Keep those letters coming! Britt LOVES getting letters!!
Week 5 Letter:
Hi
again! Holy crap I have no time because I read your long e-mails and don't have
time to type! So write me letters! You can still type them but it's easier to
get them in the mail and read them before I come to the library. Ok update
time! this week was the best most amazing week yet! I have grown so much and am
really getting a hang of this missionary thing! I also found that it's
ok to send packages to my abode :) Tell Morgan and Alisha congrats! Their baby
is adorable! I have totally given BOMs to the hobos! We also give them
brownies! My companion and I are trying to stay away from sweets except at
members homes! :) Besides 5-7s we visit people go see less actives or recent
converts and teach lessons to investigators or take new investigators on church
tours! We stay busy all the time! :) It luckily hasn't snowed here in
Steilacoom! There have actually been like 3-4 days that it's been SUNNY and it
hasn't rained for the last 5-6 days!!! WOOOT! :) hahaha This week... has been
crazy! On Tuesday I woke up not feeling good and my companion decided she
wanted to fast so that day I was kind of irritable so I gave it over to the
Lord and it ended up being an amazing day! We taught M., during the opening
prayer he said it and he started crying. He was so touched by the spirit! Then
we were talking and something we said really hit him. and he just came out and
said " I know this church is true!" We were all crying it was such a
spiritual moment! I'll tell you more about him later :) We have started teaching
his son D. separately, he's afraid Mormonism will cramp his style so we're
working on him! Then we got a call from J. who is an alcoholic and he
said he's been reading the Book of Mormon and had some questions! Then we
taught cute little C. and got her on date for next weekend! Wednesday was
my month-a-versary! woot... haha! It feels like yesterday you were dropping me
off at the MTC! We also had a kind of crazy experience! We were invited by a
member of our ward to teach the first lesson to a Unitarian church...they are
interesting people I will tell you that! So we taught the restoration to about
20 people that night. The spirit there was so strong especially when we quoted
the first vision. MY companion and I were both crying. And afterwards a lot of
people wanted a BOM or mormon.org
card. We are hoping to go back and teach them again! Thursday was a crazy day!
Sister Phillips (sister halls trainer who went home the transfer I came) came
into town! So Thursday morning she came to see us off at the ferry since we
were supposed to go to Anderson Island! She's super cute and way nice! So we go
to get on the ferry and find out that it's broken down and they won't be
running it til 12. So we got to go to breakfast with Sister Phillips and her
parents and her parents paid for us! They're so sweet! You'll probably get
something from them her mom asked for our address to send you pictures! They're
form vernal UT! Anyways we went to this place called Carrs and oh my goodness!
it is SOOO good! Their pancakes are like flying saucers! I loved it. We'll have
to come back and go there one day! We got on the 12pm ferry and went and taught
Jackie but I didn't get to work on my penguin :/ so he's still just a little
circle! That night we taught Mike again! It was really awesome! We talked about
temples and he's so excited to go do baptisms in the temple! haha Friday was a
great day! We taught the P. family again (11 from heaven) we taught them the gospel
of Jesus Christ and they said they learned more this time than any other time!
It was my first time teaching them cuz last time I just listened and I was a
little intimidated, but it went so good! :) Then we had a lunch with the whole
family! All 15 of us at one table! And they're 3 youngest (4,2,5) sang us the CUTEST little song! As I said before I am in love
with this family!!!! :) We also taught C! oh C.....she is a
perfectionist! haha So her goals before baptism are to be a scriptorian and to stop
thinking about boys all the time. She's 17...we're working on her.! haha! but
she moved her baptismal date back to December...we're working on that too :)
Friday was also park day! So I got A LOT of walking in :) And it was very warm
and sunny! I loved it! The Lord blessed us! That night we had a ward party for
Sister Phillips! She was in Steilacoom for the last 6 months of her mission!
