October 20, 2014

Oh relax, of course I’m staying in North Brookfield! I get to stay with Sister Layton too! The lucky little dog gets to kill me off. This week I feel like a lot more internalized. The more I internalize and understand what it means to be an effective missionary, the more frustrating it is because now I feel like I have to race the clocks. I’m trying to work the hardest and smartest that I can, and even then I know that the glass is still only ¾ of the way full. I feel like I finally know what it means to pray, what it means to teach to someone’s needs, what it means to have effective visits with members, and how to really plan and schedule. There’s a lot I still have to learn and improve upon in each of those categories, but I definitely see the hand of the lord in helping my eyes and ears to be less foggy. I think President Monson accidently left his ‘changing missionary service to 2 years for young women’ talk at home on the printer this past conference.

Mary Jane has officially gone a week living the word of wisdom! We committed her last Monday…well…really she committed herself. When we explained it to her she responded with, “yeah, I know it’s time for me to start. Ok, I’ll start tomorrow.” Uhh…yeah, good choice? By a miracle we had an amazing member attend that said exactly the points we wanted to cover, even the ones we didn’t even tell her about. We couldn’t do it without you members I tell ya. She bore powerful testimony of how reading the Book of Mormon everyday helped her overcome her addictions. In my mind i was like, "Uh, what addictions?" Turns out she had been struggling back into activity and had her feet on the ground only since about March. Woa. We asked MJ what would be helpful for her to be a good support and person to check in with. She said that the hardest time is in the morning when she first wakes up and that we could text her then or some other point in the day. So we’ve been waking up at 5am every morning to send her encouragement right as she wakes up. The example of Mary Jane just goes to show when people put their mind to something, they can really do and overcome anything when using the Atonement.

We had 2 surprisingly amazing lessons with Tara this week. Attending the Joseph Smith fireside turned out to be revolutionary for her. We had a sweet appt planned with a member that rarely comes out with us and so we were really excited. The appt ended up canceling which ended up being the biggest tender mercy of the century! Last minute we were like shoot! We gotta still take this awesome member with us somewhere! What are we going to do?? Hey, Tara said we could come Friday to do a Fireside lesson review but maybe she'll let us come tonight! We called her and she said yyyess! It was a tender mercy to know how the Lord works in weird ways sometimes. If we didnt have that original appt, we wouldn't have thought to bring that member, and we would have never been led to go there that evening with that member and then Tara would have never had the opportunity to ask solid questions about Christ's restored church. Is God's Church on the earth? If so, why is it necessary to be apart of it to receive salvation? What is my purpose in this life? Who can help me fufill that. Shes been taught the answers to these questions - what she is asking is if the church is really Christ's church on the earth and if she should be apart of it. 

Tender mercy #782: We have a few minutes before our dinner appt so we look up this woman on our potentials sheet. Her name is Kim. Knock knock. 

"hi are you kim?"

"yes"

"Great..ladi da introdctions..we saw that you've had contact with our church in the past and wanted to know if you were still interested."

confused look

"I dont think i have actually."

"You're kim?"

"yes."

is she lying like the other 1500 people? 

"Oh, but you know what, the woman before me's name was kim too. I just moved in like 2 weeks ago." 

Bust up laughing.

"Well we share a message with people that brings hope and a deeper relationship with God. Would you be interested?"

"yes. yes, actually, i would. Give me a week or two to unpack."

WOA. 

Tender mercies folks. If you claim you dont got um, it's probably because your hands are over your eyes. Wake up kids. 

Love,
Sister Bell 

Pictures: Be jealous of fall. You haven't even seen the half of it.