HELLO FAMILY!!!
I have been so
excited to e-mail you this week for some reason :) haha I guess just because
this week was good :) I hope you all had a happy new year’s!!! :) My new year’s
eve was actually quite horrid. I have been dreading a day like that my whole
mission! Sister Chipman had the flu pretty bad, so we had to stay home all day.
I may or may not have turned into a barbarian! I went insane! I just wanted to
go out and work but I didn't want to clean up chipman's puke everywhere we went
:) And president and sister weaver forbade us. :( So I made cookies I did the
dishes I updated the area book, made a progress record, updated our board,
studied, prepared a training etc. I had to keep myself busy or I would've been
out living in a cave right now! haha that was the first time I have had to stay
home on my mission and it was HORRIBLE!!!!! I hope it never happens again :)
haha I have forbid myself to get sick so I am perfectly healthy :) No getting
sick here! haha :) So that was my Tuesday! The next day was better though, haha
we had district meeting and I got to give a training and it was fun! I love
giving training's because It forces me to get out of my comfort zone :) and
that's when I learn more! :) And I’ve had to give quite a few since I became an
STL.... :) Also on new year’s we had this really random prompting to go see
this guy named Terry Huff. Remember this name because I'll talk about him later
as well :) But we knocked into terry a while back and he never had time to meet
with us, so we just went and knocked on his door and shared a quick message
with him on his doorstep and prayed and left. Then about 10 minutes later he
texted us and asked us to come back. And he told us that he was moving and he's
going through a lot of things and he needs help so he was going to put his
pride aside and ask us for help :) So he asked if we could get some guys to
help him move on
Saturday and also he asked
us to go to Fred Meyer for him! haha so we ran to the store and got him some
groceries :) Then we got to go to the Stann's house for dinner! :) They are one
of my favorite families in the ward :) The Stanns are a family that was
baptized in May of last year! :) They are awesome! Their little 7 year old
Tayler is a mini missionary! She always sits by us in church, and she loves to
give church tours with us, and she bears her testimony every fast Sunday! haha
She's adorable! :) So we had a lot of fun over there :) They're a great family!
I'm telling you, all the recent converts here are AMAZING! :) Thursday wasn't extremely eventful.. :) we got
to go to bishops house for breakfast and that's always fun :) Then we did
weekly planning! haha Sister Chipman HATES weekly planning, especially
companionship inventory because I always make her give me something good to
work on and she hates it and stresses about it :) But I need to know what I can
work on or I’ll just keep being horrible! :) haha jk :) On Friday we had my last MLC! :( I love going to
those things because President Weaver is the funniest man in the whole world
and it's just so much fun! I am going to miss those meetings. They always pump
us up so much! :) I'll tell you more about it in a minute but we also had a
lesson with Luis and timothy that day, they are way awesome guys, we are trying
so hard to get them to baptism! Luis might be getting his divorce though so
then we'd hand them over to the YSA elders. But we had another lesson at the
Hartzell's they are so amazing! it's kinda funny, brother hartzell reminds me
so much of Elder Eyring. Not only does he look a lot like him, but he has the
gift of weeping! :) So it was as always a really great lesson! :) We also ran
into a crazy bird lady who tried to tell us for 30 minutes why our faith is
wrong. And I just kept proving her wrong through the bible because our church
is true :) haha but anyways back to MLC...This time we talked about meeting our
goals and how repentance is necessary and hope :) I took like 6 pages of notes
it was SO good! :) First of all president shared a way funny story about how he
was going to a stake presidents house and he couldn't find it so he got out of
his car and tried to ask this guy if he knew where he lived and the guy says
"I’m not interested, I’m busy right now" and president asks him again
if he knows where this stake president lives and he says again "I’m not
interested I’m busy right now" and President says "sir I’m just
looking for this address" and the guy points to the house and President
goes haha but it was just so funny because we experience that like 80 times a day!
:) Then he talked about how we are gathering the Wheat from the tares. Not
everyone is going to listen, not everyone is going to try, and a lot of people
will slam their doors in our faces. But the wheat is out there. I think it's so
interesting because this mission is one of the highest baptizing missions,
there's on average about 60-70 a month. THAT'S A TON!!! But the point is, is
that there are still people out there that are searching, that are open, and
it's absolutely spectacular. I find peace in a quote that my MTC teacher told
me "We are not her to build Israel, we're here to gather Israel."
