Stand Strong!: Souls to Save

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. I NEVER WANT TO LEAVE THIS HOLY GROUND. Ever. Ever. I love this place, these people and everything so much. Most of all, I love my Savior Jesus Christ and I am getting to know Him more and more every single day. Seriously that has been my favorite part about being a missionary, besides seeing people changing their lives through coming to Christ. I know who I am, what I stand for, and I know how much He loves all of His children, I know that His plan is perfect, because I know my Savior Jesus Christ. I know Him and I love Him with all that I am. "And this is life eternal, to know thee..." (John 17:3). Seeing people get to know God and understand of His love and watching them rely solely upon the Savior Jesus Christ is possibly the most beautiful thing that I have seen in my life. We are all in this together...we are all part of a HUGE family of God, and it is our quest to help each other, to walk around in each other's shoes and try to love ALL. This literally is my dream life, and I think I just will do this forever.

MIRACLES left and right. CHANGE left and right. The Spirit has literally guided us every step of the way. Through our plans, our goals and EVERYTHING. The Spirit has literally propelled us forward to speak with power and authority and God is leading us to PREPARED people. THIS LITERALLY is the hastening. IT IS HASTENING QUICKLY. God is preparing more and more people to hear the Gospel, and we are all the instruments that He is going to use in order to bring that work to full fruition.

Miracles of technology. Adrian Magill. Do you remember her? She was like my best friend when our family was living in Alabama. Well, back when I was 13 Adri was falling away from the church. I lost contact with her for 7 years. But the other day I had a strong impression to find her via Facebook. With a LOT of prayer....we found her!!! MIRACLE! She is in the Navy and has lived in Japan for the past 3 years. We got in contact and I got to teach her via SKYPE!! God's timing is amazing, because this time of her life she has been searching for the truth and has been searching to be happy and hasn't been able to find it. Just recently, she has been moved to go to church and renew that hope and happiness that the Gospel brings. We are working with her to bring her back to full-activity! When we taught her last, she was in South Korea! We are teaching people from ALL around the world!! And it is incredible to see how all of these doubts and struggles that our investigators have are UNIVERSAL. That is why there is a need for a UNIVERSAL answer....and that is the Gospel. I love this work.

Going a long with that, we are teaching a woman from Bolivia. Her name is Ema Olmas! Do you remember me telling you about her a while back? Well, she moved to Bolivia, 3 days before her baptism because of a family emergency. Well, we have been teaching her and now the missionaries there in Bolivia have connected with her and......SHE IS GETTING BAPTIZED AT THE END OF THIS MONTH!!!!!!!!! WHAT A MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We couldn't be more happy. She is one of the most prepared people that I have ever had the chance to meet on my mission, and she is really ready to be baptized. I might have to fly to Bolivia to see her get baptized....hahahah joke? not really? :) Anyways, we are excited that miracles are happening ALL throughout the world. THE HASTENING IS REAL.

WORLD CUP. The Hispanic culture goes through DEPRESSION when their team looses....its pretty much like the world is over. Everyone went into shock yesterday after Argentina lost. Some were angry and many totally drunk. Made for a fun Sunday afternoon. It was a perfect opportunity to talk about hope and through Christ we can find peace and win the ULTIMATE battle against Satan. I love razzing the Hispanics about soccer. I have no preference when it comes to soccer, but I had to take a stand way back at the end of June of who I wanted to win. So I picked Germany. To be random. And I have NO IDEA about their team or players. But I pretended like I did so that I could talk smack. (Hey, it got us in a TON of doors and now our teaching pool SHOT through the roof) Well, apparently, GERMANY BEAT ARGENTINA in the finals. HAHAHAHAHA all of our investigators where in panic and some cried. I was tempted to sing, "Don't cry for them, they are Argentina." But I resisted. It was really fun using the world cup as a conversation starter and a way to solidify relationships. Poor Argentina. Luckily for us we only teach 3 people from Argentina. They will be okay.....I think :) !! Maybe next time.

