Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Hello Everyone,
We got to hear L. Tom Perry speak and we also heard a quorum president speak. The Quorum of Seventy president talked about finding and having the faith to find new investigators. They both spoke about finding faith and then also about being exactly obedient and working with ward members and ward leaders. He promised us the blessings of heaven if we did everything we could to work with the ward and with the ward council and was exactly obedient. It was a really cool meeting; really powerful. Oh! Also he told us that we need to have 20 lessons a week. POOF. It's a promise of an Apostle so we have faith that it will happen but holy cow.... got to roll up our overalls and do hard work!
I got to play Frisbee!!!! YAY!
I also got to see the border of Mexico! WHOA!!!!! Yeah that's right; the big fence and everything; and a bull fighting ring! And NO! I was not a delinquent missionary! I had permission to be there! We were doing Mormon Helping Hands and Chula's zone went to the Border State sanctuary. How cool is that? I was super excited! I got to pull up giant mustard plants and plant baby seeds. E. Clark and E. Jibson joked around that I was a plant saver; because I accidently killed/drowned a plant.... whoops... but I brought it back to life! Also E. Belt killed a spider. So I threw water on him. Immature? Perhaps. Deserved. Definitely =) Spiders kill mosquitoes!
Mom you sent me an e-mail last week/letter and asked me about cool experiences at the Battalion. It was a good wake up call because I haven't really had very many spiritual experiences there recently. So I prayed about it, and this week was a week of miracles. In Alma 37 it talks about how small things bring about marvelous works. It's amazing what prayer, something so small, can give anyone. One person I met was a young man from Germany named Stefan. He was in the United States for 7 weeks and was introduced to God and religion and such. I got to bear my testimony and told him how much I knew the Gospel could help him. He wants to investigate it on his own so he gave me his e-mail and I'm going to check up on him and see how he's doing. I also got to meet a huge family! One of them, Daniel, is going to Brazil and he was kind of nervous about going on a mission so it was cool to talk to him about missions and how amazing they are. There was also a person in that family who looked exactly like one of my friends from Provo. It was crazy and really trippy! It made me realize how distracting it would be to see people from home, ha-ha. The white handbook rings true about visitors from home. It's against mission policy.
So I encourage all of you to come to the Mormon Battalion! Seriously! Do it! But try to make it at a time when I'm not there!
Mom and Dad did Bro and Sister Penn call you? Heh. She grew up in Massachusetts. When I introduced the Book of Mormon in the outfitting room I felt the Spirit the strongest there then I have any other time at the Battalion. It was really cool.
I also had a woman hug me and tell me she'd never forget me. Her mom is dying and she's stuck in San Diego. She's not a member but she knows that she felt loved and she remembered her Joy and Carol.
I challenged three people to have a missionary moment in the next week. They all took it, and one fellow started crying because he had given a Book of Mormon to a friend of his and that friend had appreciated the gesture so much. The friend had been in Afghanistan and his daughter had died in a car accident and he was trying to figure everything out. It's amazing what a testimony will do, and such a simple gesture as giving a Book of Mormon.
So I challenge all of you as well... have a missionary moment. Bring up the Gospel. Do something! But bring people closer to Christ. =) Will you do it?
We completely botched a tour hahahaha. We skipped Martha again. It was super funny. Zelmira came with the storm and said "how about that storm" and Sister Nelson replied... "What storm...?” I had a really hard time not breaking down and laughing. I love Sister Nelson. She's one of my favorite people here.
One thing that I have really noticed this week was how much EVERYTHING happens in our life for a reason. And I know that I say that like every other e-mail. But it's seriously true. All things, good, bad, ugly, funny, every experience we have is so we can learn and improve and be pieces of a giant puzzle that Heavenly Father has so that we can all progress. I know that certain things in my life happened because I was meant to go on a mission; I am to be here in San Diego. I had a conversation with a couple that brought this to my attention once again; that bad things in life... you know what? They are not necessarily bad. It's a weird thought process, but chew on that for a while, and you'll realize it's true as well.
We met with Anna again. She hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon, but she let us in anyway. Life is hard. I've been getting an entirely different perspective on my own life and how blessed I've been. We talked with her about prayer, and Heavenly Father's love and how to receive answers to prayer. She is truly an incredible woman and been thrown a hard lot in life. I want her to have the most happiness in the world, and I know that comes through the peace of the Gospel. The Atonement can help her - just as it can help all people. She also offered us her kitchen whenever we wanted to use it which is really nice because when we're in Chula we don't have a kitchen we can use. We shall see what happens with that. She cancelled on us today.
We met with The Robles family who got baptized a couple of years ago but she is really struggling. We talked with the Bishop about her and he told us to treat her like an investigator. So we're going to just start teaching her the lessons again because he said that her knowledge of the Gospel is pretty shaky. Quiontero's went to the talent show and Sister Vaughan went to church!
We also have an investigator named Margarit but she has dementia. We want to teach her family but we're not sure what to do about her... if we should drop her as an investigator or what.
We also met with Fransisco and Anna our progressing investigators. Anna is a member referral and we're doing everything we can to help her to read and pray and really have a spiritual experience. Fransisco is progressing but really slowly. We just need to continue working hard and diligently so that God can bless the area. We haven't had any contact with Vincent or Luis. It's really unfortunate but we're just going to keep praying and calling and being persistent. Somehow we just need to get all these awesome people to church!
We're trying to make the goal of having 20 lessons in one week! We are doing everything we can!
Love,
Sister Tardiff
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