Hello Transfer 12... yikes

I am working on studying the Book of Mormon in depth once through before I complete my time here in Washington. I  am just enthralled with every sacred word on these pages. I felt like sharing something that has been standing out to me for the last few months. I have lost count of the number of times the scriptures teach the principle of "except". Pages upon pages are spent cautioning the Nephites and Lamanites that "except they repent" they'll be destroyed. Pages upon pages as this prophesy is given I have been taught the principle of the unceasing love and grace of God. Every time I see the word "except" the impression is placed deeper in my heart that God is giving us as many second chances as we need. 

"And the Lord said: Yea, I will spare [you] a little longer, for it grieveth me that I should lose [any of my children]." - Jacob 5:51

God is doing all He can to spare us as we struggle with the same thing over and over again. The Nephites and Lamanites countless times fall into apostacy and abomination and it is always the same sin as the last time. As I've come to this realization I have come discover the principle of hope. No matter how many times we fall, no matter how many times I make the same mistake there is always and will always be an except. 

We received transfer calls on Saturday and as we predicted Sister Henderson is being transferred. The funny part is she's going to Elma 2nd (where I came to her from). These past 6 weeks can't be summarized in words so I'll just settle to say they have been such a blessing. I'm sad to see Sister Henderson go but excited for her to be in Elma because I love that place and her! On another note you're probably wondering who my 10th companion will be (wow 10 companions in 12 transfers... hmmm apparently I've got a lot to learn from people).

Super excited for the next six weeks as I am blessed to serve with the wonderful Sister Wilson!!!

I'm out of time for the week so until next week just know the church is true and God is good!​

Port Angeles, Tacoma, Silverdale, and Seattle!

This week was all over the place. We had a great exchange with our wonderful Port Angeles sisters on Tuesday. I stayed here on the Island and had the wonderful Sister Thurber join me. It was great! We got to teach our wonderful Jesse who is doing so well in the gospel. We went in with the plan to teach her the Plan of Salvation with the simple commandments of praying morning and night, studying the scriptures, and keeping the sabbath day holy. Instead when it came to the part where we talked about commandments SHE taught US everything from the word of wisdom and law of chastity, to tithing and fasting and study/prayer. She is so amazing! Seriously my favorite thing in the world is to watch as the light of Christ begins to be visible in people as they embrace the gospel. She is so wonderful! She is evidence of the truthfulness of the gospel and its just so amazing to watch her as she excitedly presses forward towards baptism and those sacred covenants. 

Thursday Sister Henderson and I journeyed down to Tacoma for a special Missionary Leadership Council with Elder Gay (of the 1st Quorum of the 70) (Friday we met with Elder Gay again in Silverdale as the Northern Conference recieved more training on how to obtain revelation and more.) {Pictures of that to come later} It was such a powerful moment in which we were taught by Elder Gay that until the missionaries and members become one in purpose this sacred work will not move forward at the speed its meant to. It was so amazing that as Elder Gay taught us about the Sabbath Day it became very apparent that each Sunday as we renew our covenants by partaking of the sacrament we are renewing a promise to God to go about His work. So we are now making a big push to join forces with the members in being one in purpose which is to rescue (those who have yet to learn the truth and those who have strayed from it). Miracles are coming. So here's my challenge to you, ponder the sacrament prayer found in Moroni 4:3 & 5:2 

"O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and  sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it; that they may eat in remembrance  of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing  to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him, and keep his  commandments which he hath given them, that they may always have his Spirit to be with  them. Amen.(Moroni 4:3)

O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee, in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and   sanctify this [water] to the souls of all those who drink of it, that they may do it in remembrance of  the blood of thy Son, which was shed for them; that they may witness unto thee, O God, the  Eternal Father, that they do always remember him, that they may have his Spirit to be with them. Amen. (Moroni 5:2)"

Ponder what this covenant means to take upon us the name of Christ. As Elder Gay taught it means that we must fulfill our personal responsibilities to minister and take part in the sacred work of inviting ALL our brothers and sisters to come unto Christ. Make a plan and figure out what it is that you can do to take part in this work. Make yourself available to attend lessons and fellowship investigators with the missionaries, fellowship a wavering member who is struggling with doubts, reach out to someone who maybe has fallen away. Invite them to come unto Christ and love them regardless of their response. I'd love to hear your experiences!

​Saturday Sister Henderson and I were able to travel to the temple with a wonderful recent convert as she was able to do baptisms for the first time and be apart of the sacred ordinances for many of her deceased family members.

​Saturday Sister Henderson and I were able to travel to the temple with a wonderful recent convert as she was able to do baptisms for the first time and be apart of the sacred ordinances for many of her deceased family members.

Love

Never Expected To Babysit As A Missionary! Woops!

Well this was a fun week! I should have read over my journal entries to be able to give you a full overview but I'll do my best! I can't believe we're already in week 5 of transfer 11! Ahh! Craziness!

This week we went on exchanges with some more of our wonderful sisters! I went to Silverdale 6th area with the outstanding Sister Hughes. She's in her second transfer out and such a good missionary already. The highlight of the exchange was a lesson we had with a lady named Ashley who is just so prepared to embrace the truth! It was a very spiritual experience to watch her grow and really seek to understand the gospel for what it is.