Finding. I LOVE TO FIND. It is the aspect of missionary work that I love the most. It is like this exhilarating thing. You pray. Then you listen. The Spirit directs. Then you ACT. Then you FIND. And then you teach according to their needs and their doubts. The Spirit guide you. IT IS AMAZING. We had a couple of incredible miracles finding this past week.....

Miracle #1: We had just got done teaching Tocarra (a woman from Nigeria, Africa), about how she can have hope through the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and were walking down this ally way. All the sudden I felt prompted to look up. So I did. There, staring down at us was a older man named Walter. We started talking to him about the world cup. We made him laugh and boldly told him who we are as representatives of the Savior Jesus Christ. Something was screaming inside of me that this man suffers from depression and was extremely sad that day. So I asked "Porque esta triste?" (Why are you sad?) He looked confused as if he didn't know how we knew he was sad. But slowly his face lit up. He asked, "Do you know how I can be happy again after being so sad all the time? What do I do?" So began an incredible lesson on the atonement and coming unto Christ and receiving strength and hope through Him and his restored gospel. All of this was in a shout, because he wouldn't come outside to talk to us. But the Spirit was so strong. He finally came out of his house. He asked, "How did you know I was sad? I wait by this window everyday and ask God to send me a sign of His love, and I think you two angels are it." WOAHHHHHHH! Literally God had sent us there and had prompted us to look up and start talking to this man. He is from Honduras and is working here in the states for his family back home. His eyes filled with tears as we explained that families are forever and that we can be born again through baptism. It was one of the COOLEST most SPIRITUAL lessons that I have ever had the opportunity to be apart of out here on the mission. This man has been waiting for the Gospel, and wants to change and be happy and come closer to God. And we were sent there to him. He had never prayed in his life, and so we got to teach him how to communicate with God. He kept calling us his angels sent from heaven. He said, "I have felt empty and far from God for so long, and this is the truth that will carry me on." WOW. Prepared people are placed in our paths. It is INCREDIBLE.

Miracle #2: We were walking down the street in what we call "little Honduras" aka Patrick Henry. and we had 15 minutes before we had to go home. We were determined to use that 15 minutes to find and teach someone about the restoration. God put them in our path. Pedro and Simon were outside smokin' their cigars when we started to talk to them. They were casual with us and then after we said that we represent the Savior and started speaking exactly what they needed to hear they dropped their cigars and sit up straight to listen. They told us they had been on a wrong path for a long time and have desired to get back for so long. YES!!! We told them about the one true church on the earth today. They want to know more. YES! MIRACLE. I LOVE THIS WORK. I LOVE THESE PEOPLE. I LOVE MY COMPANION.

Lately, I have been reflecting a lot about the story of Moses and how his people were given DAILY bread for what they needed to survive. As a missionary, I feel like the Lord is constantly giving us our daily bread. It is never more or less than we need. We go off of faith knowing that life will be good and miracles will happen if we are just obedient and follow the Lord's will for us. God gives all of us our own personal "Manna" if we are willing to receive it and we are humble enough to recognize that we need the Lord's hand. I need the Lord. I can't do this alone. I just can't. We can't. No one can. But everyone tries. And that is why people end up finding happiness that is empty. God's happiness/manna that He will give to us on a daily basis if we seek it out. We all must "look unto [Him] in every thought; doubt not, fear not." (D&C 6:36) and then everything always seems to work out just the way that it is supposed to. Christ should be our daily bread. He is mine. I need Him, oh I need Him. "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am the bread of life....I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." (John 6:35, 47-51)

Also. Love who you are. Understand you are a child of God, and that HIS opinion is the ONLY thing that should ever matter. It doesn't matter what everyone else is doing or what is going on around you....the only thing that matters is what God thinks. Channel your drive and love for God by loving yourself and others for who they are. You are strong. You are wonderful. You are His. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. God already knows you and loves you. Love who you are so you can love yourself.

Thanks for all you do for me. You are always in my heart and in my prayers.

STAND STRONG.

Hermana Weenig