Hello family fam fam,
I hope you all are doing well!! I seriously love you all so much and I'm just so grateful that I get to email you every week. It is seriously such a great blessing to have!!
This week was crazy. I am so blessed, did ya know?
We had a follow-up training on Tuesday for all the missionaries who are being trained right now! It was a fun little reunion with the elders and sisters I came in with. :) President basically told us that we will always be a special group and that he loves us dearly because we came in at the same time as him. So that's fun. We watched this amazing video called Missionary Work and the Atonement. I think it's on youtube. It has Elder Eyring and Elder Holland in it. It's incredible. It spoke about how missionary work is hard and we sometimes wonder what we signed up for. But then it pointed out that it was NEVER easy for the Savior and that the price of salvation is not cheap. Jesus Christ understands PERFECTLY what I am going through. He was rejected. He was betrayed. He was spit upon. He was beat. And all He wanted to do was love the people and bring them closer to Him. I'm not saying that I'm like Jesus Christ only that He understands exactly what I am going through in my day to day missionary efforts. We finished the meeting by singing Battle Hymn of the Republic. That song has never touched me before like it did today.
- Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible, swift sword;His truth is marching on. (Chorus) Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth is marching on.
- He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat. Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him; be jubilant my feet! Our God is marching on.
- In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me. As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free, While God is marching on.
AMAZING. Simply amazing.
Also, this scripture.
Alma 37:40 And it did work for them according to their faith in God; therefore, if they had faith to believe that God could cause that those spindles should point the way they should go, behold, it was done; therefore they had this miracle, and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God, day by day.
On drop box, there is a little picture of 6 sisters. I'm wearing a pink shirt that day. So that's our little family. My trainer (my mom), her trainer (my grandma), her trainer (my great grandma), and other trainees (my aunt and my great-aunt). So cute.
Wednesday afternoon we were tracting and just trying to find people to talk to. NO ONE WAS HOME. I was so bored. And hungry. I was starving, and I had mistakenly taken all my snacks out of my purse. So we stopped by a member's home before we went to teach B* because she was going to come teaching with us. She invited us in, gave us water, and then she gave us muffins! It was exactly what I had been praying and hoping for. So yes, I had a little muffin miracle! :) So good.
On Wednesday we taught B* again. We taught her the Plan of Salvation. Again. BUT, this time we taught it straight from the Bible! HOLY COW. I do not know the bible that well, but that was amazing. Our district leader helped us find a bunch of scriptures to tie that one together, and it ended up working AMAZINGLY well. The Spirit was definitely in charge of that lesson, but it was wonderful to testify of the truths that I hold so dear to my heart. I was able to testify of God's love and his perfect plan for His children. It was definitely a miracle lesson.
Saturday we had NOTHING on our schedule, except tracting. So we got a ride over to the east side of the ward. We decided that we were going to try to visit as many less actives over there as we could. We ended up visiting 3 and stopping by 2 others. That was a miracle. The east side is really far away and we don't make it over there very often, but it was well worth it to be over there. Saturday night we had dinner with Bishop Christiansen and his family. It was delicious. Grilled chicken and pineapple and watermelon and salad and all the works. It was like home. So good. And then sweet Sister Christiansen prayed for us. There is nothing like hearing the prayer of a member who wants you to succeed in their ward. We were all crying by the end of it. So then it was time to head home, so we hopped on our cute bikes and took of to make it back to our apartment. We were riding really fast and it was a lot of fun. But all of a sudden, there are red and blue blinking lights behind us!! Sister Aumua and I were so confused, so we pulled over, because that's what you do when there is a police officer behind you with their lights on. I was thinking, "Was I going too fast?? Is that even possible?" Well the officer proceeded to tell us that we were breaking all sorts of traffic laws because we didn't stop at the stop sign. OKAY. So Sister Aumua and I aren't dumb, but we sure don't know much about biking. And no one told us that bicyclists are supposed to stop at stop signs also. I mean, looking back, it's pretty obvious, but I just didn't think about that. So there's that. I got pulled over on a bicycle. Not every can say that that's happened to them. Luckily, no ticket, just a ticked off policeman and a funny story to boot.
I got a flat tire this week on my bike, but some kind members fixed it right up.
Also, I fell off my chair. I feel like this happens too often to me.
Also, in some of the pictures I've uploaded you may see a gross looking couch in the background. Well after finally getting grossed out of that couch, we called over the elders from our district and they helped us move it out to the dumpster. I know you can't really tell by the size of the picture, but that couch is MASSIVE. So we made a trek out to the dumpster. It was so gross. But now we don't have a stinky couch. Yay.
J*'s baptism is scheduled for this Saturday. He is ready to get baptized, but he talked to his parents back in Brazil on Saturday. They want him to know for SURE that getting baptized is what he wants to do. The only problem is that J* says he never knows 100% about anything. So we are praying really hard that he'll have an experience this week to confirm that he really does want to get baptized. We fasted yesterday for him, and we have a really hard working week planned to see if we can have a miracle baptism this week.
I've been studying about works and grace and salvation a little bit this week. God's plan allows us to choose whether we want to be saved or not. Using our agency, we get to decide what we are going to do. Satan however, wanted all men to be saved, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it takes away that precious gift of agency. Ya know? So all of these Baptist and Methodist churches are saying that all men are saved by grace, NOT WORKS. Well, I had this realization, that this is just Satan, still preaching still working still trying to convince people that a mere belief in Christ, not action, not submitting our wills to God will bring us salvation and more importantly eternal life. Interesting thought. Ya know?
Well, I love you all so much! Thanks for supporting me and loving me! I always send my best thoughts and well wishes your way.
Stay happy. :)
Love,
Sister Gretchen Gilbert
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