sunday and she asked US if we could meet with her, which is something that never happens! When we asked her about her decision to find out more about our church, she told us that she had a friend in high-school who was a member, and when she went looking for peace and happiness she remembered her friend and the joy she felt when she was with her. This was years ago, and Kat hasn't talked to that friend since the day she graduated. Because of this girl's example, Kat is now learning more about her Salvation and the love that God has for her. How incredible is that? Our examples truly do make all the difference, even years down the road. Kat's old friend may never know the impact she had on Kat in this life, but one day she will. How great will be their joy when they are reunited in the Kingdom of God?
Sorry for this crazy long email. This week has just been so wonderful, and I know that each day God is the one who is leading this work. Everything is possible only through him. This past week in my personal studies, I came across Mark 14:6,8. This is the story of a woman who uses precious oil on Christ, merely hours before He suffered and died for each one of us. The Apostles were angry because the ointment was precious, and they felt that she had wasted it. Christ rebukes them and says, "She hath wrought a good work on me... She hath done what she could." That is firmly how I believe the Lord looks at each of us, and how God sees me as his daughter. I am certainly not perfect, or even worthy of all my Savior has done for me. There are those who are upset, who don't believe in what I am doing or who persecute me because I do the Will and the Work of God. But Christ knows that I am doing what I can, whatever little that may be. That is all He ever asks of us- just to do what little we can. Christ's grace doesn't make up the difference, it makes all the difference. I am doing what little I can- that is enough.
God loves you. I know He does. I think I am learning to understand that He loves me too. How grateful I am for that.
Love you all. And hey, read the Book of Mormon okay?
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