But it was SO fun! My ward is so amazing and I love all the people in it! We
are one big ohana! (the Agor family tree makes up half of our ward and they're
Samoan :) ) Then Saturday! Oh my goodness it was such a wonderful day!!! :)
M. & B.'s baptism! Just a little background on M.: when Sis Phillips
and Hall knocked on his door they NEVER though he would be baptized. He has
tattoos and smoked like a chimney and didn't believe in organized religion. NOW
he stopped smoking and drinking coffee and has more faith than I’ve ever seen
in one man! B.: She is an excommunicated member who has made her LONG
journey back and got baptized on Saturday! So the baptism was so nice! M. had
to get dunked twice cuz he put his leg up the first time haha. Then I got to
give the missionary message. Ok I was scared out of my mind to do this. I
haven't taught the first lesson since the MTC and my whole ward was gonna be
there and some investigators! I was freakin out. So I got up and at that moment
I felt the spirit more than I have my whole mission. Talking about the
Restoration, quoting the first vision, I just know it's true with all my soul.
We have the fullness of the gospel! YAY!!! :) Afterwards the bishop told me it
was the best missionary message he had ever heard at a baptism * Alma 26:
11-12! Of course I was bawling at this point. Then we did something rare, we
had B. and M. share their testimonies. B.'s was so sweet and simple
and lovely and M. shared 2 Nephi 1:15 which I shared every day in the MTC.
He talked about how Jesus has walked with him his whole life and now he's here
embracing him. And how he knew this church is true and Joseph Smith is a true
prophet of God. It was so amazing. The whole room was crying. Even our
investigators. It was truly so amazing. It was the best spiritual experience
I've had thus far and I’ve had a lot of them. But in that moment I figured out
truly why I am on a mission and what my purpose is. That day was so amazing! The
rest of the day we did a ton of tracting because it was a bright and sunny day!
That night we took a BOM and cookie brownies to ferry dude Doug cuz he had
surgery on his foot and wasn't at the ferry on Thursday, and now we get to go
back and teach him this week! :) Sunday was a really good day too! Only 2 of
our investigators came to church but it was so spiritual! Saturday was a good
day for our ward we had 2 baptisms and a family sealing and it was also stake
temple night! So the spirit of that carried over into Sunday. M. got
confirmed and he was crying (such a softy!) and then the Lenz's spoke they're
the military relations missionaries and their talks were so spiritual and
uplifting. They talked about baptism and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then In Sunday
school we talked about the scriptures and some of us shared our favorite
scriptures. Sister Phillips shared Matthew 14. And I just lost it. I had read Matthew
14 during my personal study. And verses 30-31 really hit me and then in Sunday
school it hit me again! I realized how much God knows exactly what each of us
needs at exactly what time. He is so merciful and loving and I’ve seen SO many
tender mercies. In relief society we talked about Elder Eyrings talk
"where is the pavilion" I encourage you all to read it and figure out
what you pavilions are. Then decide to follow Christ! :) It's a powerful talk!
Over all this week was so amazing! Like I said I have grown so much and I have
really come to know with a surety that this church is true and we have the
fullness of the gospel. I don't know where I’d be without it. Something that I’ve
been pondering on lately is Faith hope and charity. Because those are the most
important attributes to have at the last day, especially Charity. Faith: There
are so many instances in the scriptures where Christ says "go thy way, thy
faith had made thee whole" and I’ve read that line a zillion and a half
times but i never really applied it to my life. When we think of faith we know
we have it. one of my favorite scripture chapters on faith is Alma 32. When I
think of this sentence "go thy way thy faith had made thee whole" I
realize that Faith is truly powerful. These people in the scriptures are healed
because of their faith. Their Faith has made them whole. If we can just have
enough faith, we can be whole. Think about it. :)
Charity: charity is the pure love of Christ, this is something I
had to learn with my companion in the MTC. haha I'll tell you about that when I
get home...but! Charity is the only thing that cannot fail! Crazy right? When
everything else in life fails, charity will not. I have found that it's SO
important to view people with the pure love of Christ. because we are here on
this earth to really emulate Christ and Charity is one of his greatest
attributes. If we have Charity for others we in turn have charity for ourselves
and truly achieve the love of Christ.
