My dearest family and friends,
This week has been absolutely amazing!!!! I learned SOOOOO much!!!!
Temple....so, we were able to go to the temple this last week for Zone Conference. That was such an incredible experience. I hadn't been to the temple in 3 months, so it was SO nice to be able to go again. 3 zones were there, and we did two sessions. It was SO powerful. I can't even describe the spirit I felt. To have all the missionaries gathered together in the temple was indescribable. We were all in the Celestial Room at the same time. It was so neat to just look at everyone dressed in white. It truly felt like heaven. I love being a missionary, and I love being a member of this perfect church. A huge theme I found in conference these past couple days was temple attendance, staying worthy, and keeping the covenants made in the temple. After going to the temple, and then receiving this counsel, I've decided to make the temple something very important in my life. I will stop at nothing to receive a temple marriage, and I want to attend as often as I can when I get back from my mission. I love the temple!
Miracles....so one of the things we learned in Zone Conference was that "if we expect miracles, we'll recognize them." As a companionship, we really took that to heart. We tried this week to expect miracles, and pray for them, and write all the miracles down we saw at the end of the day. I have 2 miracles I would like to share. First, we were headed to a dinner appointment, but arrived 30 minutes early. We decided to go knocking. We prayed before we started that we would see a miracle. We came across a mom, her daughter, and her daughter's son sitting outside. We began talking with them and getting to know them. We then started talking about our church, the Book of Mormon, and everything else we had learned from Zone Conference. We bore testimony as well. They really felt the spirit. They accepted the Book of Mormon, and asked us to come back. That was indeed a miracle. Everything we learned in Zone Conference helped us talk with that family. It's amazing to see what people the Lord puts in front of us. The second involves Walter. He hadn't been keeping his commitments, and didn't come to church again last week. So, we decided that giving him LOTS of attention like we usually do, wasn't helping. We prayed about what to do, and decided to give him a few days to himself. Maybe it would help him see what it's like to not have us around. After 4 days, we really felt like we needed to visit him. We went to his house, and he was outside by his car. He didn't look good. He told us he had something he needed to talk to us about...and it didn't sound like good news. We told him we loved him, and he always reciprocates, but he didn't this time. We were SUPER worried. We were driving to English class and decided to say a prayer. In the middle of our prayer, Walter called us. He sounded just like his old self and told us he loved us :) We scheduled an appointment. That truly was a miracle. I was just grateful that he reached out to us and was okay!! :) So, we see many miracles as missionaries.
Teaching....I thought I'd give an update on who we are teaching. Sadly, after that amazing miracle with Walter....he is ignoring us, tells his children to send us away when he's home, and he doesn't answer our calls our texts. Please keep him in your prayers. He probably just needs some time. But, it's really discouraging. Ana and her kids are doing great. They told us yesterday they had to move to Texas to live with their brother.....so that was a shock, and very sad. There were a lot of tears yesterday. They were supposed to be leaving today. But, Ana found this place that would take her and her kids in, teach her English, help them get to school, etc. So we'll keep our fingers crossed! We still teach a lot of people, but it's all so random that it would be boring for me to describe every single person. We found Gonzalo and Juan while knocking, and both of them are progressing REALLY well. They LOVE the Book of Mormon. Gonzalo is on date for baptism, so we're helping him out. Maria (another we found knocking) is also on date, but we haven't been able to meet with her. So, we teach a lot of wonderful people, and they teach ME a lot :) When they start progressing further I'll go into more detail. :)
Funny thing....so I thought I'd share something funny. My companions and I like to play this game called "Guess what's inside?" when we go to a member's house to eat. They feed us every other Thursday. 3 times we've had this twice baked potato thing. (they are from Peru) Inside the potato the first time was raisins....and a weird meat. The second time it was peppers...and chicken. The third time I didn't know what to expect....it was tomatoes, hamburger meat, and a boiled egg. It's better than it sounds :) It's SO fun to guess what's going to be inside the weird potato. So, that's my funny story.
Conference....so of course conference was amazing!!!! I just want to share my testimony. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God. I know that the three new apostles were called of God. I know that we are truly lead by God through the prophets. I am so grateful for the counsel I received at conference. I learned two very important things. 1) The temple is very important 2) Having the spirit with you is important. All my questions got answered and I even received revelation for some investigators. Conference really is amazing. I don't know how much I can express my love for the men that lead the church. I hope everyone had an amazing conference weekend.
Well, thank you for all your prayers and support. I love you all SOOO much! Hope you have an amazing week!
Love,
Hermana Bringhurst
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| At the temple |
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