HOLO TODO.
Let me tell you how amazing this week has been. Holy wow. So right now I'm serving in Ogden City in a ward with 6 missionaries – 2 elders and 4 sisters. It is a smallish ward, but our areas are literally exploding with missionary work. This week we invited 12 people to be baptized and 9 of them accepted. We've found people miraculously and I just know that the Lord is in this work and how much He loves His children here. Which is also why I'm just so amazed that He put me here to be their missionaries!
An example.
We were looking for one of our referrals, and we knocked on the door, and no one was home. So what we did was walk back to the car. Then, like a friendly tap on the shoulder, the spirit told us to go back. And what did we see? A light on in the basement! We met Cesar y Brizia who have talked with missionaries in the past (and remembered their names – they made a good impact on them!). We got to know them and their two daughters and set up a return appointment. For....My Birthday! And they were there! It was such a spiritually powerful lesson. Sister Anderson and I sang "La Oracion del Profeta" (Oh how lovely was the morning) and taught the Restoration and explained baptism. They were 100% taught by the spirit because they kept making comments that flawlessly connected with their personal concerns that we did not know about. We invited them to be baptized by someone who holds the priesthood authority of God and they said that they would. The spirit was so sweet and peaceful.
We were planning for the week and we were talking about how wonderful it would be if we had one of our investigators getting baptized this week WHEN!! We got a phone call from the Elders – they were talking to a lady who said that her divorce had just gone through and that she and the man she was living with would be getting married this weekend and that she wanted to be baptized ASAP, because she had been going to church for months. We screamed and drove over as fast as we could, said a prayer, and went to meet this lady. It was all true, I couldn't believe it. We put Ana and her soon to be husband on date for the 15 of October to be baptized. When I got back into the car my heart was just so filled with gratitude to my Heavenly Father. The spirit I felt was so Paternal, so warm and filled with love and joy.
We went back for a lesson the next day where we did not find Ana or her husband to be. But we did find Adrian. We taught him the Restoration and testified of the Savior of the World, of our Heavenly Father, and of the Book of Mormon. He just kept saying how wonderful this message felt to him. He accepted our invitation to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. Later on that day we found out in a phone call with Ana that she had in fact moved that day to a place called Riverdale – a place a little more south in the Ogden mission. We called the elders over that area and they said that she had already found them and that she is indeed getting baptized this saturday! So thus we see: the Lord really truly does work in mysterious but incredibly perfect ways.
Okay, a moment to introduce my companion Sister Anderson.
She is so wonderful. She is from Minnesota and before her mission was the Princess there. She loves beautiful words and cold weather and to think deeply. But most of all she loves Jesus Christ and is here with her whole heart to serve Him. We have decided together that we are going to be exactly obedient, that we are going to give absolutely everything to the Lord this transfer – and we hope to be here together for basically the rest of our missions. Our zone has a challenge for us this transfer to sanctify ourselves (Joshua 3:5) and sacrifice every single thing that might prevent us from feeling the spirit. And let me tell you, this challenge, and my companion have changed my mission, and they have changed my life. When I testify I feel so much more powerfully the Holy Ghost, when I pray I feel my Heavenly Father so close, and when I contact people I feel a sincere and clear love for them and a desire for them to come to know their Savior and begin to be born again by being baptized and entering the Temple of our God. Sister Anderson is 100% committed to the Lord, and we have been working so closely in tune with each other and with the spirit this week.
14 Now I say unto you that ye must repent, and be bornagain; for the Spirit saith if ye are not born again ye cannotinherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore come and bebaptized unto repentance, that ye may be washed fromyour sins, that ye may have faith on the Lamb of God, whotaketh away the sins of the world, who is mighty to saveand to cleanse from all unrighteousness.
15 Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay asideevery sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bindyou down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, andshow unto your God that ye are willing to repent of yoursins and enter into a covenant with him to keep hiscommandments, and witness it unto him this day by goinginto the waters of baptism.
In between appointments we will run to the car and say "HASTEN THE WORK" xD We literally cannot wait to get out to work every day, and when it comes to be 8:00 we are so ready to work hard for that last hour, dreading the moment we have to turn home – especially when we feel like we still have energy. This is what I have wanted for my whole entire mission. Actually no! This is so much incredibly better than what I wanted my mission to be. Sister Anderson says that a mission has the potential to be beautifully and intensely spiritual and this is what the week has been like.
Every night we come home and do the mile report, and before we leave the car we put on a song by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and just ponder on the day. We present everything we have done to the Lord and we ask Him to accept it, to take our imperfect offering and allow it to be our way of worshiping and glorifying Him. It is a beautiful way to connect with Heaven.
In other news, the spanish has come back so much better than I left it when I went to Mendon. I just know that I have been prepared to come here to the Mount Lewis Alpha area and help these people here, and come closer to my Savior than I ever have before. It is such a blessing to be here, I am so humbled that this is where I have been put.
I love you all!
