Happy Easter

Hello everyone!!

I hope you all that the most wonderful Easter!! I have grown to appreciate the holidays about Christ a whole lot more since coming on my mission. Sometimes I get too caught up in the family aspect of it (which is NOT bad at all :) I love my family ) and not always the Christ part of it. So this Easter has been a good time for me to reflect on my Savior, and His Atonement. I love the Easter season, and I hope everyone had a great Easter :)

So, I have a neat miracle to share this week :) We hadn't been in contact with Rogelio or Flor for a few weeks, and they hadn't been answering our calls -so we decided to do a surprise visit. They were there! They were so excited to see us!!!! They said their phones had broken, and they couldn't get our texts. They hoped we come back so they could explain. That was SO sweet!! The last lesson we taught was about the Sabbath day. We promised them that if they had faith, the Lord would provide a way for them to go to church. We followed up at this lesson, and flor said their prayers had worked! They were able to get a car! And the best part is that they can come for sacrament meeting!!!! how great is that!!!??? We are SOOO excited! What a great miracle to brighten my week!

Since we've been working with less actives, we've also seen the work start progressing! We were at a lesson with a less active, and her nephew was listening. He asked us after the lesson if we really had a prophet who received revelation from God. We said yes, and shared the Restoration with him. He agreed to hear the 5 lessons! WE were SOOO excited! The less active was too! It was a miracle!!!

Sadly we had to post-pone the temple this last Saturday. It closed early because of Women's Conference. We will go in 2 weeks though! :)

Women's Conference was amazing!!! For those who watched it, you are aware of the theme of "service". It was JUST what I needed to hear. I thought of different ways I could serve while listening. It was such a great conference. Before the broadcast we had a mini program/dinner with the stake women. It was SOOO great! We talked about Easter, and Christ. It was SOOOO amazing! I was just filled with the spirit that night! Missionary work definitely provides wonderful opportunities!

Well, that's all for this week! I hope to share more in the coming weeks! I love you all so much! HOpe you have the best week!

Love,
Hermana Bringhurst

Spring is here!

Dearest Family and Friends,

This week has been filled with many great things as usual! We've been switching our work mainly to less actives. But first I'll talk about our Easter Zone Conference! The subject was Repentance. Wow. What an amazing conference! I learned so much! We had a great discussion about what repentance really is. It's not something to be feared. It's something to be celebrated! WHile at the same time, it's still difficult. It takes effort. We talked about the blessings that come from repentance, like your guilt being washed away, your relationship with the Savior increasing, etc. Wow. It was absolutely amazing. It made me want to go out and preach repentance even more!!! I had been mistaken in the past thinking that only baptism was the gate...but repentance it the gate WITH baptism. You need both. Wow. All I can say is wow. I felt the spirit SOOO strong! I also had the opportunity to play the piano for my companions and two other sisters for a musical number. They sang a mix of families can be together forever, and love at home. It was beautiful. I love being with all the missionaries. The spirit is always just so strong! I love being a missionary. We watched a neat video on the Atonement as well. That video always brings tears to my eyes. I love my Savior. I am SOOO grateful for this Easter season :)

So, like I said, we are mainly working with less actives. It's been a HUGE blessing for the area! Not a lot of them come to church, but it's definitely what the Lord wants us to focus on right now. We don't really have any investigators because they all decided to drop us....sad :(....but we know that if we keep a positive attitude, are obedient, and follow the spirit, the work will progress the way it should! :)  A less active family that we're teaching came to church yesterday! Her husband is now driving them! how neat is that?? I was SOOO excited to see them!! Chamblee is such a great place!!

So I have a funny story. We were teaching Sally and Jessy the commandments, and when we got to the law of chastity, I told Sally "ok Sally...just don't think dirty thoughts" and she said, "like mud??" Kids are so innocent and cute! I love it! So there was the fun moment of this week that made me smile :)

I know that Chamblee is where I'm supposed to serve. Regardless of the level of "success" we have, I know that this is where the Lord wants me. I'm humbled every day to be a missionary. I am so grateful for my Savior and HIs sacrifice. I'm grateful for repentance, and I know it's powerful, and I know it changes you. It truly changes you. I know this church is true. I know it with all my heart. Thanks for all your love and support! Have a great week!

Love,
Hermana Bringhurst

We receive no witness until after the trial of your faith

Dearest Family and Friends,

This week was a good one! I guess I'll start by talking about our new companion! Yay for trios! Who knew I'd be in a trio for 90% of my mission? Haha. I'm learning a lot! Her name is Hermana Cuevas (sister caves in Spanish ;) ) Haha. She is originally from Chile. Spanish is her native language. She moved to the US when she was....hmmm....I forgot. She knows English better than Spanish though. She was assigned English, but now she is here in Spanish with us! We are very excited! She's very sweet :)

So, the great news of this week is that we have a date set to go to the temple with all the recent converts in Chamblee!!!!!!!! March 26th!!!! Hector, Fermin, and the Aranguren's are going! How exciting is that!!!!! We are beyond excited! I can't even believe it!!! :) :) I will be SOO excited to write about that experience!!!

