The Gospel of Jesus Christ

 This week has been a strugggllleeee. I'm definitely homesick, and I'm definitely not as happy as I wish. 

But as I went through p day yesterday I realized something. How marvelous and wonderful it is that I had the opportunity to be called of God to be a missionary for him. Don't get me wrong I definitely am not the biggest fan of being a missionary, but I am grateful that at this time and moment i am one. 

People complicate the gospel sometimes. They think of the logistics and the nitty gritty things of the church, and I did too. Coming out on my mission I did not know if I even could say I had a testimony of the gospel. But then I was taught what Christ's gospel is 

Faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement 

Repentance 

Baptism

Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost 

And enduring to the end 

And that is it. This is the foundation to all of Christ's gospel. We are imperfect men and women right now. By nature we are selfish, entitled, jealous, and judgmental. But through Christ and HIS gospel we can be "converted" to Him, and we can begin to overcome the natural man. When we simplify the gospel of Jesus Christ all it is is love, faith, ordinances and covenants, and trust. All He wants us to do is to find the truth of His word. Jesus Christ was baptized by the Aaronic priesthood when he was on this earth. And that is absolutely crazy to me. Ya know? He was perfect and He still chose to be baptized. 

God said, "This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased".  He says that to each and every one of us when we are baptized by his power and authority. This is my beloved daughter, this is my child, in whom I am well pleased. Because Christ came to this earth, all of us are saved by Him if we choose to be, but the only way we can be exalted is by the power and authority of God through these covenants that he has restored to this earth. Exaltation and salvation are two very different things. Being saved is being resurrected. That is what is means. It means that all of us will be resurrected one day and that if we so choose, through Christ, we have the ability to be forgiven and exalted on high. Exaltation requires a little more effort though. In the process of being exalted we become Gods.  That's not the only good part though . . . we get to be with our Heavenly Father and Mother for all eternity, and the best part is we get to spend eternity with the person on this earth that we choose to spend eternity with. My husband. And for men their wife. That. That is the best part. That is amazing. That is the most amazing, coolest, craziest, wowza thing I've ever heard of. I love this gospel, I love the temple, I love Jesus Christ, I love my Heavenly Parents, and I can't wait to be with them. 

Please pray for these friends that we are working with and love:

Helen 

Lametrius

Trendall

Sally

Dimond and Damien

Micheal

Love y'all 

Have a great week. 

Amen! Hallelujah!

So I missed last week . . . p-day was wild. And my district got mad at me for not playing basketball with them so they made me come play. Then I got made fun of because I didn't know the rules. But it was a party, love my district. Last week was pretty alright. 

Some highlights from last week: 

- We did service at a Baptist Church and listened to all the Baptists sing super loud and it was just like the movies which was awesome. Then they said a congregational prayer, and whenever the pastor said something that they liked they would say "Amen! Hallelujah!".

- I got my music set up and I'vve never been so happy. 

- We taught a friend last week her name was Fay and she is the cutest and sweetest lady in the universe. We taught her the first three points of PMG plan of salvation and one of my comps, Sister Sinclair, bore a super powerful testimony that struck Fay to the heart and it was so cool to see that fire of curiosity light up in her. We teach her this week so pray the fire is still ignited. 

- Our friend Helen that's on baptismal date came to church last week even though her cat died. Please please pray for her! She's going through a really hard time in life just in general so please please pray for her. 

- The sunsets are so incredibly pretty here and we got to go hiking last week which was a huge blessing for me I needed that. 

This week was probably the hardest week of my life for several different reasons . . . one being I have never ever been exhausted like I have in the last week. It's hard to be a missionary but I'm blessed to be in the South. 

Something that I've come to learn this week is what it actually means to put all your trust in God. That's all I have been able to do this week is put everything on Him and pray He will pull me through. There is a scripture I read on Fathers Day about our Heavenly Father from Moses 7:32, 35-36 

32 The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency

35 Behold, I am God; Man of Holiness is my name; Man of Counsel is my name; and Endless and Eternal is my name, also. 

36 Wherefore, I can stretch forth mine hands and hold all the creations which I have made

This scripture really hit me this last week and honestly got me through this week. 

We had zone conference too which was pretty fun and good. But yeah it's been an alright last two week. Just grinding. Working for the lord . 

What A Time To Be Alive!

 Hey guys, 

So this week's been ok but pretty darn busy. My last week of MTC was good. We got to go to the temple again which was nice. Cool thing that happened at the temple was we got to do sealings for an entire family, so there was 6 of us at the alter. It was really special. I loved my MTC district. . . it was a good fun time.

