Dad, don't stress, you're not stressing me out with any of the things you said about the move or anything. I'm really not all that worried about it. And even so, the most amazing thing was that as I was listening to conference and all the things that the speakers said about the power of strong families and the importance of families being centered on Christ and on the teaching of the gospel and on service I was so happy to be able to think, "my family is really trying to be that way all the time." I was grateful to know that you are all praying to know what to do and that you all will be willing to do whatever the Lord asks because of the testimony that you each have of the Lord's love for us and for His other children as well. And since I know you have all been praying I can trust on the words of D&C 6
14 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, blessed art thou for what thou hast done; for thou hast ainquired of me, and behold, as often as thou hast inquired thou hast received instruction of my Spirit. If it had not been so, thou wouldst not have come to the place where thou art at this time.
15 Behold, thou knowest that thou hast inquired of me and I did enlighten thy amind; and now I tell thee these things that thou mayest know that thou hast been benlightened by the cSpirit of truth;
So I'm not worried. I know that you want to follow the Lord and that He knows you well enough to give you the inspiration and direction that you will be able to recognize and follow even if you don't always know that you are.
I have a lovely new companion, Sister Vernon. She's from upstate New York and I am already learning so much from her, not the least of which is to have more patience with myself and love everybody more. We're not perfect and the Lord doesn't expect us to know how to do everything all at once. And in conference in somebody's talk (I don't know whose at the moment) I heard the promise that the Lord knows that we aren't capable of focusing on all the things that he has asked us to do at the same time, but that we have the promise that He will help us to know what it is that we need to be focusing on in our own lives at the right times.
This isn't my story but its something I needed to hear this week that someone else shared with me and so now I want to share it with you:
“Our District Leader called us one night and asked us to find 3 new investigators! It was pretty late, and putting all doubt aside, I simply replied, ‘we will.’ Kneeling in prayer, I asked for the spirit to literally lead me to those that would hear our message. I stood up, and just started walking. To make a long story short, the Spirit lead us to 5 different people, all of whom accepted our message and gave us their contact information. It was such a testimony builder to me, of how aware God is of each of us. And if we trust in him, we can do ALL things.”
For me this week we had a somewhat similar experience. We had zone conference and I wasn't feeling so great, but our zone leaders promised me that we would be able to find new investigators that day who would progress and new investigators that week that would be important to me for ever. And so tuesday I decided that I would trust that, that I would trust in the testimony that I have of the power of priesthood and that those elders hold the priesthood keys to lead and guide me and so that day we found 4 really great people who said we could come back. One lady said she had a Book of Mormon and she didn't really know what it was but she likes to read it when she is feeling down because she always feels better, a kid who is the cousin of another youth in our branch who promised to pray to know if God is really there and loves him, and two other teenagers-one who started out saying he didn't believe in Christ but believed in God and after we explained about 30 sec of why Christ is important he said, yeah that make sense. There are always lots and lots of other little experience to share, but I'll stick with that for now and give you another short update next week.
Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the last session of conference (I think we will watch it right now). But I'm looking forward to Elder Holland's talk since everybody talked about it so much.
Thanks mom for this:"Remember that God will direct you if you turn your day over to Him. I am working hard on it. That one decision moment by moment is the best and hardest. To just be obedient in all things is the big test. And I'm learning it little by little."
Hannah. You're so good. Just keep praying for what's right to happen and it will work out.
Paul. You are awesome. Did you know that? You are going to do some amazing things in this life. You already are doing amazing things in our family.You have been the most amazing example of cheerful obedience ("Sure, mom, sure!") and Pres. Monson told us yesterday that ultimately that's all we need to do. Be willing to do all the things that the Lord asks of us and to do them cheerfully. I know that if we do that we'll be happy. If you want to know what type of cheerfulness I think of when I think of you look at will on a day when he is happy and proud of himself for helping and accomplishing something.
Tom! You should write me a letter this week since you like writing so much :)
And will. Keep smiling :)
Jeremy! what did you like from conference? Do you have any inspirational advice for your big sis? How's Elmira? How are you feeling about the move?
I love you all so much
Steph
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