Written by Sister Rebekah Avery,
temporarily assigned to the Washington Spokane Mission while waiting
for a visa to serve in the Portugal Lisbon Mission of The Church of
Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints.
I made it to Spokane! I guess they like to put a lot of Visa waiters on ice here. haha!
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| Sisters Avery and Thomas |
QUICK SUMMARY OF MY WEEK (for those who don't want to read my whole email):
God
answers prayers! My trainer is wonderful, we have two on date for
baptism, including one who decided to move up her date from September to
January!!! And almost all of the less actives/recent converts that
we've been working with came to Sacrament meeting! We're going to the
temple to do baptisms for the dead on Wednesday with one of our recent
converts. God loves His children, and faith really does bring miracles,
but it requires Action!
EXPANDED VERSION:
My
new companion is Sister Thomas, and she's is seriously the biggest ray
of sunshine and love that I have ever met! She's kept me super busy and
has told me that I must have been super faithful and blessed to have
been sent to this area, so I guess that's nice??? We've already decided
that when we get back from our missions that we're going to go to the
temple together and get Rockwell ice cream in Provo, so that's nice.
I've
loved seeing how God prepares to bless us in advance, and how the
little things in life make the biggest difference. This week we've had
lots of people say they didn't want to talk to us, flake out on lessons,
and just not respond. While it's heart breaking because I know that
this gospel can change their lives and bring them so much joy, I am
incredibly grateful for the success that we have had as we have prayed
and acted in faith.
An example of this is
yesterday, my first fast Sunday in the field (probably one of the best
days of my life so far). We'd decided that we were going to fast that
one of the people we were teaching would have a softening of her heart
and move up her baptism date (she set it for September of this coming
year back in August of last year....), and that we would be willing/able
to open to our mouths to those whom we came into contact with. We got
to church and immediately before Sacrament meeting, this sister came up
to us and said that she'd been thinking since CHRISTMAS that she wanted
to move up her baptism date, and had decided to change it to January
26th!!! We were so happy! Sister Thomas and I definitely cried, and I
said the most sincere prayer of gratitude in my life.
THEN,
we were on our way to try to contact a man we'd met while tracting on
Thursday and ran into a man who said that he had made the decision to go
back to church for the first time in TEN YEARS, that day!!! We got his
number and he sounds interested from our communication thus far.
AND
all of the less actives/recent converts that we'd been praying to go to
church CAME!!! Well, almost all. But you need to take joy in the
victories and try, try, try again!
MY TESTIMONY:
I
know that God sent me to Spokane, Washington (Cheney, in specific) for a
reason, and even if it was just to meet the people that I have in the
past four days then it is WORTH IT. I also know that God loves all of
His children, regardless of the mistakes that they may have made or how
far they may have strayed from the path. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ,
to Atone for us so that we can make it back to Him, have our guilt taken
away, and be able to become new. I've already seen the change that the
gospel of Jesus Christ can make in the lives of people since coming
here, and the light that it brings to peoples lives. One of my favorite
ways that someone we're teaching has described the Love of God is "It
felt like a weight was taken off of my shoulders". I know that if we
turn to Christ and humble ourselves, admitting that we need His help,
that He will lift us up and help us to carry our burdens - we can truly
do all things through Christ.
Know that I pray for all of you and that I love you with all of my heart! Have a wonderful week!!!
Your very cold and very happy,
Sister Avery