Hearts can only be softened if they are susceptible to the spirit. And not
everyone is! And so we can only do so much, but God will do everything He can
to help His children back to Him. So as soon as their hearts are just soft
enough, we knock on their door, either planting a seed, or helping their seed
of faith grow. But again, not everyone is quite ready for it yet. And so we
keep knocking, we keep trying without getting discouraged. and then one day we
find the Wheat! And how great is our joy when that happens! :) Then President
talked a lot about repentance. Did you know repentance is the purpose of our
mortal lives? Well it is! :) Because our purpose is to prepare to meet God, and
gain physical bodies and learn and grow. The preparing and learning and growing
all come from repenting. I seriously always thought of repentance as a scary
thing, when actually it is just a change. Which sometimes just naturally
happens anyways! Whether it be because of our circumstances or whatever :)
Repentance is AWESOME!!!! :) So I invite all of you to repent! and continue to
do so! Ask yourself who you are, and who you want to be and then become that.
:) I loved a quote that Elder Andersen said when he came to the mission, he
said "You are not who you think you are, you are better." So take
that and run with it :) Then we talked about hope. There should be hope in
every moment of your life! :) If ya'll have the ensign you should read the
first presidency message and sink it into your heart! It's so good! :) Hope is
believing and expecting that something good will occur :) So this weekend I
worked on having hope, and looked for miracles, and I want to share with you
what I found. It was quite wonderful. On Saturday we
went over to Terry's house and thank the heavens there was some men there from
our ward, including our RC's Juan and Kyle. They are amazing. I’m telling you.
They are a miracle. Just to interject here for a moment Juan gave sister
chipman and I the sweetest thing in the whole world! It was a pin that's called
"Angel beside me" and I literally cried it was so sweet! :) I'm going
to keep it forever! :D Anyways, so we all helped Terry move and it took us about
an hour to get all the big stuff in the U-Haul and then they took it to the
storage unit, we couldn't go because it was out of our area, then we went about
doing our work and we went to Nichole and Aaron's house. We have been working
with them for a long time, since sister Dean was here, they are a part member
family and they were referred to us by Sister Correy in our ward. And so we
taught them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nichole is the one who is not the
member, but Aaron hasn't been active for years so it's been good to teach them.
But anyways we have been trying to get Nichole on date for the longest time!
Every time we went over Satan used his little tricks! and he always made it so
we couldn't ask! her mom would come, or she would have to go do something and
it was always impossible! But on Saturday we
finally got her on date for the 25th!!!! :) YAY!!! It was the biggest miracle
and I am so excited! :) The true principle applied was that we taught simply
which is something we've been exhorted to do a lot recently :) And because of
that true principle applied, a miracle resulted!!! :) Then that night we went
back to Terry's and he fed us some dinner, Juan and Kyle were STILL there! they
helped him like all day. Again, they are amazing. But we got to teach Terry and
his 13 year old Jayden about the Restoration! And it was way awesome! The
spirit was amazing! And Terry was like "well there were visitations in the
bible so why wouldn't it happen today?!" and we were like
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!! so now he is reading the BOM! and it all started from
following a prompting to go see him on Wednesday. That is a miracle. We followed the true
principle of following the prompting of the spirit, and service and from that a
miracle came! :) On
Sunday another miracle
happened when Sister Pryor walked into church and showed me a picture from mom!
That was a HUGE miracle :) I was extremely happy to see that everything is
going well! :) Another miracle was when Michael Brandon walked into church with
his kids! We have been trying so hard to get him baptized, but his x wife kept
getting in the way and wouldn't come and pick the boys up on time, and she also
would NOT let him bring the boys to church since he agreed they could be raised
catholic so he could never make it to church. So we have been praying and
trying so hard to help him get to church and help his x's heart to be softened
and the miracle happened! He was at church with his boys! My heart was and
still is a HUGE puddle from all of this! And I’m not even done yet! :) After
Sacrament our ward mission leader came up and said "hey jaleisa is
here" and I jumped out of my skirt! We had been trying for 3 weeks to get
ahold of her and she was never home and I was so sad because I really like
Jaleisa. And since we have church at 9 now, we didn't have much time to do
church round up so we just sent out a mass text. And SHE CAME!!!! she's the one
I’ve talked about with the cutest little 1 year old boy named King who throws a
football like a quarter-back :) But that was such a miracle. I also got to see
Sister Correy who referred us to Aaron and Nichole and their parents are also
in the sound view ward so I got to see them as well, I told them of Nichole and
Aaron's progress and they all started to cry. It was the absolutely sweetest
thing. I just felt their joy and relief that there was even just a chance that
Nichole would join the church. It was amazing. Such a great feeling that it
brought tears to my eyes! :) I love this work. It's God's work. :) But I am so
convinced that Miracles happen EVERY day and almost every moment. I have made a
goal to enjoy all the little things. Like the miracle of the sun rising.