Hermana mle Ogden
Let me tell you how amazing this week has been. Holy wow. So right now I'm serving in Ogden City in a ward with 6 missionaries – 2 elders and 4 sisters. It is a smallish ward, but our areas are literally exploding with missionary work. This week we invited 12 people to be baptized and 9 of them accepted. We've found people miraculously and I just know that the Lord is in this work and how much He loves His children here. Which is also why I'm just so amazed that He put me here to be their missionaries!
An example.
We were looking for one of our referrals, and we knocked on the door, and no one was home. So what we did was walk back to the car. Then, like a friendly tap on the shoulder, the spirit told us to go back. And what did we see? A light on in the basement! We met Cesar y Brizia who have talked with missionaries in the past (and remembered their names – they made a good impact on them!). We got to know them and their two daughters and set up a return appointment. For....My Birthday! And they were there! It was such a spiritually powerful lesson. Sister Anderson and I sang "La Oracion del Profeta" (Oh how lovely was the morning) and taught the Restoration and explained baptism. They were 100% taught by the spirit because they kept making comments that flawlessly connected with their personal concerns that we did not know about. We invited them to be baptized by someone who holds the priesthood authority of God and they said that they would. The spirit was so sweet and peaceful.
We were planning for the week and we were talking about how wonderful it would be if we had one of our investigators getting baptized this week WHEN!! We got a phone call from the Elders – they were talking to a lady who said that her divorce had just gone through and that she and the man she was living with would be getting married this weekend and that she wanted to be baptized ASAP, because she had been going to church for months. We screamed and drove over as fast as we could, said a prayer, and went to meet this lady. It was all true, I couldn't believe it. We put Ana and her soon to be husband on date for the 15 of October to be baptized. When I got back into the car my heart was just so filled with gratitude to my Heavenly Father. The spirit I felt was so Paternal, so warm and filled with love and joy.
We went back for a lesson the next day where we did not find Ana or her husband to be. But we did find Adrian. We taught him the Restoration and testified of the Savior of the World, of our Heavenly Father, and of the Book of Mormon. He just kept saying how wonderful this message felt to him. He accepted our invitation to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. Later on that day we found out in a phone call with Ana that she had in fact moved that day to a place called Riverdale – a place a little more south in the Ogden mission. We called the elders over that area and they said that she had already found them and that she is indeed getting baptized this saturday! So thus we see: the Lord really truly does work in mysterious but incredibly perfect ways.
Okay, a moment to introduce my companion Sister Anderson.
She is so wonderful. She is from Minnesota and before her mission was the Princess there. She loves beautiful words and cold weather and to think deeply. But most of all she loves Jesus Christ and is here with her whole heart to serve Him. We have decided together that we are going to be exactly obedient, that we are going to give absolutely everything to the Lord this transfer – and we hope to be here together for basically the rest of our missions. Our zone has a challenge for us this transfer to sanctify ourselves (Joshua 3:5) and sacrifice every single thing that might prevent us from feeling the spirit. And let me tell you, this challenge, and my companion have changed my mission, and they have changed my life. When I testify I feel so much more powerfully the Holy Ghost, when I pray I feel my Heavenly Father so close, and when I contact people I feel a sincere and clear love for them and a desire for them to come to know their Savior and begin to be born again by being baptized and entering the Temple of our God. Sister Anderson is 100% committed to the Lord, and we have been working so closely in tune with each other and with the spirit this week.
14 Now I say unto you that ye must repent, and be bornagain; for the Spirit saith if ye are not born again ye cannotinherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore come and bebaptized unto repentance, that ye may be washed fromyour sins, that ye may have faith on the Lamb of God, whotaketh away the sins of the world, who is mighty to saveand to cleanse from all unrighteousness.
15 Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay asideevery sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bindyou down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, andshow unto your God that ye are willing to repent of yoursins and enter into a covenant with him to keep hiscommandments, and witness it unto him this day by goinginto the waters of baptism.
In between appointments we will run to the car and say "HASTEN THE WORK" xD We literally cannot wait to get out to work every day, and when it comes to be 8:00 we are so ready to work hard for that last hour, dreading the moment we have to turn home – especially when we feel like we still have energy. This is what I have wanted for my whole entire mission. Actually no! This is so much incredibly better than what I wanted my mission to be. Sister Anderson says that a mission has the potential to be beautifully and intensely spiritual and this is what the week has been like.
Every night we come home and do the mile report, and before we leave the car we put on a song by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and just ponder on the day. We present everything we have done to the Lord and we ask Him to accept it, to take our imperfect offering and allow it to be our way of worshiping and glorifying Him. It is a beautiful way to connect with Heaven.
In other news, the spanish has come back so much better than I left it when I went to Mendon. I just know that I have been prepared to come here to the Mount Lewis Alpha area and help these people here, and come closer to my Savior than I ever have before. It is such a blessing to be here, I am so humbled that this is where I have been put.
I love you all!
Hermana mle Ogden