Sept. 12, 2011 Email

Hi fam and friends,

 

Heading out to go email today I said to my companion "this week was so boring.." and she replied "no, we had {this and this and that happen}" then I remembered oh yeah we did get a lot done this week. Here in the mission field its easy to forget what we have accomplished sometimes, even when you write things down. The weeks and days feel really long, but seem to go by relatively quick. I am sorry to hear that Caitlin went home this week, I was just thinking about writing her a letter today or getting her info to write her a letter from the NYUM to the NYNYS mission. I know that God has a reason for everything that happens to us, whether we know that reason or not. Take in the blessings, she will recover and maybe have the opportunity to come back out again to her mission. Being sick stinks, but it is only temporary. I know Heavenly Father is aware of her and that it is accoring to his time and plan that things happen. On that note, congratulations to Conrad Nichol heading out for a misison!  I would have to say that leaving I had absolutely no idea just how much was in store for me on my mission. Just within the 2-3 months I have been out here, I will never be the same person as when I left, but that is a good thing. Change is what a mission is all about, changing yourself and helping others change through the spirit and gospel of Jesus Christ. Repentance is change, and everyone strives to change to be better. It really is true that the only constant in life is change, and it has never been so true for me as when I have been out here serving the Lord. There are many examples in the scriptures about change:

Mosiah 5:7 says ".. for behold this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed (ephasis added) through faith on his name; therefore ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.

Alma 5: 7,12-15... "Behold he changed their hearts.. and they awoke unto God... their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word",

And according to his faith there was a mighty change wrought in his heart. Behold I say unto you that this is all true.

... and a mighty change was also wrought in their hearts, and they humbled themselves and put their trust in God. And behold, they were faithful until the end; therefore they were saved..

Helaman 15: 7 says-- which faith and repentance bringeth about a change of heart unto them--

 

Now that's not to say that change is easy, but it is mandatory and unstoppable. For if there was no change there would be no learning or progression. This week there have been some wonderful examples of change in the people that we teach:

 

Monday September 5, 2011: We had the opportunity to have an unplanned, spontaneous member lesson that ended up working out beautifully. We had planned to teach this guy D. at the church and unfortunately we were about ten or so minutes late due to some other activity running over on time. However, at the building were some members there to clean the building who had just about finished and were talking to D. when we got there. The 5 of us were talking and we invited the two members to stay but said that if they didn't have time or some other things to do that that was understandable. They were able to stay and be there for the lesson which was awesome. We had planned on teaching D. about prophets, which we did, but it turned out to be more of a lesson on prayer because he was really having some issues with it that he expressed. It was one of the best member present lessons we have ever had, many spirit inspired insights were shared among the people that were there. The best part is later in the week, he called us and told us that he prayed and everything went great that day and everything he needed to get done fell into place. That was a definite testimony builder of the power of prayer and excercising faith to change and pray more sincerly and often.

 

Wednesday September 7th, 2011

D.M. [district mtg] training by our zone leaders which was pretty cool. All of the zone leaders in the mission had a training by Elder Quiton L. Cook recently and so they went back to their zones and trained them on what they were given directly from an apostle of the Lord, pretty cool stuff. After dm, we had to eat lunch and I got to fix another skirt. I am actually picking up sewing quite nicely out here on my mission, who knew?! haha. I have even helped the Elders in Syracuse with sewing, haha. We had some lessons planned on Wednesday and one of them was to E., doing the stop smoking lesson. I have to admit I was really nervous about giving the lesson and it started out a little rocky but he eventually crushed his ciggarettes and from that point on the lesson went really well. So far, he has kept every committment in the stop smoking program which is awesome! It is a great test to see how well he is willing to keep his commitments and be obedient with exactness. We have seen him every day since we gave him the Stop Smoking Program this past Wednesday and seems to be working great! He just has a few more days left of the program so please keep him in your prayers! 

 

Thursday September 8th, 2011-

Most of our appointments followed through, all except one. So not too bad of a day. Slowly but surely we are getting back into our normal routine.

 

Tried some formers but they still weren't ready yet. From what it sounded like, they never really prayed or perhaps weren't willing to recieve the answer to change. They still had quesitons about is there a God, if there is does He care, is the Book of Mormon completely true.. and such. They hadn't been visited in a year from missionaries so we thought maybe they had a change of heart and gained a knowledge of the truth for themselves, nope. Oh well, just gotta remember that people have their choice and if they choose not to change, no one can force them to do so.

 

Friday September 9th, 2011- 3 lessons, 1 LARC (less active, recent convert) so 4 lessons that day.. not too shabby.

 

Saturday September 10th, 2011- felt like an off day, but started off good. Taught a super solid recent convert and it felt like it was going to be a good day. We had to get gas, lost our gas card [dont worry we found it later], every appointment fell through, every door we knocked was empty, no one would look at, listen or talk to us. Just one of those discouraging, frustrating missionary down days that every missionary has. Saw E. and checked up on his progress, he's doing really well. That was the most productive part of the day.

 

Sunday September 11th, 2011- 10 year anniversary of 9-11 and I got to be here in NY for it, kinda cool. Guess there was a memorial at ground zero which I heard was beautiful. I got to attend our first ward council meeting this morning, about time! The ward here is very unusual, it's like they don't care about missionary work, or at least the bishopric doesn't. I tried seeing if anyone would know of members to give rides to investigators, you know what the bishop said? Take the bus.

It's like really? Seriously, part of members giving investigators rides to church is to fellowship them, build friendships and have another way of getting to know people in their ward. Whatever, I just have to take it in stride and be patient with the ward leadership. Ever since I got here it's been this way though. I keep praying and praying that we might be inspired with ways to work with them, and we do our best to work with them but it's really difficult when you are giving 99% and they only give you 1%, maybe not even that. I don't know, I suppose we just keep praying and having faith that someday something will click with the bishop and missionaries or at least missionary work. No one is bold enough to be blunt about the issues though because they don't want to offend anyone in leadership. Anyways, enough of my rambling about that. Good news, we had 3 investigators at church today. The mission president showed up at our sacrament meeting, which was a surprise. We introduced some of our investigators to him [2/3 investigators that attended church have baptismal dates! We asked the 3rd to pray about a date, we'll see]. We had a great meal appointment with one of the young couples in the ward. Tried some formers and then met with a less active.

 

Soooo that's my week!! Love you all!

-Sister Gifford