Hope: this is something we all struggle with. Having a hope that
we can all make it to the celestial kingdom. There are so many days where all
of us don't feel good enough, but if there's one thing I've learned it's that
God is SO merciful to His children, he won't let you fall. Something I learned
in the MTC is that because Christ didn't fail if we become like Him we cannot
fail. The biggest thing we have to do is try our best. And that's all God asks
of us! Ether 12:27 he gives us weaknesses to help us and make us humble. But we
still have strengths! and if we humble ourselves before God our weaknesses will
be made strong through Him!!!! another aspect of hope is to hope for things
which are not seen which are true. That's pretty self explanatory.
Anyways, I am so glad to hear from all of you and happy I had
time to write this e-mail I was freaking out a little bit! :) haha I LOVE YOU
SO MUCH!
I love Steilacoom, I love being a missionary, I love my
companion, I love the people, I love my weaknesses, I love Heavenly Father and
Jesus Christ and I LOVE YOU! :)
Love always
Sister
Brittany Ann Wilkins
Oh
something else..this morning i met the real Jesus. No joke. We got up at 6 and
went running and this guy starts talking to us when we were walking back. His
name is Real Jesus. No joke...kinda crazy! Also I am sending pictures!!!! Get
excited :) Also all the missionaries love me, only because I dated Elder Beach
:P jk not only because of that but EVERYONE knows about it...that's the first
thing my mission president said to me when I got off the plane. I thought I was
doomed. oh another thing is that on st pattys day Mike made us corn beef and
cabbage and the corn beef is SOOOOO GOOOOD!!! Oh my goodness I am obsessed with
it. That is all :) LOVE YOU!
Week 6 Letter:
Hello Family! And Happy late Easter!!! And Happy April Fools
day! Don’t forget to prank your loved ones! :) haha Mom you sent me the wrong
camera cord...the usb is too big for my camera :P but thanks for the package!
I've officially gained like 3 pounds! Yuck! :P So this week has felt like
centuries! haha but it has been good! On Tuesday we went to the P.'s home and taught them the last lesson. It went good and me and Sister
Hall were both crying along with the mom and grandpa. They are the nicest people you could ever meet. Real intent something I have learned a lot
about out here on my mission. This is where we have
to let go of the natural man and not doubt. We have to be 100% willing
to ACT on whatever revelation we receive. That's why we have the restored
gospel. Because Joseph Smith was willing to ACT on whatever God told him
to do. If God told him to be a Methodist he would've if God told him to be a Baptist
he would've that's why God knew that Joseph Smith would be the perfect
prophet of the restoration, because he was humble and willing to do
the Lords will. No he wasn't a perfect human being because all of us are
fallen, but we "know them by their fruits" and the fruits
that Joseph Smith produced are pretty miraculous if I do say so
myself...I was talking to a lady in my ward about how the world was in
such a dark place before the restoration. And as soon as the restoration began
the world took off. If the P's will have a broken heart and a contrite spirit they
will receive the fullness of the gospel and have everlasting life. I love
this family so much! We are still going to work with them as long as they invite
us to do so. This week we get to make dinner with them and knit scarves!
Ya I'm learning how to knit and crochet now! haha I really just wanna yell
out to the world "the grass is green the sky is blue the gospel is
true!!!!" Because it's so true. There is no way that it's not. it's
so simple. If we can just open our hearts to Christ we can receive eternal life
and salvation. Anyways, Wednesday we had zone conference. Hooray! It was
fun and I like to see all the missionaries in my zone. :) At the end we
found out that we're going to do some firesides! so we sang some
songs. One of my favorite songs that my mission sings every time we get
together and I cry every time is amazing grace. If you get on the mission blog
you can listen to it. But it really is such an amazing song! My favorite part
is "my chains are gone, I’ve been set free, my God my Savior has
ransomed me, and like a flood His mercy reigns, unending love, amazing grace.
