July 14, 2014

Dearest Family,

This was a really good week. 

Highlights: 

Cathy came to Church! Of course we sang In Our Lovely Deseret. Without fail whenever one of our new investigators comes to church for the first time we sing either If You could Hie To Kolob or In our lovely deseret. Oh hymns :) But it was so good! She liked church and we have a lesson scheduled with her for next week. What was most amazing though was that our whole sacrament meeting was about the Book of Mormon as they challenged all the youth in the stake and our whole ward to read the Book of Mormon in 40 days. It was really powerful, And afterwards, Cathy said she's going to do the challenge! Ha, it will be amazing :) 

We had an awesome couple lessons with Stacy, Mark, and Samantha. We challenged them to pray together as a family and we're going to help them begin a habit of family prayer and family home evening. Stacy finally prayed!! It was so beautiful. Praying is such a wonderful gift that God has given us. I love it. We have a lesson with them tonight to do an FHE and we're going to teach them the rest of the Plan of Salvation. 

We started teaching Sara! She has been taught by other missionaries in another ward as her bf is in that ward and that is how she got introduced to the gospel. But she lives in our ward so we get to teach her :) She loves the gospel and knows it's true and wants to get baptized. So we are excited about that. 

We had zone conference. It was really powerful. President gave a training on change and how we change deep internal things about ourselves. It was great. 

Something I have really learned this week is about the Savior's atonement. I feel like I continue to learn these things and then I forget and then I learn them again and they go a little deeper and then I kind of forget and then I learn them again and they go even deeper. I've been studying the talk, Becoming Perfect in Christ. You all should read it. I wish I could express how amazing it was-what an important lesson it was for me and for the rest of my life. I've been trying to find the balance between having really high expectations (which I do-such high expectations about the missionary and person I want to be) but also allowing yourself to be forgive yourself when you make mistakes. aka realizing that you're never going to be perfect but you're not even supposed to be perfect but still striving for it. And I realized that just as in other things, it's not even really a balance. It's just an acceptance of Christ's atonement. He allows us to make mistakes. Because that is how we learn! It was a really cool epiphany that I wish I could express in words but I can't right now. Maybe someday...

We got a mini missionary this week! Hannah Smith :)

Sister Smith, Sister Saunders, Me (please ignore my sunburnt face and not very well fixed hair. haha one of these days I'm going to remember sunscreen...) 

She was in my ward in Huntington Beach for those 9 months I was there so I already know her. She will be with us for 2 weeks to experience what missionary work is like :) It will be awesome. 

Okedoke, I love you all. 

Pray to God. Don't forget to give Him time :) 

Love, 

Sister Andelin