Letter #5- Another beautiful Week
Well I love your letters. I must say I am probably the most blessed missionary in the whole world who has a family that shares their spiritual thoughts and experiences with me that help increase my faith and lift me up!!! I am so grateful for you all and for the time and effort you put into this letter and into supporting me!!!! I really love and appreciate you so much!!!! I hope that my letters to you can lift your faith as much as you have lifted mine!
Are the kids so excited for school?? Who learned how to drive the Ford?? I am sorry so many people have ruined their boats out on the lake that is absolutely awful!!! I love Melinda and Dayne, they are so cute. That must have been a great Sacrament meeting!!! Thanks for writing me during not football season!!!! That would be super hard not to hear from you more than that!!! Something that I am learning about people with special needs is that they are in a place where they can live so close to the Savior. I am glad though that you had those experiences with Jon and that he has brought you so much joy!!!!
I think I LITERALLY just gained 10 pounds reading about that yummy treat!!! You better make me some when I get home!!!! We don't have much time to cook and bake out here, but I would imagine that it is amazing!!!!!
Jason and Rachael eh?? Well I am happy to hear that it is going well!!!! Yay for a two year old girl!!!! Jason will make a great decision, if this is what he really wants I know that it will all work out in the end. Any two people if they are keeping the commandments and continually working to come towards Christ can make a marriage work.
I am glad that mine and David's story has set such a bar for the kids and for Jason. It doesn't always work like our story but I love what you are saying about having a divine dream. Maybe if more people set their divine dream on becoming more like the Savior they would appreciate their trials more. I would imagine that God feels like that towards all of us. Because He wants so badly for us to come back and live with Him, any progress we make is going to be a reason for Him to bless us, even though we are not perfect yet. That is a great principle though. You will never know if you are reaching new heights unless you figure out how high you want to reach. I am excited to read this book that you are writing Dad. I am really going to share some of those things with some of the Less Actives that we are working with!!! I appreciate how much time and effort obviously went into this letter and into your love and care for me. I love you guys and miss you so much!!!!
This week has been another week full of miracles out here in Michigan. I am finding more and more that if you would like to see miracles, all you need to do is look for them!!!
This week we have been really focusing on one of our investigators named Don. (Some of the missionaries call him Dirty D) To give you an idea of who he is he has really long hair (Annaleces long) Its gray and really thin and He probably only has 5 teeth. He lives in a trailer park and prides himself on being a historian. So the sisters before have been working with him for 5 weeks or so but he has a major problem with the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. Mainly he just isn't sure about whether or not it's true and doesn't feel like he knows what the spirit feels like. Well we felt like we needed to talk about his relationship with God as his father. We sang him "I am a Child of God" and he started crying and talking about how amazing he felt when he was singing the hymns in church, how it reminded him of being a little boy singing in the baptist choir. He really felt the Spirit. He probably cried for 10 minutes or so. How powerful a knowledge that we have - God is YOUR FATHER. That very truth can motivate and inspire us to do anything that we would ever need to do or go through knowing that you are a CHILD OF GOD and you can BECOME LIKE GOD!!! Can you believe that?? It was a really neat lesson because we were all so in tune with the spirit and even though we were in a dirty place and there were people yelling different stuff all around us, his porch became a sacred place at that moment. The spirit is so powerful and there is no way I would be able to do anything with my companion without it. We had a lesson with a member there as well with him later that week and she just connected with him so well!!!! It was amazing!!! Members are meant to be such a big part of this work. She really propelled him forward in understanding and in feeling included as part of the ward. He won't accept the invitation to be baptized yet, but He is feeling the spirit. My job is only to invite others to come unto Christ- after that; Christ will do the rest.
This is a truth that I have been learning this week. It is not MY job to convince people that the Book of Mormon is true or that Joseph Smith is a prophet. I want them to have the knowledge and power that comes from having that light and knowledge but it is not my job to convince them. The job of a missionary is simple. I connect a phone line that lets the person I am talking with access the love of the Savior. This is what will convince us of the truthfullness of the gospel. The reason that the church is true is not because any missionary or prophet says it is, it is true because GOD says it is.
