March 7, 2011

Hello everyone!!!

First off I want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes and cards! I cannot believe I am no longer a teenager! I am really noticing how fast time goes by out here in the field. This week we had a baptism! Actually, it was yesterday to be exact, I'm including a picture to go along with it. The converts name is Lauren, she is the most amazing investigator I have ever met! She has the strongest testimony about this gospel and I learned a lot from her! The baptism went perfectly and she was able to bring a lot of non-member friends and her family who are also not members. This week we have done a lot and lots of tracting and knocking door to door. There is so much that I am learning from talking to everyone around me, it is very interesting to see so many different types of personalities and habits and it really helps me to see how we are all so unique and individual but at the same time, we are all children of God. It amazes me to know that he truly knows each and every one of us individually, he knows our likes and dislikes, he know our happy times as well as the sad times, but no matter what he is always there for us. Always. I got to go on a companion exchange this week with my old companion Elder Kim back in the Chinese branch! We had a lot of lessons and I noticed that the Chinese was still there hah. I know the Lord has given me so many blessings with this language and i will continue to learn more because i absolutely love the Chinese people! Anyway, we had a Zone Leader council on my birthday and I learned a lot about what we are to do as Zone Leaders and the things we need to work on with our zones. I knew before that Zone Leaders were busy but i never thought it would be this busy! But I love it! This week we had a lesson with a Less Active convert of the church. My companion and i prayed about this lesson a lot and we were trying to know what the best thing we could do to teach him was. We both felt that we would just focus on Faith in Jesus Christ and read a talk by President Monson about Jesus Christ and all he has done for us. It wa one of the most spiritual lessons I have had on my mission. It reaffirmed my testimony to know that God and Jesus Christ LIVE, and more importantly we can talk with our heavenly father through prayer. I was thinking about my own prayers this past week and was trying to think of how i usually pay. After putting thought into it, I randomly thought of an analogy that really opened my eyes to how we pray. Here it is: 'Relate prayer to a phone call with a friend. When we call and talk to a friend we usually say hello and address them and then we ask them how they are doing. After that we may ask them a few questions, and then we will wait for their reply.' Then I thought about prayer 'Sometimes we pray and and talk to heavenly father and we ask and ask and ask and then end our prayer. But sometimes we forget to let God have time to answer our prayer.' With a friend we wouldn't ask them a question and then hang up before we get the answer, so why would we do that with God?' He wants to answer us but sometimes we don't give him anytime to reply and give us that answer. I know God listens to our prayers! I love this church with all my heart and I know it is true! Until next week! I love you all!