alma 60:21-22. sister casdorph flipped open to that while we were wondering what to do haha.
So the week around Christmas was pretty hard, I don't know if you could tell from my letter haha hopefully not but being a missionary definitely is hard. But the Lord is so good and so loving, and I love Him and His gospel :) Christmas is great but lots of people are busy! so we didn't get to teach that much. and it's just hard being away from home and all. and Satan is real, what a stinker. but Jesus is more powerful! Hooray!
So on Thursday the 27th we had a great lesson with a less-active sister who really is SO inspiring to me every day in how she's trying to hard to live the gospel again and how grateful she is for this "second chance." she tells us stories of when she chooses the right and the blessings she sees and i just love it, hearing about how her faith is increasing increases MY faith. so we were talking about the 10 commandments and we talked about the second one, no other gods. and she brought up how sometimes we "worship" other people, we love them more than we love God, and she brought up her fiancee who she's living with and how she sometimes has to choose between him and doing what God wants, but she loves God more so she chooses to live a godly life. and it reminded me that I feel the same way -- I love God and Jesus Christ way more than I love my music/clothes/bed(!)/anything. I even love Jesus more than I love you guys!! and that is a LOT haha and it was just a great reminder that that is why I'm here. I'm choosing God's will above my own, because I love Him more than anything!! (also -- read p. 62 of PMG on repentance. SO GOOD.)
lessons went really great that thursday, like God was blessing me cause He knew I'd been having kind of a rough time so that day went GREAT. lessons went so well, we prepared well in advance and we really felt the spirit direct the lessons as we taught about ether 12:4 and increasing our faith bit by bit (like a snowball!) and how prayer is the first step to increase our faith. i just LOVE bearing testimony of God's love and promising His blessings in these people's lives.
also we taught a part member family, and the wife grew up in England then moved to the south so her accent is WONDERFUL hahaha i LOVE it. and they gave us trifle!!! and that was a tender mercy too cause i know that's your favourite mom :) i'll send you the recipe :) (the husband is the one with the rocker ponytail and earrings. they're like 80 and live in an old people residence, not a nursing home but almost.) and also, dinner was really great. Julia Child's recipe, and Sister U. almost has a Julia Child accent so i died haha loved it :) :)
Mosiah 18:20 - nothing but REPENTANCE and FAITH. the two first principles of the gospel. so good! all we need! EVERYTHING in the gospel comes back to helping us increase our faith and leading us to repentance, and if it doesn't then it's a waste of time cause it's not leading you to Christ. not to be harsh haha. if you haven't already, read preach my gospel chapter 3, lesson 3. it's the gospel. it's Jesus. it's GREAT. :) :)
also about referrals... non-members are way better about giving us referrals hahaha when we ask people if they know anyone who could use a message about Jesus Christ that would enable them to improve the quality of their lives, non-members hear just that and are like "yeah, everybody i know!" and sometimes members seem to think we're asking "do you know anybody we could wrestle into the waters of baptism by this saturday?" haha that's not it at all! we just want to talk about Jesus Christ and help people improve their lives :) (through coming unto Christ and receiving the restored gospel through faith, repentance, baptism, etc.) :)
also - Friday was Tracting Miracles Day. I sort of kind of hate tracting. or at least i used to. it's so awkward and scary and i feel like it's not really effective. so i try to avoid it. BUT BUT BUT. last friday it was great. we go around to less-active members homes to visit them, and then we usually try their neighbors on either side too cause you might as well. also -- if you flick your blinds and quiet your dog, we know you're home. we know you're ignoring us hahaha we can see you. but fine! don't answer the door. we'll just try your neighbors. and we'll come back until you tell us to go away hahaha. :) so we tried the neighbors, a teenage girl answered and said she'd ask her mom, then as we were walking away a dog chased after us from the next neighbors. well! we can take a hint, Heavenly Father. so we followed the dog back to her owner (EVERYONE HERE HAS DOGS) and talked to her about how she's seen Christ bless her life, and she shared some amazing stories with us and we left her with a Book of Mormon so that she could read more about Christ and come even closer to Him and then we prayed together :) then we went to another house, and when i checked the paper we had i noticed that they had actually moved so we were like oh... and the lights were off and the car was gone... but we figured we were there so we might as well show faith and get out of the car. AND THEN. someone was home!! and she came to the door and talked to us for a while and we talked about how Christ has blessed her life and asked her if there was another book that taught about Jesus Christ would she read it and she said it depended on the book so we showed her the Book of Mormon and invited her to read 3 Ne 11 and pray! and she said she would and that we could come back next week and talk about it!!! and then we prayed!!! and ahhh i love it. and what if we hadn't gotten out of the car??? what if we'd relied on our own wisdom and listened to our fears? namely my fears? haha sister casdorph loves tracting....... i do not. yet. ;) anyways i was so glad we went there! it was SO worth waiting on the doorstep in the cold and dark. :) :) we do a lot of waiting on doorsteps haha. and then the last house we went to, the less-active sister lived there and she invited us right in and we got to teach a lesson and set up a return appointment there too so hooray! i love love love it :) :) hooray for coco the dog and miracles and praying! lesson learned: don't be afraid! just knock on the door :)
then Saturday we got to go to a baptism! and A****came with her daughter S*****! and when we asked her how she felt she said "jealous" haha ahh we've got to get her baptized!! side note: if everyone would just live the law of chastity, they would be SO MUCH HAPPIER
whoops i accidentally pressed send..........
