THIS POST IS FROM LAST WEEK. I WAS OUT OF TOWN AND DIDN'T GET IT POSTED. COLLEEN
Hey y'all.
I feel like we have been celebrating 4th of July all week.
Californians love illegal fireworks.
Fourth of July is my favorite holiday and I am really sad that we miss
all the fun! But I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable day!
This week has been pretty busy for us. We have lessons just about
every evening. Which is so great! We are teaching this one little boy,
Nathan. He is almost 11. His mom is less active so having her in on
the lessons is even better because she testimony and faith is growing
too. Now, Nathan is very intelligent. He asks questions that I have
been hoping I would never have to try and answer. Haha thankfully his
mom knows how to reel him back in. He had some of those popper things
that you throw on the ground. He wanted to put them under the car to
see what would happen as we drove off. Boys.... Well he did and as we
were driving off he was just so excited to hear the repeated popping.
Haha
A sweet lady in our Ward, Sister Bibb, she was teaching Gospel
Principles, one of the Sunday school classes, and she had a brain
aneurism a few couple years ago so she has been affected by that
greatly. We helped remember some key concepts, and how to find the
scriptures. It was so fun to help her with that! It seemed like the
smallest thing we could do but it meant to world to her!
Last week we meet a young lady name, Lucero. She is originally from
Mexico. She was so happy to see us. Previous sisters had given her a
Book of Mormon. We had asked her about it and a amazingly she had read
through Nephi! She then told us how she tells her father and family
about how she is learning from us. She is such a great example to
them. We offered her a Spanish Books of Mormon to take to them and she
was even more excited. We meet with her for a lesson before she headed
to Mexico for the weekend. We taught about the restoration and she was
smiling the whole time! It was so spiritual. There was even a neighbor
who was blasting Luke Bryan and the spirit was still able to testify
to her. Unfortntly, I was getting distracted :p but it was still a
great lesson! I am so excited to see how she is doing this week.
So the hardest part of being a feeling like a successful missionary is
when we try to contact people is when they are not home. We probably
have planned to meet about 35/40 people this week and we have meet 1.
And they didn't want us to come back till next week... But but the
tender mercy is that Heavenly Father knew where we would be at a
certain time and I know he places prepared people in our path. Just
the other day, we were heading back to our car and there was a woman
standing in her yard. Not on our way to the car. We went over to say
hello. She started asking questions. We answered. My favorite question
was, "have you read it all?" We answers, "yup!" "I want to do that." I
instantly gave her the one I was holding. She said she has been
searching for something and she knows we were sent for her. Darn right
we were! I asked if she is a hugger and she said, "YES!!!" Grabbed me
and squeezed me. She squeezed me so hard it popped by back. Hey, it
felt good.
So this is a long letter but I am almost done. Haha
I was studying this morning from a talk spcifally for missionaries.
But I loved reading it! And I thought how well it was fitting for
everyone. Here is a little bit of it.
What manner of men ought ye to be?
Jesus asked a similar question. He said: "What manner of men
ought ye to be?" On this particular occasion he was speaking to his
Nephite disciples and so he spoke in the male gender, but the question
applies to us all, and so, He asks of you: "What manner of men and
women ought ye to be?" Then answering His own question he said, "Even
as I am."
Jesus Christ not only came to atone for our sins; He also came to
show us the way. He is the Way. You not only may become like Him;
everything is stacked in your favor to become like Him.
Think of this life as a path on which you never stand still. As
you move forward, you incorporate into your being the characteristics
and qualities of God. As you move backward you assimilate the
qualities of Satan.
Every challenge you face, every hard thing you confront, every bad
thing that happens to you, every unfairness, every conflict, every
sadness, tragedy, every disappointment and heartache, every temptation
and every opposition happens for one purpose only: to give you
opportunity to respond by applying in your life the teachings of
Jesus. As you do so you are changed to become more like Him.
If you were never presented with some advantage to be gained by
dishonesty, such as recognition, or money, or a better grade on a test
or avoidance of punishment or embarrassment, you could never develop
integrity. If no one ever offended you, you could never learn to
forgive or internalize mercy. Were you never wearied by the annoying
behavior of another or the repeated failures of someone else you could
never become patient. Were you never subjected to the appetites and
passions of the physical body for food, for water and for sexual
fulfillment you could not develop self mastery. Without opposition the
plan would be frustrated, you could not progress and the purpose of
life would be unachievable.
In short when you choose to follow Christ you move forward and
assimilate attributes of light; when you do not, you move backward and
acquire attributes of darkness.
Can you see, have you seen, who you want to be? What will happen
if you don't plan. What will happen if you have no vision of who you
want to become?
There are two ways of evolving: deliberately and accidentally. You can
either decide who you want to become and deliberately work toward that
end, or you can just go with the flow and become whatever life makes
of you. In that event, you will become whatever the fickle
circumstances and forces of life and society will make of you;
whatever is currently considered to be popular or in; whatever is
easiest. But, whatever you become accidentally it will not be nearly
the full measure of our potential. You will become just someone,
somewhere in the middle.
The purpose and essential blessing of life is to be changed to become
more like the Lord, to realize the full measure of your divine
potential.
-Lawrence E. Corbridge
Think how you can relate that to you!
Okay, I'm done. I love y'all so much! I expect letters and packages :p
sorta kinda.... I would really love them. (:
Free smells at Pep Boys! We got a screw in our tire so we had to make a pit stop... That took a hour and a half! They didn't tell us when it was done and we were updating our records so didn't think about how long it was taking. Haha oh well.
Ice cream kills
and save my life!
Cats are everywhere!!! Ps I like dogs better.
Me, Sister Peterson. Sister Palominos and her daughter, Destiny. They are in our Ward and so amazing!
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Love Always,
Sister Jensen
