So as we all know I'm the worst writer, so I bribed my companion by
making her toast to gives me 6 ideas I can write about. One thing I
love about Hermana Rossberg. If I make her food, she'll just about
help me out with anything ;)
So first, our friend Telma we are teaching from Bolivia hasn't drank
coffee all week!!! Yay!!! She told us last night that it has been a
lot easier than she's expected and feels like the Lord is blessing her
with strength. All her motivation started, because she read the talk
by Elder Oaks about the parable of the sower with her best friend (a
member in our ward) and she wants to be the "good seed". The Lord
works I'm amazing ways preparing these people. As a missionary all we
have to do is live worthily and be obedient, and the Lord does the
rest and provides the miracles. I'm so glad the it's not us
responsible for the great work, Heavenly Father is 100% preoccupied in
making it come to pass. I'm so happy for Telma. Now she just needs to
be more consistent in coming to church and she can be baptized. We
are looking at the 17th of October as a date right now, because of
general conference.
Next, our friend Patricia from Peru, has been coming to church and in
our lesson with her this week she was very excited about it. She
already has a lot of friends in our ward, and she wants to learn more
and change her life around to follow Christ. She's been studying a lot
in the Book of Mormon, and I think her testimony of the book has
really grown. In our lesson with her we were talking about the prophet
Joseph Smith, because she feels like she needs more knowledge about
him, but the spirit was really strong when we were testifying about
the prophet and especially the Book of Mormon. I had the impression
that I needed to ask her to be baptized, but for some reason
opposition came and I couldn't form the words/strength to invite her.
But that's why we have companions! Hermana Rossberg invited her as
well to be baptized the 17th. And she was more than happy to set that
as a goal for herself. I'm so glad the Lord has asked to share the
gospel 2 by 2.
Thursday we had zone training! As you've probably noticed I've cut out
the word "investigator" from my vocabulary and replaced it with the
word "friend". The people that we teach are our friends, we love them,
and so I have no problem making this change! President just got back
from training in some random country, but the church leaders there
(over the missionary work in Europe) have asked that we try and avoid
the word investigator. But I loved this zone training! One thing we
really focused on is when we teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to not
skip the step repentance when trying to invite people to be baptized.
The retention in Europe of recent converts is really struggling, and
think it's because sometimes as missionaries we are so excited to see
our friends in the water, we forget to insure that they have truly
repented and are ready to make sacred covenants with the Lord. I
learned that as much as we encourage the people we teach to have
patience with the Heavenly Father's timing, we need to do the same.
President and the church here in Europe is also focusing on making the
Sabbath day more important for everyone, even us as missionaries.
There's an elder who shared the comment, "as missionaries every minute
of everyday our thoughts and actions should be directed in serving
others, but the 15 minutes we take the sacrament should be for
ourselves, because we all need to repent before the Lord", I also
loved this quote "We are all in the process of repentance as a
lifetime curriculum. This type of repentance is conversation, and we
are all in the process of conversation. It's never finished. We are
never converted fully until we are exactly like the Lord. So be
content with your need to repent, for your need to be converted. It's
a continuing process, one which never ends." -Russell M. Nelson.
Sunday is the craziest day of the week, I'm always so stressed that
all of the people we teach are having a spiritual experience that sometimes
I forget to make sacrament meeting a spiritual experience for myself. But the sacrament
is something we all need, not just the people getting to know the
church, or the people who have committed big errors. We all need to
humble ourselves more and fully cherish those 15 minutes that allow us
to renew our covenants and be made clean every week.
So Hermana Rossberg really would like you all to know that I still
can't find our way home to the piso.. But it's a lie, so don't listen!
I just forgot like twice this week :) she says she is going to test me
at the end of this week over everything.. Our phone number too. She's
right about that though.. I still have no idea what our phone number
is :)
Also we would like you all to know that the young men's president,
Joelson is still the bomb! With his help we re-activated 2 less-active
families this week.. Pretty cool.
And finally, I'm a walking disaster! So Telma owns a fruit market, so
to have daily contact with her we always pass by her work! Well this
week I saw this weird looking fruit that I had never seen before, and
I pick it up with both hands and bring it to Telma and ask her what it
is. She yells "¡Hermana no lo toques!" Or "don't touch that!" Well it
turns out it was a fruit of a cactus and I still have a million
prickles in my hands and this happened Tuesday..
Well have the best week and love you all!
