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| on pioneer day making corn tortillas with the rama. SO FUN! |
freaking saturday we were all blown away by elder ballard. get real. it was so tight. okay wait first, he came to the battalion early saturday morning and the two sisters leaving took the sweet man on the tour. digo, sweet apostle of the lord. as we were leaving we passed him just out panning for gold right before addressing the whole mission.. no big... haha. oh. and hey. i got news for ya. we are currently sharing an apartment. yep. one bedroom one bathroom for four sisters. it is HILARIOUS. (good thing i shower in THREE MINUTES WILLY! WEAK THINGS BECOME STRONG!) we are sharing with sister clayton and sister evans.. and that sister clayton is president's daughter who is doing a three week mini mission thing, like what petie invited me to do! would've been SICK! anyways, she's rocking it. and she's enlightening us on the life of her grandfather apostle, which is tight. ANYWAY. elder ballard is the man. can i just go for it?
he stood up and addressed us all by saying, "i come to you in the name of the Lord." wow.
--we have a message that NO ONE ELSE IN THIS WORLD HAS. we know who we are are, God's purpose, our preexistence and purose of life because we have joseph smith, the bom, and modern day revelash. "we are bathed as members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints in spiritual knowledge that the world doesn't have." they don't know. they don't understand. god is pushed out of the page in the secular world ,so we HAVE to become master teachers so we can share what we have with them!
--he talked about how every single word in pmg was checked for over 14 months and that THAT is the key so that we can treasure up the world and become those master teachers and have confidence enough to stand in front of kings and rules and teach them the gospel.
--and then he went on to do something VERY interesting... he brought everything back to the ward council. it was unbelievable. literally. every doubt, question, concern, EVERYTHING, "take it to your ward council. let them know who you're teaching, who you're visiting, who you're inviting to an ordinance, who you're reactivating, who you're rescuing this week. then LET THEM BE A PART OF IT. This is how we can save our brothers and sisters--it's by working TOGETHER. satan doesn't want us to figure this out!" he said that he feels our prayers for him and that all of the bretheren do, and that they are so grateful for the support and prayers from the church members. then he said, "we gather and pray for you EVERY thursday in the 4th floor of the temple. "we are on the same time. we are on the same errand." and it was SO clear to me. like you said last week, kristen, that we, as missionaries, are extension of the bretheren. wow. so he helped us make that connection and then he said that we need to work more and be on the same team with our ward members. he even said, "never try to teach investigators unless ward council knows who we're teaching. we've gotta knowck down the wall between missionaries do this and members do that. NO. this is a family effort in building the kingdom of God and we'll then have more people to teach." so we need to work together. i LOVE the organization of the church, holy hannah do i ever. so inspired. but so here's my question, how are the missionaries involved with the ward council there? i KNOW it's utah and it's hard and there are lots of members, but what's it like? he challenged us as missionaries to use our branch council to overcome allll of our doubts and concerns with our investigators. but it didn't sound like a burden to the council, more that we would be working TOGETHER and we'd be a blessing to each other. i for sure received some sweet revelation regarding SPECIFIC people and i'm so excited to put it to use!
--he invited us to read his conference talks for the last two years. try it out!
--he told some of our leaders that if he were to gather a group of saints here and opened it up to q and a that they would ask questions that have been answered in the last two years by the bretheren. he said that all of the apostles wish that we would listen to what they're saying because they are telling us!!!
--in one of his conference talks he challenged members to pray to find people to share the gospel with in 90 days or whatever, to pray and make a deadline. he said that people and prayed and fasted, and some had incredible results, others didn't. one lady wrote and called him a fake because nothing happened and she'd had faith that it would. so he CALLED her up and wanted to talk about the situation. she'd prayed and WANTED to find people... but she didn't. he said, "well, who did you talk to?" and she was quiet. then he paused (and it was soo powerful!) and said, "IF THE SAINTS WANT TO FIND PEOPLE TO SHARE THE GOSPEL WITH THEN THEY ARE GOING TO NEED TO TALK TO PEOPLE!!! broaden your horizon! talk to the mailman, the clerk at the grocery store, your neighbor, whoever it may be! open your mouth, praying the Lord will fill it, and He WILL!" and it was powerful.
--"we've never lost a missionary in the history of the church from overwork." haha.
last bullet point:
--elder haney from the 70 spoke to us first, and he gave us a cool promise. he said that we've got something very unique to us as members. i was like.. heck, we've got a lot of stuff that's unique as miembros... what's he gonna say? and he said, "it's where we live. it's our HOMES." then he said, "INVITE others over and make friends with those not of our faith. STOP ASSOCIATING JUST WITH THOSE OF OUR FAITH. something miraculous will happen if we can just invite them into our homes!" it was amazing.
now family, and i guess anyone who may be reading this--i know that you are good people, wanting to share the gospel, but it's hard in utah. but. i've been thinking about it, and--even though it'll be hard, and you may be a little uncomfortable with it--will you look at the bottom of your sacrament program and find the number for the full time missionaries and call them? see what you can do for them. see when they need you to come out with them t share your testimony. or even better, invite THEM to come over to our home and feel of your spirit and your love for our Savior. I KNOW it's a lot to ask, but will you? will you take the step and just see what you can do to help them and let them know you're on their same team? it would mean the world! AND YOU'LL BE SOO BLESSED!!!!
whew. this is largo. i apologize! but. it's been an amazing week. elder ballard was just so awesome and so enlightening.
sunday we had a miracle. an ENTIRE super less active family we've been working with for FOREVER came to church. FOR FOREVER. and they came!!!! sooo cool!
and our new investigator, hna thomas, came to church! and she has a baptismal date for september! YEEAH!
anyway. i'll leave you to digest that. know i lov eyou. i know this is the lords work. he is SO involved. i love him. and i feel so grateful to be a miniscule part of his grand work.
Hermana Christensen
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