Hey Y'all!
I hope y'all are having a great memorial day
today! I sure am missing my family today and the great traditions we
have of visiting the graves of our loved ones that have passed on and
reminiscing on old times over a delicious lunch at the Rainbow Garden. I
will be thinking of y'all today :) Eat some muffins for me :)
This week has been quite the week. It was long, but I learned so many great lessons.
MONDAY
was just a regular ole p-day in Bonifay. We didn't do too much. But
we were able to go out on a visit with some sisters in the ward and join
them I their visiting teaching. It was awesome. The sister we met,
sister Hyatt, is the sweetest lady ever. I wish she didn't live clear
out in the boonies, or else we would be seeing her more often. Our
dinner appointment had to cancel, but the Ard's were sweet enough to
have us over for dinner.
TUESDAY
was awesome. We had a wonderful district meeting. I received a blessing
right afterwards. I have gained such a special testimony of God's Love
through receiving priesthood blessings. I am so grateful for the power
of the priesthood that has been restored to this earth to make all
sorts of blessings possible. We then ate lunch as a district at a
little restaurant here in Bonifay. A member happened to be there and
was kind enough to pay for mine and Sister Richins lunch.
#blessingsfromabove Our day pretty much seemed to fall apart after
that. All our plans pretty much fell through. but believe it or not,
those end up being the best kinds of days. We were able to see our
investigator, Tina. She is doing well. She understands the simplicity
of the Gospel. We just need to find a way to get her to church :) We
then had the greatest experience I think that has happened my entire
mission. We ended up seeing Robert, another investigator. We had to
move him up to earlier in the day so we could see him still and account
for the changes that had taken place in our schedule. So we show up,
and he is just not himself. We sit down on his front porch, and he
proceeds to tell us that he no longer wants to meet with us. At this
point, I have died a little inside. The gospel will bless his life so
much, but only if he will let it. So we bore our testimonies to him
and asked of we could at least finish teaching him the Restoration. He
wasn't going to have it. He said he was just comfortable where he is at
in his church right now, and if he is interested at a later point, he
would call us. Well the Spirit directed me to ask him to pray to know
if we should continue meeting with him. He wasn't going to have that
either. So at this point, it is time for us to leave. So we thanked
him for his honesty and willingness to meet with us as much as he has.
And told him that we hope he is open to visiting with other missionaries
down the road if they happen to cross paths. It was clearly time for
us to leave, but the spirit told us to just hang in there for a
minute. So we awkwardly sat on his front porch in silence for about 45
seconds. Then all of a sudden, the spirit just took over. we could
literally feel it enter all of us. It was amazing. Then all of a
sudden, Robert raises his finger. He said " Ill tell you what, we can
meet once a week, and yall can finish teaching me whatever it is yall
have to teach, I will pray about it, and we will go from there." I
cannot describe the amount of joy that I felt when he said that. We
set a return appointment, and HE PRAYED!! That was the most powerful
prayer that I have ever heard uttered from the mouth of an
investigator. I asked him how he felt after saying that prayer, and he
said he felt different. So the spirit is just working real hard on our
dear Robert. I just want so badly for him to embrace the Gospel.
WEDNESDAY
we had the chance to go to panama city for interviews with President
Smith. This will be the last interview we have with him, because he and
his wife finish their mission at the end of this transfer. They will
be missed. I am excited to see the new things that come with our new
President and Sister Smith. They were a bit behind on interviews, so we
got to chat with Sister Smith for a good while. It was awesome! Her
and I were wearing matching sweaters, so we just had to take a picture
:) It was super! After interviews we grabbed lunch, and waited for
our ride to be done with their interviews. In the mean time, I started
to get a really bad headache that led me to get super nauseated. So the
drive home was not fun.... Nor was getting lost. Yup we got lost on
the way home. Haha oh dear. Never a dull moment. When we got back to
Bonifay, it was about 7 PM so we had a dinner, and worked on some 12 week training.
THURSDAY was
great! We had weekly planning, and it went really well! Sister Richins
is finally getting the hang of things and confident in herself as a
missionary :) I'm a proud momma. Only because she hasn't really
learned these things from me, she has learned them from the spirit
through me. That is the ultimate goal. We saw some less active
members, and served ice cream at the nursing home. We had a good
dinner at a members home as well. It was overall a great day.
FRIDAY
we were finally able to see our dear Liz. We also got to see her
mother Betty. They are both recent converts, but they have not been
coming to church lately. So we had a great lesson on the Sabbath day.
What was awesome though was that their visiting teachers showed up while
we were there, and told them that they were being missed at church.
They offered to give them a ride this sunday.
It was AWESOME! I love it when people do their visiting teaching. It
is such an inspired program. We had a great lesson with Robert. We
watched the Restoration video. He totally gets it. He even prayed at
the end of the lesson. I just pray that he continues to pray and
seek answers to his questions through diligent study and prayer.
Afterwards, we went out to Mexican with Tammy, to celebrate my one year
mark as a missionary. That is so weird. A whole year come and gone....
SATURDAY
was great as well. We started off seeing some less actives, then we
went to the church to work on some family History with Liz and Tammy. I
love how much they love to do family history. It is such a great work
to be involved in. The spirit of Elijah is so real. Missionary work is
not just taking place on this side of the veil. It is happening in the
spirit world as well. We had dinner with another tammy, and we were
able to meet a new less active, Sister Bloomfeild, that just moved into
the ward.
SUNDAY
was wonderful. We had a great sacrament meeting, and a pot luck
afterwards. The third hour was combined, and we had a great lesson on
family history work. Family history is so important. That is how we
can all be missionaries. We are finding and helping those people come
unto Christ who cannot do it for themselves. It is such a great work
that we can all be part of. Sister Bloomfeild came to church and
stayed all the way to the potluck and joined us in feasting on yummy
food. We spent the afternoon with Tammy visiting potentials, and
investigators. She is such a trooper to come out and do missionary work
with us :)
This week I have been reflecting
on what I have learned and how I have changed in the last year. Serving
a mission has proven to be the best thing I could ever do for myself. I
have learned so much about our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I
have learned how important it is to strengthen my faith, have hope, and
pray for charity and love for those I work with and serve around.
I
have learned that Heavenly Father knows us fully and completely. He
knows who we were born to be. All we have to do is ask him, and be
willing to be shaped and molded into that person. I am so grateful that
I have had the chance to serve a mission. I absolutely love the people
here. I know with every fiber of my being that this gospel is true. It
is God's perfect plan for the happiness of his children. I feel so
privileged to have the opportunity to share this wonderous plan with his
children here in the FTM. I wouldn't change this experience for the
world.
If the thoughts of serving a mission have crossed
your mind, that is not a coincidence. Take the time to really think
about it. But most importantly, Fast and pray about serving a mission.
It is the best thing you could ever do for yourself. But it is the best
way you can express your love for our Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus
Christ. I know they live. I know they love us. I know that the Gospel
changes lives, because it has changed mine.
Love yall!
Have a blessed week!
Sister Wood
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