anyways they wouldbe SO MUCH HAPPIER seriously everyone we're working with has problems stemming from not living the law of chastity. all of them. JUST KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS. IN THIS THERE IS SAFTEY IN THIS THERE IS PEACE!!
so anyways, the baptism was great, Spirit so strong :) we got to look at the pictures in the church building and talk about Jesus being baptized and Joseph Smith seeing God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, so that was awesome. I just loved it :) and at the baptism, a little girl came up to me and said "YOU are a missionary!" and i loved it! yes I am :) and what a special calling that I get to have for these 18 months, a FULL-TIME missionary. :) not everyone gets that, and we only get it for a few short months. :) another great reminder from a loving Heavenly Father about why I'm here :)
lessons went great again on Saturday, we're working with a former investigator who's mother is a member struggling with activity, so it's like a double-whammy :) we get to testify of Christ and the blessings that come from His gospel! hooray!!
also -- sister casdorph kind of reminds me of elisha a bit. which is great :) speaking of which, elisha should write me ;)
AND THEN. this is the big one. oh my goodness. SUCH A MIRACLE.
more from my journal... "she says she can't believe in a God who would send her to Hell just for being herself. heartbreaking! we testified of Christ's love and tried to help her feel that she is NOT evil and NOT beyond the reach of God's love. she told us she'd needed a friend that day. she hadn't known it, but she'd needed us to come, and she asked if we'd gotten her name off of a list or something and we explained how we were trying the people net door and then just went to the neighbor - her! and she had a "praise Jesus!" moment and believed in God for just a moment. when we asked her last name, it sounded kind of familiar... and i realized we had been told that she was a "do not conact"! CRAZY. i guess God had really wanted us to go visit her, because we probably never would have on purpose!! so wild and crazy. and awesome. i've been thinking a lot about her and what she said. it was so heartbreaking. i can't imagine feeling like God had created me evil and would condemn me to Hell for it. and she was so back and forth about not wanting a message, and then letting us share one, not believing in God, yet looking for Him in her life, yet being so terrified to believe in Him and not feeling His love. asking us to come back, then being unable to set a date. i just felt for her. so confused and lost :( so here's what i've been thinking about since then. first of all, there is room for EVERYONE in Christ's gospel. "He layeth down His own life that He may draw ALL men unto Him. wherefore, He commandeth NONE that they shall not partake of His salvation." (2 ne 26:24) Jesus stands with open arms to receive ALL those who will come unto Him and be saved. that's a fact. there is room for EVERYBODY in God's family. Second, Hell is a choise. Agency is required to sin. that's what I think. Also, God did not MAKE anybody evil. God makes perfect things. Why would He do that? God DOES allow us to be born into a fallen world because He knows that only through our struggles can we learn and become like Him. The "natural man" is an enemy to God. "for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God." none of us can just "be ourselves" and return to live with God again.Some of us struggle with tendancies toward pridefulness, or depression, or whatever. we are imperfect beings in an imperfect world, but we serve a perfect God whose perfect Son wrought a perfect Atonement so that we could be changed and return to live with Them :) So I can't just do whatever I like, whatever makes me happy because ultimately that will NOT make me happy! just like eating chocolate makes me happy but then i get sick! ha. the whole idea of life is choosing God's will above our own and becoming TRANSFORMED through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. "Bringing our lives in line with God's will through repentance is a central purpose of our lives." (PMG). the fact is, God accepts us and lives us just the way we are, but He refuses to leave us this way. none of us are perfect, but through the grace of God we ALL can become perfected. He will make us into MORE than we are - if we'll let him! So come. Come to church in your pants. Come as you are, but please don't leave as you were. Come unto Christ, & be perfected in Him. deny yourselves of all ungodliness. "Will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? Verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive, and blessed are those who come unto me." "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee." "Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin which doth easily beset you... come, and go forth, and show unto God that we are willing to repent." "Remember that the Lord surely should come to redeem His people, but that He should not come to redeem them IN their sins, but to redeem them FROM their sins. & He hath power to redeem them from their sins because of REPENTANCE." THAT is why repentance is a central purpose of our lives. God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. THANK GOD. and thankfully His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts." then i go off about how great preach my gospel is haha and quote, ""as we change, we recognize that we are children of God and that we need not continue making the same mistakes over and over. as elder kanahele (from new zealand) would say, "so true. so true." :)"
also - the Lord needs faithful feminists, faithful intellectuals, etc. :) just like Elder Hollands talk!! the call is to come and stay true and lift and help!!!