Just think about that :) it was a really great conference. Thursday we
went to Anderson Island! and I've gotten so far on my little penguin! I’m
almost done with the head! yay! :) I feel pretty proud of myself :) haha
We also taught J. of course and we read Alma 36 you should go read it. It's
a really good chapter! it's about Alma the younger, who was the worst of the
worst sinners and it's about how he broke free of the chains of Satan.It's
waaaay good. Go read it and ponder on it. I've been
praying every night that my conscience will crush me, because
Alma the younger was crushed by his guilt. I want that to happen to
me with every wrong I do so that I can be more repentant of the mistakes I
make so that I can over come the natural man and be an exact follower of
Christ. We also talked about how we have all this knowledge on the gospel
and all we have to do is act on it to receive eternal life. All we
have to do is ACT. Crazy right? If we act on what we know God will let us
know more line upon line because He knows He can trust us. God will not
give you more knowledge if you aren't acting on the knowledge you
already have. It was such a powerful lesson and I learned a ton through
the spirit! so go read Alma 36! Haha on Friday I read Alma 32 in
personal study which is also an amazing chapter. It talks all about faith. And
Faith is something that I work on every single day. Faith is so
simple! and by Small and simple things are great things brought
to pass!!!!! It's so true though...when you think about it. By the
smallest and simplest things the greatest things are brought to pass. Like for
example if we are nice to people, that's pretty simple right, but it's so
important because we allow the light of Christ to shine through
us. Crazy...if we are nice to people we are being Christ like. It's one of
the simplest things God has asked of us yet we act like it's so hard to do.
And we always have the light of Christ in us, but in the MOMENTS
when we let the adversary take hold of us and let the natural man come out
we are choosing to follow Satan and he is pulling you down chain link by chain
link. Because of something so simple. So make sure that the simple things
in your life are made important. Because we are never held so captive as when
we free the natural man. On Saturday night a miracle happened! We had some
extra time so I told sister hall we should go finish tracting a street we'd
been on before. So we finished the street and then I thought of a lady that we
met that lived up the street and was interested in learning more so I was like
we should go see T. So we walk up the street and we get to the end of tina's
little road and we heard fighting and then T. comes running to us. Her
boyfriend had been yelling at her. She said that if we hadn't shown up she
probably would've ended up in the hospital, cuz her boyfriend is abusive.
That is what happens when you listen to the spirit. By small and simple things
are great things brought to pass. You can witness miracles in your life!!! in
our mission they tell us every day to expect miracles! And I am going to extend
the same challenge to you! EXPECT MIRACLES are going to happen in your life
every day! Put your trust in the Lord and if you are willing to do His will He
promises that you will see miracles. Now i get to the juicy stuff! haha in
light of Easter I thought I’d talk about the Atonement. I have never felt the
spirit so much on Easter as I did yesterday. But first I have to tell you about
church we of course had an amazing program and lessons on the atonement.
M. (our recent convert) bore his testimony in sacrament! It was SO GOOD! and
he received the Aaronic priesthood yesterday! He’s super solid! He's
going to be such an amazing Disciple of Christ
then for dinner we went over to this old couples house in our
ward and it was so good! we had ham and potato salad and oranges and homemade
rolls and ASPARAGUS! YUM! anyways after dinner we went to The Lamb of God. You
all need to listen to the music. I bawled my eyes out the whole time. It was
about the Saviors Atonement. I am going to tell you what I wrote in my journal:
I am so eternally grateful to my Heavenly Father for sending His
only Begotten Son. To live a perfect life so we can model our lives after His.
