Dearest Family,
Time is flying so much faster than I can even believe. It's already week 5 of this transfer?! What happened? Ha ha it's insane!
Anyway,
this week has been pretty good. We had a TON of dinner appointments
this week with members! It was crazy! We ended up with 4 total which is a
record for my mission! We also had Zone Conference this week which is,
of course, always awesome. I feel so lucky to have President
Christianson as my mission president. He is so good at following the
Spirit and I feel like every training we have is EXACTLY what I needed
at the time. The Spirit is so awesome like that.
The sites have been UNBELIEVABLY slow, so we have had tons of time
on Mormon.org chat, which I love. It's really cool to see people come on
there with sincere questions that we get to help answer for them.
Especially after election day, Mormon.org chat has EXPLODED with people
asking questions about what we believe. We will end one chat and
automatically have another one waiting for us which is awesome. It's
good to know that these people are going to the right source to receive
answers to their questions as well instead of some anti website. Sister
Adams and I haven't found any online investigators on chat as of yet,
but we know it will happen over time. Regardless, it's great to be able
to answer concerns and help people get rid of their stereotypes about
the church.
So at this point in the day Sister Adams and I had to go home and
weekly plan (which takes 3 hours to do each week). We got a text from
the Newark South sisters saying that they were going with the elders to
give a less active a blessing and that they all wanted to go get dinner
at Tom Wahl's since ward correlation had been cancelled. Anyway, spending our dinner hour with our district
was EXACTLY what we needed. They could all tell that Sister Adams and I
had a terrible day and they were there to help us through it. I'm so
grateful that Heavenly Father sends people into our lives at the exact
moment we need them to help us make it through. Having them there with
us reminded us that we are not alone in this work. We have other
missionaries to support us, President Christianson, our families and
most importantly, our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I'm just so glad
to know that Christ is my Savior because I know that through Him, I can
get through anything. Even though Saturday was a hard day, I'm glad I
was able to learn from it.
The other thing that had really prepared us for that day was Zone
Conference. The theme of the whole thing was focusing on our purpose and
not getting discouraged. President gave us a ton of scriptures to look
up that teach that we are not alone in this work. Two that came to my
mind on Saturday right when I needed them were Doctrine and Covenants
108:7 ("Therefore, strengthen your brethren in all your conversation, in
all your prayers, in all your exhortations and in all your doings") and
Moses 6:34 ("Behold my aSpirit is upon you, wherefore all thy words will I justify; and the bmountains shall flee before you, and the crivers shall turn from their course; and thou shalt abide in me, and I in you; therefore dwalk
with me.") Those scriptures reminded me that all Saturday I was doing
my best, which is what God wants from me. Yes, there are things I
learned I need to improve on, but my focus was pure. As long as I'm
doing everything I can to "strengthen my brethren," I'm doing what God
wants of me. People still have their agency to accept the help or not.
Even though the day was rather poopy, by the end of it I felt more than
ever before in my life that God and Christ had been with me every step
of the way. If there's anything that anyone gets out of this email, I
hope that it's a further knowledge that the atonement is real and
individual and that God and Christ are so aware of each of us.
Thanks for all of the love and support from everyone! I hope
everyone is doing well, especially them cute boys! Keep reading your
scriptures, praying and reading from "Preach My Gospel" everyone ;-) (ha
ha do you like that subtle hint? It's just so awesome! There's a spare
copy in my room if anyone wants it!) I'm so happy to be out here on a
mission because I know I am exactly where Heavenly Father needs me right
now. He's refining me into the person He needs me to be and I feel so
blessed to be out here!
I love and miss you all tons! Hope you have a fantastic week!
Love,
Sister Butters
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