Because it gives me hope. And without hope we have nothing. You should have
hope at every moment. :) This is what it says about hope in Preach my
gospel: Hope is an
abiding trust that the Lord will fulfill His promises to you. It is manifest in
confidence, optimism, enthusiasm, and patient perseverance. It is believing and
expecting that something will occur. When you have hope, you work through
trials and difficulties with the confidence and assurance that all things will
work together for your good. Hope helps you conquer discouragement. The
scriptures often describe hope in Jesus Christ as the assurance that you will
inherit eternal life in the celestial kingdom.
President James E. Faust taught:
“Being blessed with hope, let us, as disciples, reach out to all
who, for whatever reason, have ‘moved away from the hope of the gospel’ (Col. 1:23). Let us reach to lift hands which hang hopelessly down.”
–Elder
Neal A. Maxwell
“Brightness of Hope,” Ensign, Nov.
1994, 36
“Hope is the anchor of our souls. …
“Hope is trust in God’s promises, faith that if we act now, the
desired blessings will be fulfilled in the future. …
“The unfailing source of our hope is that we are sons and
daughters of God and that His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, saved us from death”
(“Hope, an Anchor of the Soul,” Ensign, Nov.
1999, 59–60).
As Elder
Holland would say "so hope on,
journey on"
Also after church we decided to stop by the Foster's house, they are an
older couple, and Brother Foster is paralyzed from the waist down and stuck in
a bed. So they can't make it to church ever. But we went over and their whole
family was there! All of them were members except one. And so for the message
we shared the restoration, which I do most of the time anyways. But the spirit entered
the room so perfectly when we quoted the first vision. It's amazing because we
say that at least 5 times a day if not more, and still, every single time, the
a spirit comes that is so perfect. It's amazing. And it's true :) haha Then we
got to also go to the Coursey's for dinner again. They're the ones who the guy
speaks English but the girlfriend and daughter speak Portuguese and a tiny lick
of English! haha so it's fun! But we had some good Brazilian food! My favorite
was the fried egg plant :) It was so good! :) Then we went knocking and we got
stuck at the Falk family's house. They were smoking, and they were seriously
drunk. But they were very nice! haha oh man, the funniest things happen on a
mission. The lady just kept saying how beautiful we were and how we needed to
be safe. I was so lost and confused with the rest of the conversation haha! It
was awesome :) Then we ended the night at the Hartzell's teaching Anthony the
new member lessons :) We taught him the restoration and it was SO awesome :)
The spirit filled the room and we all bore our testimonies about the
restoration. I just want to say that I am so grateful for the restoration of
Jesus Christ's church and gospel. It has brought SO many blessings into my life
including all of you guys :) I know that this is HIS church. I know Joseph
smith was a true prophet. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. It doesn't
matter how many people try to prove me wrong, or tell me that it's not true,
because it's true. Whether they believe it or not. I KNOW it. The gospel just
makes sense. If we live it I know we will receive so many blessings that
"there will not be room enough to receive it." I add my
testimony with that of Elder Hollands which says "What was once a tiny seed of belief for me
has grown into the tree of life, so if your faith is a little tested in this or
any season, I invite you to lean on mine. I know this work is God’s very truth,
and I know that only at our peril would we allow doubt or devils to sway us
from its path. Hope on. Journey on. Honestly acknowledge your questions and
your concerns, but first and forever fan the flame of your faith, because all
things are possible to them that believe."
I know I
don't have near as much faith as he has, but it's getting there. I also Invite you
to lean on my testimony. Because it's true. And never would anything in the
world make me doubt that. And so we have to try, we must keep growing our
faith, we must keep doing the small and simple things such as praying, reading
scriptures, and going to church. Do them, and I promise you your life will be
happier, easier, and more hopeful. All things are possible to them that
believe. Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ because he believed.
When we apply the true principles of the gospel, miracles happen in our own
lives too. We may not see God and Christ, but we can have our own spectacular
miracles. So keep trying, keep hoping, grow your faith, and be happy! :) I love
you all so much and hope you have a wonderful New Year! :) Keep becoming who
you are destined to be! which is a god or goddess living with me and our
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for Eternity. We are not perfect now by any
means, but we have a potential to be. Don't get discouraged when things don't
go your way, or when you feel inadequate. God sees the bigger picture of who
you are and who you will become. So trust in Him. I love you all SO much!
:)
Love
Always
Sister Wilkins
:)
