Tuesday, November 18, 2014

New Dog Named Jewel

Dear Family and Friends!

This week has been good. 

On Tuesday we had Zone Meeting and I got a lot out of it. The Zone Leaders are in our ward and they asked a member to come and talk to us about planning by the Spirit. Well, the guest speaker didn't even bring up planning, but he did focus on receiving revelation by the Spirit. Something quick and cool that he pointed out was emphasis on "return and report." He said that in his studies, as he is seeking and receiving inspiration, he returns and reports to the Lord and asks if there is more. Typically, there is still more to be learned. It was cool because that's obviously something we learn about, but I think I've always just assumed the Lord knows what I did and that's it. But the idea of return and report is a chance for us to receive even more from the Lord than we were originally expecting. I don't know if I pointed that out well enough, but I hope y'all get the picture kind of. As a result, after we do things or after my studies I've made it a point to tell the Lord what I've done and then to ask if there is more to be done. Thus far, it's been pretty cool, and I can see how this will not only help me now as a missionary, but later in life as well. 

We had exchanges after Zone Meeting and Sister Nelson came with me to our area. We first went to do a practice lesson with the guest speaker because we asked him and his wife to be our team ups for a church tour the next day. Can I just say we basically know who a future prophet will be? Just kidding, but this man was a bishop, in Utah, where there are many a Mormon, when he was in his TWENTIES! That's not normal. He's sooooooooooo spiritually strong and intelligent. 

But anyway, Wednesday morning, we're still on exchanges and our investigator, Barry comes to church to have a tour. We show him around and end in the chapel. There we planned on talking about the Restoration, which we did, but we also somehow basically touched all parts of the first three lessons in thirty minutes. Don't ask how it happened and how it went so smoothly. It's simply because of the Spirit. Barry expressed different things that he has come to know and learn in his years, and a lot of them touched with the doctrine that we teach. The Spirit has been preparing him to learn these things, so that finally, when the time came, he could participate in sacred, saving ordinances to help him progress and make covenants with his Heavenly Father. The Spirit was so clear and so real during the lesson. He said that he was excited to come to church on Sunday. 

Unfortunately, potentially due to nervousness, Barry didn't come to church. However, Wyatt did, he's the teenage kid that we're supposed to be teaching but haven't had the chance to, but he's been coming to church and young mens pretty consistently. It's a good step in the right direction, but we do need to teach him the lessons hahaha. Also, the kid Gabe that we're teaching wasn't able to come to church either, but he informed us of that ahead of time. His friend who referred him told us that we just need to take it slow since he's never had any exposure with religion, so we're going to break up the lessons and teach them more like a class because that's how he learns best. 

Everything's been going well. We're still searching and practicing lessons and doing the best we can. We're hoping to find a family. We'll take all the prayers we can get :)

Love!
Sister Smith
 
PS
Also, the title of the subject is because the people who's home we live in got a dog that they're fostering for a time that ran down into our apartment and jumped on Sister Winegar's bed and took her mittens. I was dying I was laughing so hard! I was safe from all the mess. But this morning when we went up to do the laundry the dog ran down the stairs and we were basically the fighting the dog to get it back upstairs and not let it in our apartment. It's been an interesting experience. 

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