Hermana Staker
making her toast to gives me 6 ideas I can write about. One thing I
love about Hermana Rossberg. If I make her food, she'll just about
help me out with anything ;)
So first, our friend Telma we are teaching from Bolivia hasn't drank
coffee all week!!! Yay!!! She told us last night that it has been a
lot easier than she's expected and feels like the Lord is blessing her
with strength. All her motivation started, because she read the talk
by Elder Oaks about the parable of the sower with her best friend (a
member in our ward) and she wants to be the "good seed". The Lord
works I'm amazing ways preparing these people. As a missionary all we
have to do is live worthily and be obedient, and the Lord does the
rest and provides the miracles. I'm so glad the it's not us
responsible for the great work, Heavenly Father is 100% preoccupied in
making it come to pass. I'm so happy for Telma. Now she just needs to
be more consistent in coming to church and she can be baptized. We
are looking at the 17th of October as a date right now, because of
general conference.
Next, our friend Patricia from Peru, has been coming to church and in
our lesson with her this week she was very excited about it. She
already has a lot of friends in our ward, and she wants to learn more
and change her life around to follow Christ. She's been studying a lot
in the Book of Mormon, and I think her testimony of the book has
really grown. In our lesson with her we were talking about the prophet
Joseph Smith, because she feels like she needs more knowledge about
him, but the spirit was really strong when we were testifying about
the prophet and especially the Book of Mormon. I had the impression
that I needed to ask her to be baptized, but for some reason
opposition came and I couldn't form the words/strength to invite her.
But that's why we have companions! Hermana Rossberg invited her as
well to be baptized the 17th. And she was more than happy to set that
as a goal for herself. I'm so glad the Lord has asked to share the
gospel 2 by 2.
Thursday we had zone training! As you've probably noticed I've cut out
the word "investigator" from my vocabulary and replaced it with the
word "friend". The people that we teach are our friends, we love them,
and so I have no problem making this change! President just got back
from training in some random country, but the church leaders there
(over the missionary work in Europe) have asked that we try and avoid
the word investigator. But I loved this zone training! One thing we
really focused on is when we teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to not
skip the step repentance when trying to invite people to be baptized.
The retention in Europe of recent converts is really struggling, and
think it's because sometimes as missionaries we are so excited to see
our friends in the water, we forget to insure that they have truly
repented and are ready to make sacred covenants with the Lord. I
learned that as much as we encourage the people we teach to have
patience with the Heavenly Father's timing, we need to do the same.
President and the church here in Europe is also focusing on making the
Sabbath day more important for everyone, even us as missionaries.
There's an elder who shared the comment, "as missionaries every minute
of everyday our thoughts and actions should be directed in serving
others, but the 15 minutes we take the sacrament should be for
ourselves, because we all need to repent before the Lord", I also
loved this quote "We are all in the process of repentance as a
lifetime curriculum. This type of repentance is conversation, and we
are all in the process of conversation. It's never finished. We are
never converted fully until we are exactly like the Lord. So be
content with your need to repent, for your need to be converted. It's
a continuing process, one which never ends." -Russell M. Nelson.
Sunday is the craziest day of the week, I'm always so stressed that
all of the people we teach are having a spiritual experience that sometimes
I forget to make sacrament meeting a spiritual experience for myself. But the sacrament
is something we all need, not just the people getting to know the
church, or the people who have committed big errors. We all need to
humble ourselves more and fully cherish those 15 minutes that allow us
to renew our covenants and be made clean every week.
So Hermana Rossberg really would like you all to know that I still
can't find our way home to the piso.. But it's a lie, so don't listen!
I just forgot like twice this week :) she says she is going to test me
at the end of this week over everything.. Our phone number too. She's
right about that though.. I still have no idea what our phone number
is :)
Also we would like you all to know that the young men's president,
Joelson is still the bomb! With his help we re-activated 2 less-active
families this week.. Pretty cool.
And finally, I'm a walking disaster! So Telma owns a fruit market, so
to have daily contact with her we always pass by her work! Well this
week I saw this weird looking fruit that I had never seen before, and
I pick it up with both hands and bring it to Telma and ask her what it
is. She yells "¡Hermana no lo toques!" Or "don't touch that!" Well it
turns out it was a fruit of a cactus and I still have a million
prickles in my hands and this happened Tuesday..
Well have the best week and love you all!
Hermana Staker