Hello everyone! How was your week? Mine was good! We went to a Caribbean parade, which was really fun. Sister McDonald, our favorite member here, is from Jamaica, so she was making costumes for the parade and we got to help her. Lots of work sure goes into those so shout out to all the performers from around the world that have to make their cultural costumes!!
It's been a busy week! We have seen lots of miracles lately. We've had some people accept our offers for service, one being this really nice guy Mike. He's 80 years old and he live with his son Al. They have a garden in their backyard that needed weeding so we happily accepted (and accomplished) the task! As most of you know, I have a large fear of spiders and most (all) bugs....if you don't think Heavenly Father loves His children, ask me how many bugs I saw 
not many... Until we got in the car and about halfway home, I looked in the rear view mirror to see what was making my head itch...only to see a daddy long leg spider crawling in my hair 
I reacted better than I usually do but I was very scared to say the least. Anyways, for helping him, Mike said that we can take some things from his garden, since we can't accept money.
So this week has been kind of a summer throwback for me! We've had beet greens, rhubarb crisp, and cherries right off the tree! Mike's so nice!!
(Quick side story about the rhubarb: so when we were pulling weeds I noticed his rhubarb was getting really big and would soon be going to seed if it wasn't cut. So I asked him for a knife to cut it. He gave me a little razor which was okay, but I needed a bigger knife to cut it better. So I happened to see these two guys over the fence across the alley way. So me being the missionary I am, I called out to them and asked if one of them had a knife. He was kind enough to give me a nice big pocket knife that looked like a giant's antique razor but it worked! So I cut the rhubarb and then we went across the alley and knocked on his camp trailer to give it back to him. Sketchy? Probably...but it's fine, we're still here )
But back to Mike. We gave him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet to read and he said he felt really good about it when he read it. When we talked more about it, he was asking us about the church and told us how when he was younger he stayed at a B&B owned my a "Mormon lady" and she was super nice, he said. He likes to read so we gave him the Book of Mormon, and he said he would read it!
Jumping forward in our long week to yesterday, we got to with the elders to some people we are teaching, so that Trish could get a blessing. Her and Caulden were in a car accident, and everything is okay, but she's a little shaken and hurt. The spirit was so strong in her blessing, it was amazing. After that, we went tracting and found this girl who is really interested in the gospel. We are so excited to teach her!!
As this week has gone on, I have realized a lot about myself and about the way Heavenly Father wants us to grow. He didn't mean for us to smooth on over through life to the Celestial Kingdom. It's supposed to be tough! We have to get some dirt under our nails, scrape our knees, bruise our egos, etc. Sometimes, that's really hard and we can't just get over it. But we are expected to try. We can't just sit down on a rock and say it's too hard to keep going. We have to stop, get on our knees and ask the Savior to put some breath back in our lungs and some strength in our hearts. When life gets hard, we have to keep going and endure to the end. In the talk I quoted last week, "Secrets to Success", the guy said something I find really powerful. To paraphrase he said that if you want to succeed, you have to sacrifice. Heavenly Father sacrificed His Only Begotten Son for us to succeed in this life and achieve our goal of living with Him again. So what are you going to sacrifice to become who you are meant to be? I know you can do this! I know that because I have had times on my mission where I felt like I couldn, until I sacrificed whatever I had to in order to set my whole heart in the Savior's hands. Trust Him, dust yourself off, and keep going because the Light at the end of your tunnel of trials is the blessings Heavenly Father has in store for you. Jesus Christ is standing by you at every step. He loves you and He will never let you fail.
I know God lives and that His Son is our Savior and our Redeemer. I know He loves us and He will always make a way for us to be happy and succeed. I love you all and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Pictures:
1.-2.: The Parade
3.We took some pictures in the field behind our apartment building
4.Elder Heath sat in water so Elder Cobb tried to help dry it lol
5.Sister McDonald's kids, Isaiah and Maddi were in the parade!
6.I made rhubarb crisp!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment