This week was great! I wanted to start off with something I learned from my personal study about the Savior's Atonement. I was reading from Alma 34:10 "For it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice... for it shall not be a human sacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice." Then I read an article from our Timeless Treasures called "The Fall and Infinite Atonement" by Spencer J. Condie. Y'all I kid you not I felt like a genius for making these connections haha: "An atonement which could satisfy justice required the sacrifice of an innocent person who would vicariously suffer the punishment for the sins of others"; we perform baptisms for the dead by proxy (aka vicariously) for those who did not have the opportunity in this life to make this covenant, so in other words we are helping them participate in the Atonement!! "The sacred record of the Savior’s appearance to the ancient Nephites is an essential, additional witness of the true nature of the Son and of his relationship to the Father and to the Holy Ghost. After introducing himself as Jesus Christ, he who had taken upon himself the sins of the world, he warmly invited the multitude to 'come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet'. The resurrected Christ had a glorified body of flesh and bone as certified by a multitude who 'did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record, that it was he'". In other words, Christ allowed his apostles and other witnesses to touch him so they would gain a true testimony of a necessary Fall, a completed Atonement, and a glorious Resurrection!!! This is the plan of salvation in its purest essence, and all they had to do was touch him, it must've been wonderful. I also thought this was really cool: Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has explained that “real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed!”
Monday was the 4th of July and we had to be in by 6pm. After we emailed our family, we played mud volleyball with our zone!! It was way fun, but the rocks at the bottom of the water really hurt my feet and I had to get out. Then we went home and got to see the fireworks from our backyard. T'was a beautiful sight, I love America!:)
So for missionaries that are returning home within 6 weeks, there is an online program called MyPlan that is supposed to help prepare them to go home and continue a righteous life, etc. It has been available on my account for a couple weeks now, but I haven't wanted to do it because it hasn't hit me yet that I am going home and I really don't want to, but I figured that I would do it eventually. On Tuesday I got on and started working on it. It is not that bad! I took a lot of notes.. haha! Tuesday was a successful day contacting all of the referrals we have been getting, and today they were finally ALL home!! We had dinner with the Waite's, and it didn't register until after 30 minutes had passed that Brother Waite is Sister Waite's son!!?! She was the lady I lived with back in Caldwell for 3 months. Turns out it was her birthday that day, so he gave me her number so I could call her and wish her a happy 83rd birthday! It was so nice to hear her voice on the phone, she is doing well and now lives in Idaho Falls with another son. These little tender mercies happen to me all the time, haha!!
Wednesday we had interviews with our new Mission President, it went well! He has to learn over 400 missionary names and get to know them personally.. talk about rough callings! Just like there is no preparation for becoming a missionary, there is no real preparation for becoming a mission president either. President and Sister Sorenson were only in the MTC for 3 days?!?!?! UGH that's stressful. Later, we had exchanges with Hermana's Bertolino and La Luz from Caldwell. I took La Luz with me to Nampa. She is such a peach and so adorable!! Although she has only been out for 3 weeks, she is a natural teacher and testifier. The next day was weekly planning and since Vujich wasn't with me to update records or fill out progress sheets, I was at it alone for 3.5 hours!!!!!! Paperwork... that is probably the most irritating part..good thing I don't mind it! :)
Friday we had some pretty sweet miracles! Our investigator, Aurora, sleeps on a bed with her husband and all 5 kids, so she asked us if we could keep our eyes open for a bed as well as washer and dryer. Knowing we had planned to see her that day, we made some calls and found all 3 items that day and got them set up in her trailer!!! We also worked on reactivating a member named Jeanet, whom I've know since Caldwell. All of her steps of progress make me beam with pride, especially when she tries to read the scriptures with her 2 sons. A couple weeks ago we gave her a Spanish triple copy so she could have some scriptures with her when she comes to church and tries to participate. Last week I ordered her a brand new English Quad and got her name engraved on it, but I didn't think it would get to me so quickly! It came in the mail not 3 days later, and I gave it to her Friday evening. I placed it in front of her backwards and told her to look up a certain scripture since she has to relearn how to look them up. As she was flipping and looking at the little tabs, she finally saw whose name was on it. She stared at it, then looked at me and her eyes welled up!! It's these moments that make my heart want to burst with joy!!! I look back now and realize that one of the people I came on my mission to meet and help was Jeanet. I love my mission!!
Saturday we had a tracting blitz in our district that we call 'The Gator Scramble" and we went to one of our areas that we felt hadn't ever been tracted. We met 2 new people that we hope to start teaching in the near future. After we went to a service project and bucked hay, Vujich and I were asked to go way out in this swampy part of the property and cut some tall red colored weeds.. haha I examined the shears they gave us and you could see straight through them they were so dull!!! After that, we helped Jeanet's sister's friend (Star) move stuff from a storage unit to a new house on the other side of town. We were smelly and exhausted at the end of the day!!! Did I mention that I love my mission!!!
The Nashville Tribute Band came again this year with David Archuleta, Marie Osmond, and Alex Boye, and again we weren't allowed to go:( But Sunday night we went to a YSA devotional where just the Nashville Tribute came and they sang some of their songs and we even got Star to come!! It was amazing!!!!!!
Welp familia! I love y'all and don't forget there is an hermana misionera praying for you!!
Hermana Moss:))--
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