We had another miracle where we had been working on some of Nick's (boy getting baptized) referrals. We went through all of them and were not getting too far when I had the feeling that we needed to turn. Well I didn't say anything and then Sister Taylor pulled over the car and said, there's something else we need to be doing. I suggested that we go tract. I LOVE TRACTING. She then said ya we should go to Detroit street (which is where I felt like we needed to turn) So we were driving down detroit street and I felt the Spirit super strong near a few houses and then it left as we kept driving, we got to the end of the street and Sister Taylor turned and said maybe not that street. I then spoke up and said we needed to be on Detroit and Dartmouth. We tracted 3 houses and then were going to go to dinner and I had the feeling "just go put a card on that persons door" and Sister Taylor said well let's just try it then. So as I walked up to these people's door I held my hand up to knock and the door opened. 2 men were inside obviously a bit drunk but very very Christian. They were super open to what we had to say and then we set an appointment and came back with a member and had a really neat lesson with them about the Book of Mormon and the Bible. We gave them both a Book of Mormon and we will see what happens but I know that we were supposed to be there. It was really a neat experience!!
I am just so touched by all of the experiences that we have been having here. There are a lot of people who are without any hope, they don't have any worldly possessions, they don't have food, they don't have the power that comes from coming closer to Jesus Christ. It breaks my heart to see people not have the joy that comes from this gospel of hope. I am coming to understand what it means when the prophets of the Book of Mormon say that their hearts are weighed down in sorrow because of the sins or pride of the people. Yet even though there is a lot of darkness, the light of Christ will penetrate any darkness no matter how thick, no matter how long it has been there. The ward I am serving in is such a light. There are new converts teaching investigators and investigators who teach with the missionaries. I can't adequately describe how much joy there is here either. I feel like Alma the younger when he describes the pain and sorrow of sin and the joy that comes from the gospel and being forgivien of his sins. Here I have experienced that joy as I have seen people come to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. "And oh, what joy and what marvelous light I did bejold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain."
The fact of the matter is that when we feel pain, we know that if we are faithful our pain will be filled with the mercy and the joy of the Lord to the extent that it will completely cover as much as we were in pain!!!
My companion and I have been breaking down every aspect of D&C 4 and studying the different qualities we need to have in order to do this work. Each day we study a different one and work on that. Have I mentioned I LOVE MY COMPANION!!! One thing you might find interesting
We were studying virtue and as it pertained to missionary work. In the topical guide virtue is a synonym for holliness and one of the definitions for holliness is "God's standard of righteousness" Being virtuous is more than being "clean" We studied it really in depth but what I thought was neat was this.
Virtue is knowing how much worth you are to God. Your worth is above rubies. When you return these "rubies" to god you will want them to be as clean and sparkly as they were when God gave them to you so that you can measure up to this "Standard of righteousness" We express virtue thorugh our obedience. This is how we treat the gift we have been given and this is how we will continually polish ourselves and make ourselves ready to meet our maker.
So in short. Virtue is the process of continual polish and cleaning (repenting and refocusing) that will help us measure up to God's standard of righteousness.
I hope you are all doing well I pray for you every day and think about you so much. I miss you like crazy and I wish I could see you all the time!!!!! Will you send me more pictures of the family together?? I would love to see you in different places in my scriptures and stuff like that if you get time. I miss you and think about you all the time. I am so grateful for everything you have done for me!!!! I appreciate your prayers and your letters and support!!!!
P.S. We put John on date for baptism on the 7th. We are going to help him quit smoking. but he's totally elect!!! He is looking for truth and believes everything he has been taught YAYAS!!! I am so FREAKING EXCITED!!
Let it be known that Sister Weber has the most amazing family in the entire world and that I love you more than words can say!!!! I think about you often, thank you for everything you do!!!
P.P.S.
I wish I could tell you everything I am learning but alas :) I can't! Soooo here's an experience you will like. Last night I really poured my heart out to Heavenly Father I felt like I wanted to run faster than I felt I had strength and I really just sat on my bed and prayed with all my heart. I felt the strength of angels around me. I prayed that that night I would have some sort of revelation that would help me do better. That night I woke up after clearly as if Mom had said it "The secret to this work, is smiling. All you have to do is smile." I woke up with the words ringing in my head. I know that even if you aren't sure about what to do, if you give the reigns to the Lord and smile, that is all the faith you need to be led to do great things. So don't forget to smile!!!
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