D&C 19:6!! it's for everyone!! repent!! :)
lion king - you are MORE than what you have become :)
also - "we see ourselves in terms of yesterday and today... God sees us in terms of what we may BECOME."
"the best smell at church is cigarette smoke because it means someone's trying." - sister casdorph
trying to make yourself happy will never make you happy. it's not about me or what I want! "He will create of you a masterpiece. You will create of you only a smudge." :)
one thing I LOVE about being a missionary is that "WWJD" is everything. as representatives of Jesus Christ, we take "what would Jesus do?" super literally into EVERYTHING we do. [side note: someone we're teaching wants "WWJD" tattoo'd on her hand so she can slap people with it hahahaha]
D&C 4:2 / Luke 8:3 / Mosiah 2:11 - what connection do you see in those verses? :) (the Luke one's kind of hard to find the connection but i still like it) :)
can i have the banana muffin recipe please? :)
lots of "best two years" moments writing 0... 0... 0... in our planners haha but it's still good!
mom - i thought of you when i read the talk "be anxiously engaged" and i thought it should be called "BEE anxiously engaged" ha ha ha... ;)
J**** prays that the "church girls" will keep coming because "it's a good thing." :) & S**** loves to pray and repeat the words of scriptures after us :) she's feeling the Spirit! Alicia felt like Alma 36:12-20 (the first part) on monday the 31st. we're working on getting her the second part, esp v. 20 :) we read Enos 1:1-8 -- think about the phrase "when the night came." how can that apply to us??
we had a GREAT lesson with them new years day - she's almost to the book of Helaman (!!!) and she was like "I didn't get on mormon.org today but i did read about 85% of this book" and then held up gospel principles haha i love it. her faith is increasing!!! so so good :)
the Briggs take such good care of us. Br Briggs gave me gatorade for my cold and sparkling grape juice for new years. happy new year by the way!! we celebrated at 8pm with our sparkling grape juice in real crystal glasses! and i made the glass sing! so that was fun... haha :)
speaking of "eyes to see the miracles" -- Mary Magdalene! in John 20. :) have patience, and the Lord WILL raise your vision to help you see the miracles :) that's the lesson of this week.
Sister Casdorph went to school in powell! :)
every morning when i grab some copies of the BoM, pamphlets, dvds, mormon.org cards etc i feel like i'm grabbing my weapons/tools/armour of God haha i love it. it's an act of faith! i know that if i bring it, God will lead me to someone who can use it :) start carrying around a mormon.org card or Book of Mormon and see how your faith can work miracles!!
there are so many more miracles to share!! and so little time!! ahhhhhh i think i need to end but yesterday (wednesday) was CHOCK-FULL of miracles - tell the elder's thanks for making "mormon.org" their text signature cause we did the same and it led to a miracle :) and also, someone came up to US and asked "is there anyone i could talk to to learn more about your faith?" uhhhhhhhhh YES haha about about us?? more on that later :) :)
also look up jamestown lights! we saw them yesterday! all the wisconsin people still have their lights up! haha i guess most people usually leave them up through january? :) i love it.
okay i've got to go before this becomes the world's longest letter but i love you!!!!!!!!!!! more details about yesterday in my next letter on monday, i promise :) i love reading your letters!! i carry it around with me sometimes haha i love you all so much!!!!!!!!! i'm so happy to be here!!! i go to sleep with a smile on my face every night :) i love being a missionary!!! Alma 26:12. yes yes yes i love it :) :)
i love you all so so much!! you're the greatest ever and i'm so proud of all of you :)
see ya later eh! ;)
love love love
sister cece proffit :)
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxox
No comments:
Post a Comment