Hello all!
"Twas brillig and the slythy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe...." Your random poetry quote for the week. Name that poem!!! :D
Oh, on the random front, I ATE TRIPE!!! It really wasn't that bad, kind of like the texture of calamari (baby squid). A couple in our ward took us out to this Asian restaurant with authentic food and a little bit of it was in the soup I had.
Well, it's amazing the lessons the Lord taught me this week. He taught me that we should not judge and showed me a little more what faith means. This week we taught a lesson to a less active lady about keeping the Sabbath day holy. She has been in somewhat dire straits and has been struggling both spiritually and financially, and she related that she had worked several Sundays even though she knew it was wrong. She said that she knew she would just have to repent later because it was either work or lose her apartment.
The attitude of knowingly breaking one of the commandments and just deciding to repent later is a very dangerous attitude.
But later as we were helping clean her house I realized that we might get home a little later then we should, but I felt like if we didn't finish it wouldn't get done. So I rationalized and felt that I would be back home on time the rest of the days. Then I realized that I had a very similar attitude to this lady.
As we were driving home we discussed this and I see know that one element of faith is acting according to God's Laws even when the outcome seems worse then it would if we broke it.
I have also been pondering about speed limits. When I'm in a hurry it seems better to go faster and get somewhere on time, but I know I should prepare by leaving earlier or trust that it will be ok. I hate going 5mph under the speed limit, which is a mission rule about driving. But just as Christ said, "If ye love me keep my commandments"--I can show the Lord my love, faith, and trust in Him by keeping all these little rules that don't seem important. Keeping the Laws of the Land is one of the commandments we are required to teach people before baptism and it is one I am going to study more.
This week we taught a super fun lesson to a 9yr old about the Plan of Salvation! We set up a room in the church building to be each of the different parts: the pre-earth life, the creation, the fall of Adam and Eve, our life on earth, the Atonement, the Spirit world, (resurrection, judgment, and immortality), and the telestial, terrestrial, and celestial kingdoms. We put pictures and objects in each of the rooms, and we walked through it. They really liked it and it was super fun. The telestial kingdom was in the gym with only a few dim skylights; the terrestrial was in the chapel overflow with the lights on; and the Celestial kingdom was in the chapel with pictures of Christ up and soft Mormon Tabernacle Choir music playing. The chapel was very peaceful and as soon as we walked in the little girl said that she felt very happy.
She had said she wanted to be baptized, and a few days before that we had been praying about what date to set with her, and we both felt right about one, so we invited her to prepare to be baptized on that day. She said yes, and that she felt happy about knowing the date of her baptism. She also said a beautiful closing prayer, in which she mentioned a lot of different elements of the Plan of Salvation. Sister Draper and I were very excited that she understood.
On Friday we had an excellent Zone Conference! I learned so much, and both Sister Draper and I were very excited to be better, work harder, and do whatever we could to be more obedient and have the Spirit more with us. One of the requests President Taylor made was that after each lesson we would look for evidences that their faith was growing and getting stronger. We talked about how we see faith grow in our investigators and how we could look for those same things in our lives to see if our faith was growing.
We also taught one of our investigators who didn't feel like she understood what the Holy Ghost was, or how he worked. The Relief Society president came with us and shared some good insights. We were able to clarify things for her and after the lesson we asked that question, "Did she see evidences of her faith growing?" She said that she realized that the Holy Ghost wasn't some radically different thing, and that she saw times when she had felt it in her life. She also said that she would come to church on Sunday, and she came!!! Despite her car partially breaking down, she still came! Her faith was definitely built at least a little bit.
We also went with a really sweet hilarious older couple who are ward missionaries, the Gatchell's, to visit a recent convert who hasn't been back to church in several months. I don't know what exactly happened, but the Spirit must have been there because he said he would come to church on Sunday. Brother Gatchell was very friendly and I shared a scripture or two that popped into my mind, and we listened to him. But the recent convert really chose to let the Spirit into his heart, because he came to church and loved it and said he would for sure be back next week!
I invite all of you to look for evidences in your own life that your faith is growing!
Love,
Sister Lila Jenson
