well we've had a crazy busy week!! we had zone conference on thursday which is always a favorite. sadly we did not win the gold plates (we waxed it even though it was rainy! the allans pulled their car out of the car port so we could do it under there. apparently this time they put more emphasis on the interior, and our supplies box was "cluttered" and "unorganized" haha. the spanish elders won, but elder wilson forgot to switch the gold plates, so our car still has them! haha funny). zone conference was AWESOME. we received training on how to plan better, and now that we've implemented it i can already tell a difference in our work. when we actually plan like preach my gospel tells us to (go figure) then we're better able to prioritize our time. President Moffat (love him) talked to us about putting away our "strange gods" and consecrating ourselves more fully to the Lord. he reminds me of dad in a way because he knows all the old testament stories and finds great applications to our own lives. he read the story of joshua with us when the people took one step into the river and then were able to walk through on dry ground. the book of joshua is sweet! josh, you should read about your namesake, he's the man. i actually felt very humbled during the conference and had specific ways that i can more fully separate myself from the world, put away "strange gods," and serve with all my heart might mind and strength. i've made specific goals and so far have been able to carry through. i already feel a difference, i have the spirit more and it's guiding us! it's hard work giving yourself to the Lord, definitely a lesson i need to learn. pray for me that i'll be able to keep it up :) i think all of us missionaries felt humbled and it bonded us together. i absolutely love the missionaries i serve with. it's so cool to see this training ground for the priesthood holders (and a few sisters of course) of the church. i now understand how the amazing men in my life got to be where they are. josh, be excited for the mission. it will change your life. there is an amazing talk by president holland that he gave in the MTC...you know elder holland, passionate! i can hear him saying so passionately "my mission means EVERYTHING to me." and i'm starting to feel the same way. obviously it's not the right path for many sisters, but I KNOW i was meant to be here. it's hard. i have a long way to go, but i am so happy and i feel the Lord refining me. i have felt chastened on a few occasions because i can be better than i am. but i always feel such an outpouring of love at the same time. what a perfect heavenly Father. he doesn't let us stay mediocre. he chastens us and tries us, but it's all done out of such perfect love. a great example of parenthood. anyway now i'm just babbling. but zone conference was awesome.
another treat, we got to hear from Elder L. Tom Perry the very next day!! all the missionaries from both the Tacoma and Seattle missions were there. Probably over 300 of us. Elder Walker of the Seventy first stood and said, "Now missionaries, the missionary department has issued a policy that we are not to shake hands with the swine flu going around. but today we're under the direction of Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and he says we are!" we went row by row and he shook all of our hands!! so cool! there was hand sanitizer at the end of the line hehe. Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy was also there and shook our hands. Sister Yura was the first in our line of sisters (all 8 of us sat together, so fun) and Elder Perry asked where she was from, and then said "are you going home to Mongolia after your mission?" "yeah" "good, THEY NEED YOU THERE, WE DON'T NEED YOU HERE" haha he was very emphatic. so true though, these countries where the gospel is young need strong members. then as the rest of us went through, he said "ah a great spirit here among the sisters" and then Elder Clayton asked if I was related to Larry Gibbons. so cool to then hear them speak! They're a lot funnier when it's a small group and not general conference. they told us that within our two missions (only an hour and a half drive to get from the top of ours to the bottom of theirs) there were 4 stakes in 1966. now there are 32! and this is just the beginning they said! apparently growth of the church in the US has been flat for years, but this year it's started to increase. every month has been up about 15%, and then september was up 20%! definitely an exciting time to be a missionary :) what struck me most was elder perry's enthusiasm and optimism for the work. it made me excited as well. he spoke to us mainly of being good companions. we truly must be more concerned about THEIR success as a missionary than our own. of course as we learn to be selfless in that way, we ARE successful missionaries. i think this goes for other relationships as well, such as marriage. we must be more concerned about the other's happiness than our own, and this in turn will make us happy. anyway, we were deeply fed :)
other than that we've had other exciting things!! still no one on date for baptism but we're working on it. we did indeed have a church tour with a guy named [J]. he was very sincere and we're meeting with him again tomorrow. he was going to come to church, but a family emergency came up. hopefully we'll get him there on sunday and help him set a goal for baptism as well! another fun thing...i've been trying to be better at talking to EVERYONE. even though i always thought it was easy for missionaries to talk to everyone, we're timid sometimes. mostly just in the situations that aren't the usual. it's harder to chase someone down the street and invite them to learn about the gospel than to knock on their door hehe. anyway i've been praying for boldness and we had a little miracle. this older asian woman was walking down the other side of the street, but we ran over and chatted with her. her english was not good, but we found out she was vietnamese and were able to somehow communicate that we would come to her home with a vietnamese member of our ward on friday at 11. we went over and our member was chatting with her and it basically sounded like she was very buddhist and not interesting in our message (she was still really nice though!) but then her husband [K] came home...sweetest man! his english is a little better than hers and we were able to talk with him. oh i just love him...he was first teaching us some vietnamese (hard language!) and when i repeated back all that we had learned he said "ah you very intelligent" hehe what a compliment. anyway then we talked with him about God...that he is our loving Heavenly Father and that we are his children. that he has a plan for us. that we teach people this plan. he said he didn't understand everything, but that when we said the word "gospel" it made him feel very happy :) the spirit crosses language barriers! we're going back on tuesday with a vietnamese book of mormon and the member again. i hope we will be able to continue to teach him!! i love being a missionary!
well this email is super long. i can't really think of anything else to report at the moment. thanks again for the emails, i really feel like i know more now than when i was at BYU haha which is AWESOME!! can you believe i hit my 7th month mark this week???? WEIRD. when you only get 18 months it flies by. LOVE YOU ALL!! have a happy happy week!
lizzie
ps - the pics are from zone conference. a brand new missionary is 6 foot 5 so the elders wanted a picture of him standing and then kneeling next to me haha. good times
pps - no joke, i felt prompted to save my email to a word document before i sent it, and then it got erased before it sent! BUT i had it saved. God is good eh? hehe i HATE rewriting emails
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