So this week we did a lot of working with the less actives. We weren't really able to meet with our investigators this week. We met with Stephanie, and Balbina. That's it. :( It was kind of a bummer, but that's okay! We have this week!! So, the less actives we are working with are SUPER nice! They are very excited to come back to church! Everyone we work with, investigators included, keep pretty much all their commitments, except for going to church. It's kind of disappointing to work super hard all week, and not see anyone at church :( It was especially hard one week when the elders had 13 INVESTIGATORS at church.....man. How do they do it?? I know that everything is in the Lord's timing, and everyone has their agency. I KNOW they will come to church! I know it! We are really excited about everyone we are working with! One less active, Maria (go figure) invited us over for the first time in 8 months! I've never met her, so this was a HUGE miracle! We ate lunch with her. I was eating too slow for her taste, so she told me I was cast out from the table....haha. Silly Maria. I ate REALLY fast after that. then I got ice cream! Yay! :) So many great things are happening. I am SO excited about it! It may be at a downhill, or more like a flat road...but eventually it will go up and everything will fall into place! I know it!!!

The great thing is that Hector came to church, and he told us he told his work he wasn't coming because he had to go to church. :) yay!!! Hector and Fermin are the BOMB!!!!! The branch may not be as happy that they aren't "families" but they are 2 strong men who will make great families in the future. I am SOOO excited for Chamblee! This week was great!!!!!

I hope you all have an amazing week! I can't wait to talk about everything great that's happening next week! yay!!! I love you all so much! Thanks for the love and support!

Love,
Hermana Bringhurst

Back in a Trio! Surprised?? ;)

Dearest Family and Friends,

Yep! It's true! Every time I think transfers won't change anything.......something changes. We are getting another sister! We aren't training or anything, so we're curious as to who it is!! We'll have to wait until Wednesday! Yay! :)

This week has been absolutely amazing!!!!!!!! I can't even begin to describe my happiness level right now. I had so many amazing experiences that have just lifted my spirits this week!!

So first, we went to the Cruz family's house for FHE on Monday. They are SOOO sweet! They were telling us how sad they'd be if either of us left Chamblee! That made me feel so special! I guess the branch really does love us now! They said they are so used to us and already know us, and it would be so hard to have it change. That made me feel soooo special! So my week started off pretty great!
 
We also visited another member that night, and she wanted us to teach her daughter the lessons. We taught her daughter about prayer and Heavenly Father. When we were talking about how loving He was, and how He is always here...she started crying. We asked her what was wrong. She said while we were talking she remembered a video about Jesus Christ suffering for us and it made her so sad that he went through all that pain, and that He died for everyone. It was absolutely tender and precious. No wonder we are asked to be like little children. It was such a testimony builder to me :)

So the latest news is that we got a referral from the sisters in the north mission. They were tracting outside their area and so they passed the referral to us. Her name is Elena. We were taught in a training by the zone leaders to invite people to baptism for a specific date in the first lesson. We were super scared!!! But we did it with Elena. She is on date!!! We set it for May 7th to give her plenty of time :) She agreed to read the Book of Mormon! We'll see how this goes!

I also learned another important lesson this week about humility. We went to a less actives house. She is struggling with finances and hasn't gotten her check yet, so she hasn't had food for a couple of days. As we were leaving her house, she gave us each a banana and said it was all she had to offer us. How sweet is that that she gave us the only thing she really had to give. These people are truly humble. It's incredible.

I had another incredible experience this week. I'd been feeling discouraged lately thinking that my efforts hadn't really producing much "fruit" you know? We went to visit a member ( we had done an FHE with her and her son and another family the week before.) She told us how grateful she was that we came because her son now has made FHE a priority in the family. He was kind of being wild and didn't want to participate the week before....but apparently it had a stronger impact than I thought. She thanked us for planting seeds within her family. It was sOOO sweet. I almost cried. Sometimes we don't always see the fruits of our efforts. Heavenly Father was kind enough to let me have this experience this week. I want you all to remember that. you may not always see the fruits of the good you do, but they are there. Never forget that. Never.

So, yet another great experience this week. I can't go into detail because Fermin asked us not to, but I will say that I listened to him bear strong testimony one night of how he will never leave this church. It was such a powerful thing to listen to him talk about how important this Gospel is to him. He has changed soooo many things in his life. We are so proud of him! He also got the priesthood yesterday! yay Fermin!!! What a GREAT week!!!

We went to the temple, just to look at it, with Zoraida, Hector, and Alondra the other night. It was such a beautiful evening. Hector is SOOO excited to go!

What a GREAT week! Words cannot describe my love for this work. Please keep the Mata family in your prayers! Yhank you!

Also, no weird food was eaten this week....but maybe rat will be on the way??? A member wants us to try it.....yuck.

Have a great week!!! :)

Love,
Hermana Bringhurst