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!!
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| 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!!