Wednesday was a funny day as Sister Henderson and I were knocking we focused a lot on boldly sharing the Book of Mormon and inviting people to read it and so we were carrying them in our hands instead of in our pursed. We got to this one door where the lady opened the door looked at us and then just before closing the door said, "I don't speak to people with Bibles in their hands" She didn't stick around long enough to hear us say "they aren't Bibles they're Book of Mormons" On my mission I've met quite a few people that had similar responses and I've come to the discovery that as people we fear change so we don't even take a chance of there being change. Its sad really but we all do it at some point or another. Its given me the goal to try everything once. Change means coming closer to God and unless we listen to the people around us and take leaps of faith we will never discover the miraculous truths God is preparing to show us. Remember change is good.

This week Sister Henderson and I were highly entertained by the age difference between us. She's twenty so we're just over 3 years apart. We were talking about old memories from growing up and I mentioned something about my first year of girls camp and Sister Henderson voiced the realization that she was still in primary at the time. It was highly amusing! We have such a great companionship and the most random conversations and laughing fits like last night. We can't even remember what was so funny but last night it took us probably 10 minutes to compose ourselves enough to pray at the end of our nightly planning session. We were super over tired at that point. So much fun! I don't think I've laughed this hard my whole mission! 

Knocking was eventful this week with lots of weird funny things happening. The funniest knocking experience explains the title of this weeks email. Saturday night while tracting (probably the 4th house we knocked on) we met a mum who said she would love to learn more as her parents used to attend but stopped when she was 5. She has two little boys that are just precious. The funny part was that the 6 year old decided to follow us for over an hour of the time we were knocking! He would come right up to the door with us! We had no clue what to do! It was so funny but highly unproductive. We made him go tell his mum what he was doing in hopes that he would be told he wasn't allowed to go door to door with two random sister missionaries but after he disappeared for a bit he returned saying his mum said he was allowed to go with us! This kid did everything from ringing people's doorbells multiple times to interrupting us as we tried to share our message. It was crazy! We finally managed to get him to wait outside gates (for the most part). Sister Henderson and I couldn't stop laughing. We'd both had cats and dogs follow us before but never a little kid! We felt like we were babysitting! Especially since the kid would start climbing on big wet slippery rocks on the edge of the ocean. Oh the experiences we have as missionaries! Hopefully we'll start teaching the kiddo's mum soon!

That's about it for this week so here's my thought for you to ponder! Life is 10%circumstance and 90% what we make of it! That's all I'm going to say. Words cannot begin to describe the lessons I've learned on my mission, the miracle its been to meet so many of my brothers and sisters and see how God has been in each of their lives even when they didn't see Him. This life is a gift and its all up to us as to how we react to it.

Until next week love the gift of life and cherish it! Congratulations to my brother and sister-in-law on their new little angel Annalisa! Love you all!

I'm so excited for conference, I'm like a kid about to eat cake!

We had a great week here on the island. The whole mission switched phone companies so we had to spend time transferring contacts over (still have more to go) and cleaning out old contacts.​ We decided we didn't want to just spend hours cleaning out the phone so we made it more productive and started calling all the old contacts that we don't know. We've been stirring up some potentials that way which is great! One call we made was really amazing and stands as proof that God works with what He can. We called this guy and when he answered we identified ourselves as missionaries and told him what we were doing also asking if he'd been thinking about the gospel lately and if he'd like to start learning again. His response was amazing! Without only a short pause he said, "You know I have been thinking about it a lot lately and would really like to start learning again." The spirit was so strong as you knew he was speaking sincerely. He told us he was currently dealing with some medical issues but they would be dealt with in about a month and would love if we called back then. Of course we were happy to schedule that phone call in but what astounded me most is when we told him we would call him back in exactly a month (Oct 25th) he said he would be writing it on his calendar and then asked us so sincerely not to forget to call him. He then proceeded to tell us that that call had been exactly what he needed in the moment. I have a testimony that we truly are God's children and he loves us so dearly that He will take care of us as we allow Him to. He is aware of each one of our needs and will do whatever He can to help us see that, even if it comes in the form of a phone call from two strangers.

We had exchanges this week and after only a week of being on the island I stayed and had the wonderful Sister Taylor join us. We had a great time as I only got us turned around two or three times... seriously the island is set up like a maze! Haha anyway it was great. We found a lady who wants us to come back next week and share more with her so that's way exciting. We also had a great time street contacting and talking to a ton of people as it was Friday night and everyone was out and about. We had some funny moments including one where we got asked to go get some drinks with a group of guys who were really embarrassed when they realized who we were. Well two of them were anyway. Oh the funny situations you discover as a missionary. Funnily enough this isn't the first time I've taught the word of wisdom the first time I met someone. The third of the guys was determined we'd decide to join them at the bar and so we taught him a run down version of the commandment God gave us to take care of our bodies. It was a very funny situation but of course you'd have to have experienced it for yourselves.

Sunday we had a missionary musical fireside in Port Angelos. It was great. Sister Henderson and I were exhausted after the drive back though so as soon as we were able to climb into bed we were out. I've never loved sleep so much in my life as on my mission where it seems to be so rare. 

Overall it was a great week. I love Bainbridge. Sister Henderson and I are having a great time and she's teaching me so much! She's so funny and not at all what I expected her to be like. She's even better!

Well that's about all for this week but lets just talk about how exciting it is that we get to listen to the prophet and apostles this coming weekend! I'm so excited I can barely contain it! If you aren't already planning to watch it I would encourage you to look on lds.org and find out what time its showing in your area because its going to be so amazing! Also along with that I'd encourage you all to prepare for conference by thinking of questions to ponder on throughout the conference so that you can truly receive that which our Father in Heaven is preparing to tell you personally! The restoration is such a gift!

Enjoy conference and remember to always pray about how to apply that which the prophet shares to your personal life!

Love you!