I hope everyone had a wonderful week. It is starting to really cool off here in Yakima and I believe it was in the 40s this morning, at least according to our car. It really warms up during the day though so it's been really beautiful. I'm going to have to get used to wearing a sweater and then back to boots and a coat for this up coming winter. It's fun to really experience all four seasons.
This week my companion and I had an interesting experience. It was later at night and we were walking down a street when we saw a couple people sitting at a bench so we went over to talk to them. At first they were super closed off and the woman kept saying she didn't believe in Joseph Smith and other things like that, but then she said she was glad we came over because our smiles made her night better. We started to share why we were so happy and we ended up getting to teach her all about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and she accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon and a pamphlet about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and said she'd read them. I think that lesson we had with that woman and her friend really was something I won't forget. I just remember being filled with so much peace and desire to share the truth with her. I'm so grateful the spirit softened her heart and that by the end she truly wanted to know for herself if all we shared is true. She even said the prayer before we left and she expressed to God that she wanted to know if those things we shared with her were something she needed to know about. So this little experience really stood out as a bright moment in a somewhat tough week.
Here are a couple things I found this week while studying that I thought I'd share.
Luke 9:52- And Jesus said unto him, no man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.
I like this scripture because it made me think about how for me I've currently devoted my whole life to sharing the gospel- I've put my hand to the plough. When my full-time mission ends though that doesn't mean my sharing the gospel should end or that I should go back to who I was before. I shouldn't look back at all but look forward with an eye of faith, taking what I've learned in the past and using that to help me move forward and keep pushing the plough.
We had a meeting with a lot of missionaries this past week and something that was said really stood out to me. "Charity- the never-ending search for someone else's happiness." That is so true. That was Christ's motivation for all he did- our eternal happiness. It was also said that "Charity is the silver bullet to missionary work." If your motivation isn't love, Love for the Lord, Love for the People, Love for your companion and those you serve, then it makes everything a lot harder.
So a couple funny things from this week. While reaching to knock a door I mixed up my words and accidentally asked my companion if I should "knock the doorbell" instead. We were laughing about that one for a while afterwards, probably not that funny but we for some reason just couldn't stop laughing.
We did a service project this week and painted fire hydrants. We got paint on our hands and arms and had to resort to desperate measures to get the paint off... scrubbing with iron wool. It worked pretty well to get the paint off, and maybe a couple layers of skin. All's well that ends well though and we were just relieved to find something that could scrub the paint off cause it was stuck on pretty good.
Well I hope everyone has a wonderful week! I'm looking forward to general conference at the end of the week. I'm curious to see who the 3 new apostles will be. I feel like by the end of my mission we'll have a whole new quorum of the 12! I hope not though. I hope everyone takes some time to write a few questions they have and I know that in some way God will answer them.
Love you all!
Hermana Brighton
