I'm not sure why it's in a different format, but it's shorter than it looks. I love the Pepboys story!
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Well, It's been a great week! I'd like to preface this letter by stating that it is All over the place so I hope you understand what I'm saying. :)
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Thanks for the letters and package mom and dad and everyone. I love the outfit you got me! I don't know where you found it but "good eye" (I wish sister Turner knew some Brian Reagan jokes) haha OH and we both Loved the protein bars. They were delicious. So before I forget.... Happy Father's Day Dad! I love you and I thank you so very much for the letter. I really enjoyed all you shared and the advice too. I needed it.
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But back to this past week... I've had meetings galore, and I've loved every minute of them. It's so neat to work with our President and Sister Clayton and our assistants. They really are great examples and very humble. At our last meeting one of the assistants shared a story about the power that comes from obedience. He said that he and his companion were visiting a member during the time we had the blackout. She told them to see her neighbor to give her baby a blessing who had a high fever. They said they'd do it in the morning as it was 8:40pm but the spirit prompted them to go to the house right then. So they did, and they knocked for 5 minutes before anyone showed up at the door. Well finally the neighbor answered with her baby in her hands, it was sweating. The elders explained the priesthood power and told her they could give the baby a blessing. She invited them in, but there was no other man there. (rule: missionaries must have at least one other adult person of the opposite sex with them.) So they said they'd run to the church bldg to find another man. They luckily found someone. It's about 8:50pm now. They came back and while giving the blessing they commanded the baby to be healed! After the blessing the baby had stopped sweating and when they checked in the next day the baby was fine and had slept the whole night through. Elder Hill told us "Obedience brings Power." And I definitely believe that. While rereading Elder Oaks talk I realized that he says, without sacrifice we cannot truly love or follow the Lord. Sometimes we sacrifice to be obedient and it is "sacrifice (that) brings forth blessings of Heaven." (Hymn 27)
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Well on a different note, Sister Littlefield at the office called me to ask which airport I'm supposed to go to. :( I told her the Phoenix one. I don't know what it's called but it's in Phoenix I know. It made
me sad in realizing the shortness of time left. But hey, all the more work to do right?! Well other random facts are: Elder Hainey, our area 70, came to church this Sunday and talked to Minerva for a bit after Gospel Principals class. We have no idea what was said but are quite curious! He's really neat and very excited about missionary work. We like him a lot. We started the 7 day Quit-smoking program with Ron a few days ago so he should be done smoking this week! Yay! Finally. Donna (his fiance) can't get baptized anytime soon because... well lots of reasons. So now we're kinda just working with them to prepare them for whenever they can get baptized.
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Yesterday we took our car in to Pepboys to get the brakes checked and ended up having a lovely chat with the other customers. It was really funny, Sister Turner and I had been sitting for a while and I told her that I wasn't really good at talking to people in stores about the church. Well Heavenly Father
definitely heard that and decided to throw me a bone. Soon after a man walked in and started talking to us about religion. He said he was christian and that he loved our ideals just not our theology, his name is Bill and he's an ex-cop. As we were talking about the need for repentance and change a lady who was sitting down the row from us piped up. Her name is Robyn and she's from the Church of Christ. She talked about the Need for repentance and baptism, and then Bill talked about how it isn't fair if other people who don't know about God don't get baptized and don't return to God. Then some other lady sat down in the middle of us and listened in. We asked to share a thought with them and ended up talking about baptisms for the dead. How God loves each of His children and He always prepares a way for all of them either on this earth or in the spirit world. At first they were all very opposed and then we turned to 1st Corinthians 15 explained it and read verse 29. The lady's were still not too interested but Bill (who earlier had been playing Devil's advocate) said "wow, I've never
noticed that verse before." His answer was priceless! We then summed everything up and basically answered all his questions. Then we invited everyone to check out mormon.org. It was basically the coolest meeting I've ever had in a pepboys while waiting for our cars to be fixed. :)
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And ever since Elder Perry came we've been getting 20 lessons a week for the most part, once we had 18 or 19 but pretty much we've been talking with everyone and it's been such a neat difference and we are so much more prepared to teach people in any setting... like pepboys. I wish I would've figured this out at the beginning of my mission. :) Well my last thought was, I love the Gospel. As we were teaching that lesson to a less active we've been working with, Shawna, I really felt like I understood it even better. So when we have faith in the Savior we trust that no matter what is going on in life, He knows best. Well even when it's hard if we start changing our lives in the way He would have us live we are repenting. So you hear that faith leads us to action? That action is a form of repentance, changing our lives to better ourselves. When we repent we're continuously becomming more and more like our Savior and we show that we are willing to Always follow Him through Baptism. Well we don't get baptized each week so how do we re-commit? Through the sacrament. Also, without baptism or the sacrament we could never have the things we've been repenting of
erased, they will always be in our past. With baptism and with the confirmation we Receive the Spirit which Sanctifies us and cleans us of Everything we've done in the past, everything we've repented of. As we keep doing that the rest of our lives we will become more and more and more like the Savior till Moroni 7:48 becomes true. I know the Gospel is true. I know that we Have to live the Gospel to come back into God's presence. It is the raw outline of how we must live our lives and the most simple way of stating all our Savior taught us. I love it and I'm so grateful to share it with others. :)
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Thank you for the prayers and all you do for me. I love you!
Love Sister Maureen Davis
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