I flew out here to Georgia on Thursday morning last week. So far we have had AMAZING food. Baked beans out here are craaaaazzzyyyyy. The best things I've ever eaten. And I'm usually not a grits girl but let me just say YUM. SO YUM. Food here's so good. Last night we had dinner with a family named the Joyners, which is funny because I'm pretty sure that at least 3/4 of the ward have the last name of Joyner. When I asked my companions they said that everyone here is related so that's so funny!  But the Joyners that we had dinner with last night are so amazing. So his wife is from Mexico and sells fresh tortillas and owns like a little food business, so when I heard we were eating with her... never been more excited in my entire life. And now ngl (*not gonna lie) best food I've ever had in all the years of my existence. I can't even remember what is was called, but it was a sub thing filled with seasoned pork chops and drenched in salsa. Then she gave us fried tacos filled with refried beans and that was the most delicious thing I've ever put in my mouth.  

The people we are teaching are wonderful!  Everyone here is so incredibly nice even if they are Satanists hahaha. Story time! The first door I ever knocked the lady answered and said she was a Satanist. Yes, she identified herself as a "Satanist" . . .  But she gave us a good contact so that's all that matters. We've got a lady named Helen on baptism date and I would ask everyone to pray for her.  Her cats dying and she's not talking to us very much anymore because of that... so that's been rough. So please pray for Helen. One thing about Athens, Georgia (which is where I am right now, is that everyone here is so humble and nice which is amazing.

Service here is awesome.  Right now we are doing service at a jail house helping women learn to build tiny homes. The state representative got in contact with us and told us that he had a program that helps women in prison to acquire skills that will help them be able to get jobs once they're done. So we just go and cheer them on and be a friend to them so that was such a cool opportunity. 

Spiritual thought: go read 2 Nephi 19:2 

This talks about how we have to see darkness to see light which is so true and something I'm trying to learn out here but ya.

Love y'all have a good week!

Pics:

1.  Me and my cousin Lily!  Fun to be in the MTC together for a day!

2.  My awesome MTC district

3.  Meeting my Mission Leaders

4.  A beautiful road in Georgia

5.  The Botanical Gardens are near to us so we get to go do comp study here.  It's awesome!

Writing While At The ER!!

 Hey everyone!!

The was my first week in the MTC and by the subject you can see God's been pranking me all week hahaha.

To give a little context, on Sunday I started to feel pretty sick . . . I'm pretty sure it was actually just the toxic food that the MTC provides, but my stomach just kept getting worse and worse through the week. This morning I woke up doubling over in pain so me and my amazing companion went to the doctor on campus and then we got sent to the ER!! I'm fine . . . not to worry, but the funny thing is that yesterday me and Sister Bay were looking out the window watching the world, and I was jokingly pretending to bang on the window yelling "Let me out!!" Well, God is good because now I'm out! Everything is OK though! We're negative on appendicitis and I got some amazing meds to help my tummy be ok now so yay! 

Next prank that God pulled on me and Sister Bay was when we had to teach a lesson this week. We had this lady's background information and kind of got a baby lesson prepared based on her background and her needs. We were so not prepared for this lesson and we kept joking around saying, "Oh we'll be lead by the Spirit it will all be ok. Well, it was not ok because as we walked into our appointment, the person was not a lady named Tyra!  It was a man named Michael.... so God really taught us the actually we are going to teach based off the Spirit hahaha. It was kinda a train reck of lesson but hey we got through and that's what matters.

I saw Zion Goodwin and Carston Juber in the MTC which is crazyyyyy but soooo fun!! They're friends from high school so It's good to see some familiar faces. I've also been teaching my district how much I love nature and how I like to kiss trees so there is a pic of me showing them and that was pretty funny. A couple other fun things is one of my roommates who's in my district is Sister Larsen and me and her are so destructive when we are together.  We have reenacted Twilight about 4 times in the last week and every time we see each other we slow motion run to each other. Funny thing she is going to my mission!  I'll let you all know if we are ever comps!!

Classes have been so good, the Sprit on this campus is so strong. It fun to see my district grow and change from the Spirit. Something that we have been focusing so much on this week has been repentance. Something they said that really struck me: "Repentance is turning away from your sins and turning towards God". I always had a scary view of repentance, when really all it really means to me is to turn to God and truly accept and love Christ. In repentance we sincerely confess and apologize but we move on afterwards . . . we don't dwell. We turn all of our sorrows and suffering toward God and Christ because that's all they want, for us to truly accept them. 

John 3: 16-17 

" 16 ¶ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."

God just wants us to accept and love Him with all our hearts. He does not want us to fear him . . . only to love and follow Him.

Anyways have a wonderful week every one!

1. I GOT TO SEE ZION!! Woo

2. Sis bay had pens that smell delicious.

3. My cute district

4. Me showing my district that I love trees

5. Us at a cool conference with good music 

6. Us at the Payson temple 

7. Me in the ER