Monday, July 8, 2013

Fireworks and Puerto Rican Pina Coladas ;)

Well hello everyone!!

How have you all been?! I've had a pretty great week :) The missionary work has been a little rough, but we saw some incredible miracles this week!!! Before that, we have a new mission president!!
New Florida-Orlando Mission President - President Berry
His name is President Berry and he and Sister Berry are SO awesome! I got to meet them at a Trainer/Trainee meeting this week and they are just great. A little overwhelmed I think haha but I guess all new missionaries have to go through that at some point! I hadn't thought to do this before, but Sister Blake e-mails her family the letter she send to mission president (we send one to him every week) and I thought that was a great idea! He asks us to tell him certain things so yep, this is what I said this week. (I figured this is another way to show you all how my weeks have been going :) )

Hello President Berry!
It was so good to meet you and receive all the advice we did at the Trainer/Trainee meeting! You are so incredible and I look forward to hearing from you more :)
As for what you asked us to report on this week, here's what I have for you!
1)  What are you doing to specifically improve "UNITY" in your companionship.
This is something we have really been striving for since day one. We are in a tripnaionship, so I feel like that always is going to cause for a bit more effort on achieving unity when there are 3 onions and ideas to balance instead of just two. Unfortunately it took us a little longer than we hope to figure out that one of the biggest things that MUST be done is completely open and honest communication. We were letting things get under our skin and avoided talking about it since we were all so newly friends or sister or whatever haha so that allowed Satan to just allow us to get more and more bugged, which caused each of us to be on edge ALL THE TIME. Anyway, as soon as we decided to open our mouths and just talk about our feelings not only have we been able to feel the spirit more but we are the best of friends :)

2) Tell me 3 outstanding qualities of your companion.   Later in the day, share those three qualities you admire in your companion with him or her.
I have two soo. . . :)
Sister Blake: 1) She is so in tune with and aware of the spirit. 2) She knows how to relate things she is going through/has gone through with the investigator to help them understand how to apply gospel principles. It's an incredible gift. 3) She is a GREAT driver. Haha
Hermana Monson: 1) For being only 3 weeks into her mission, she is pretty fearless. She does all she can to make sure she is making the most of every minute. 2) She is so incredibly wise and has exactly the advice or correction I need. 3) She knows how to make a DELICOUS cookie :)

3) What are you doing to invite the spirit into your heart and the work in your area?
The biggest thing we are working on is something our District leader challenged us to do which is to try and focus all of our conversations while we are out and about on the gospel and not just having small talk or relating funny past experiences and stories. The times where we have done this I've felt an incredible difference is being able to teach by the spirit.

4) Share with me experiences of the last week where you felt prompted by the spirit to do take certain action and what was the result?
I really have been working on trying to do this. I've been kind of experimenting so I can better understand what are promptings from the spirit and things that maybe I just think are a good idea. I've heard many times since I've been on the mission that they often are the same thing, but I wanted to just see, because honestly I hadn't been brave enough to act on EVERY thought I've had. So, I've done it more this week, mostly it's been asking questions that come to my mind or saying things that I feel like they need to hear, ect. It's been super neat to see that everything I've said and done has produced a good result. Some have been incredible, others have just been good, but none have caused an awkward moment or a slammed door in my face. So I guess I've recognized for sure now that it really is "by their fruits ye shall know them." :)

5) What are you doing to increase the number of investigators in your teaching pool?
The biggest thing we are actually working on right now is getting a progressing investigator. We have a HUGE pool of potentials but none of them have really committed to listening to us in a way that can help their life to really change. I guess none have kept commitments. In order to change that, we are really going to do all we can to let the spirit do the teaching this week. We are going to allow more silence, ask inspired questions, and live obedient so that we can be worthy to teach by the spirit.

Thank you for all you do President! Look forward to seeing you Wednesday :)

Haha so yeah, there you go :) I didn't do a whole lot of proof reading over that, but hopefully the grammar isn't too awful!

So some specific miracles we saw this week!

1) There is this guy named R who we met the very first day we were in the area. We gave him a brief run down of the Restoration and he didn't seem to terribly interested, but we put him on our potential investigators list anyway. For some reason, he was always coming to our minds when we were trying to figure out ho to see. We went over and knocked on the door. . .probably about 10 times and no one ever answered, except once his Dad did and told us to go away haha so on. . .Saturday I think it was we had the thought to go see him again and this time we decided to pray and tell Heavenly Father that if he didn't answer that was going to be the last time we ever knocked, but if someone answered this time we'd keep trying. So, we went up and knocked. Not 5 seconds after that a guy (who wasn't Richard or his dad answered) we asked for R and he said just a minute, then the Dad came around and INVITED US IN THE HOUSE! Then, he proceeded to invite us to SIT IN THEIR LIVING ROOM SO WE COULD TALK TO THE WHOLE FAMILY!!! Haha I know I'm being dramatic. . .but holy moly, Heavenly Father answers prayers!! We aren't sure yet what to think yet but we're gonna keep going back for the time being :)

2) A girl named S that we've stopped in on a few times had us come in finally and we watched the Restoration with her. I prayed the whole time that she could feel the spirit and have questions come to her mind that she could share with us when it was over and she did! She said it sounded really "special" and had some really great questions and was excited to start reading The Book of Mormon, so that was way neat :)


3) I ended up popping my bike tire on a piece of glass early on this week, which was like the end to a day that was going rough, SHOOT ONLY 1 MINUTE LEFT ON THIS DUMB COMP!!


Ok I gotta tell that story next week cuz it's gonna take more than a minute haha I love you all!! Have a fantastic week ok?! I love you and miss you all sooo very much and I'll try to get more in about me next week! Oh I gotta watch fireworks haha and had pina coladas :)

LOVE YOU ALL!!

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