Then He suffered for me in Gethsemane, He felt all of MY trials pains
weaknesses flaws, everything. Everything I have experienced and everything I
will experience He felt all of it. Jesus Christ knows me with perfection and
exactness. But that wasn't all He did for me, he was mocked and scorned, spit
on and whipped, the forced a crown of thorns on His head and nails into His
hands, wrists, and feet and hung Him on a cross. Tortured, defeated, and
Exhausted the Savior was still willing to die for ME, and willing to do the
will of the Father. On day 3 he rose as a resurrected being so that I could
overcome death. He did ALL of this for ME. and how have I thanked him? Not
enough. I am a fallen imperfect mortal, but He still loves me and He performed
the Atonement so my imperfections could be made perfect through Him. He
overcame spiritual and physical death so I could rise again and live with my
family for eternity and also my Heavenly Father. He walked completely alone so
that I would NEVER have to. I love Him so much and want to do my very best to
access His atonement and not make what He did for me be in vain.
I hope you all had an amazing Easter! and if I can get back on I
will write more! But time's up!!! LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!
Sister
Wilkins :)
I'm back! The library is busy today so I was worried I wouldn't
be able to get back on! But alas I was :) I wanted to tell you that it has been
SO SUNNY!!! I think it has only rained like twice in the last 2 weeks! ah
the joys of springtime! :) Something else I wanted to write about is my loving
companion.... :) who likes to play pranks on me! the other day she shoved one
of those Whising flowers in my mouth, I don't remember what they are called but
just FYI they DON'T taste good! :P Also I'm still having entertaining nights,
Sister Hall does missionary work in her sleep. She's very dedicated. Like last
night she was teaching a lesson. and the other night she said a prayer out loud
in the middle of the night. and she likes to play with the phone in her sleep
too! It's kind of creepy, haha last night she picked up the phone and was
pressing buttons but her eyes were closed! I was kinda creeped out but I’ve
learned to just go back to sleep. haha and I think I'm going to start putting
ear plugs in at night! Crazy child...haha I love my companion though! We
haven't had any contention at all. we're completely different but we get along
really well. It's good :) Oh! Dad! Remember that song that we used to sing? I
think it was called I'll find you my friend? You should send me the
lyrics! haha the tune has been stuck in my head but i don't know the lyrics and
it's driving me bonkers! Also will someone get me Allyson and Shauntelles
addresses? Maybe just make me my own ward directory haha jk. :)
Another thing I wanted to point out about the Atonement is
this: the fall of Adam made it so we could choose to be the worst of the worst
sinners, but the Atonement of Christ made it so we could be the best of the
best! we just have to CHOOSE to follow Christ :) I hope this letter has been
uplifting and though provoking. If we could just realize our full potential and
achieve it, we could proudly and comfortably stand in the presence of God. I
strive for that every day, and it's a long ladder and I have to take it
rung by rung but eventually through the grace of God I can make it to the top
of that ladder and out of the fallen pit of mortality. I challenge all of
you to read the Book of Mormon EVERY DAY. If you make God a priority
in your life I promise everything else will fall into place. I know this
to be true. If we can fully put our life in the Lords hands we will receive
eternal life. We must look unto Him in EVERY thought and not doubt nor fear. I
know that scripture to be true. and it is a commandment from God to look unto
Him in every thought doubt not fear not. And if we follow the commandments we
can reap great and amazing rewards! Though hard to you this journey may appear
grace shall be as your day. I know this to be true. Through our best efforts
and the Grace and mercy of God, we can know all is well. I love you all
sooooooooooooo etc much! And I think about and pray for you every day. If we
can make God our #1 priority we can become perfected. And don't forget that
Jesus Christ knows EXACTLY what you are going through. Rely on Him and He will
never let you down. He promises that he will not let you fall. (matthew
14:30-31) And He can't break His promises!
(D&C 10:5) anyways...I LOVE YOU! I hope you all have a
wonderful week! until Monday, all my love!
Sister Brittany Ann Wilkins! :)
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