Spiders (Week 72)

“This week was one of those weeks where so much happens and then you get to Monday and you wonder if any of it actually happened because it felt like the week was only 1 hour long. And yet, so much happened. It's an interesting feeling.

Well, Halloween is coming up and our apartment sure knows it. I don't know how many spiders I've seen in there lately, but it's been a lot. I guess with the torrential downpours that have been going on, they're looking for a dry warm place to stay. Don't worry, we've been trying to just catch and release them instead of killing them.

To start off, zone conference was amazing this week. I went in with some questions about faith and came out with a lot of answers. I was wondering if there are levels of faith and what that means. My favorite part of the whole conference was when President Schofield said: "we are nothing. except we aren't, because he sent his son to extend his grace." Grace is like kinda a confusing topic to me because I've met so many evangelical people on my mission who like to argue about grace and works and how Mormons believe that we can earn our way to heaven or something and why do we need to get baptized and do certain things, it's okay as long as we have faith, we are saved. I don't know. Talking to them is so confusing. BUT I've been studying it a lot recently and I just know so much that the Book of Mormon is true. Like HOLY COW it's true. I love it. I saw a quote this week that said: Choose your love and love your choice. I've chosen this gospel. I've chosen to be on a mission. It's blessing me so much, why would I not express love to heavenly father in return by doing certain things like getting baptized and going to church and enduring to the end? It makes sense to me. James E. Talmage said: "Passive belief on the part of a would-be recipient of blessing is insufficient; only when it is vitalized into active faith is it a power; so also of one who ministers in the authority given of God, mental and spiritual energy must be operative if the service is to be effective." I think I've shared that quote again, but I'll share it again, because it's something that I don't think a lot of people understand. Heavenly Father is bound when we do what he says! Wouldn't we want to insure blessings for ourselves by being obedient? Otherwise, the blessings that will come will be sporadic and hard to recognize. Through faith and our actions, we can see miracles and appreciate God more, thus being more happy.

We have had miracle after miracle here in Bothell. It's hard to contain all of them within ourselves with there just being 2 of us. It's been really good. We've been working hard and seeing results, and it's so awesome. I think Sister Piddubna is really enjoying herself as well, and I think we've been able to really help each other with English and Russian. I was worried that I would plateau this transfer, but I feel like I'm past the plateau of my mission and just learning more than ever! It's awesome.

After zone conference, we were really concerned about following the promptings of the spirit. We didn't have a lot of time to go out to work. We went to the place that we had planned to go earlier, and it just didn't feel right. Sister Piddubna felt that we needed to call a woman that we've been working with. Her phone was dead, and so we felt uneasy because her husband is dying of cancer, and we were worried that something had happened. Typically, we go there during the day and we always call first. Well, it was 7pm, but she really felt that we needed to go check on this woman. In this moment, we prayed to confirm, and I never really felt any strong confirmation. However, I decided to trust Sister P's instincts, and we headed out. We got there, and knocked. She opened the door and just cried. She had been having a rough day, her husband hadn't been eating, he hadn't been drinking, and she was scared that he's getting near the end. Just through the small whispering of the spirit, we were able to hug, pray with, and read the word of God to his beautiful daughter who needed our help that night. I learned a lot about trusting my companion as well. It takes humility to follow your companion's prompting, even when you don't feel the same way. However, I think that's how it is a lot of the time. And we wonder why our companion got the prompting and we didn't. Feelings of resentment can arise and take away the unity of the companionship. And then, you see a miracle and you are humbled. I was lucky enough that night to decide before we saw the miracle that Sister Piddubna was indeed feeling the spirit and that we needed to act on that, regardless of my own feelings. It was a cool experience.

We had a Dan Jones! (where you meet someone that week and teach them, then they come to church that week and you get a return appointment with them). It's really hard to do. I've had one other one on my whole mission! It's a miracle, and I'm so excited to see where it goes with that investigator.

We went to the library for an appointment, but then our investigator asked if we cuold reschedule for a later time. BUT THEN it was really cool.. we found out why we needed to be there. This man just walked right up to us and started telling us how much he loves Mormons. AND THEN he started speaking Russian. Man, it was cool. He's Muslim and not interested in learning, but he was a real boost of our morale. A small act of kindness and word of encouragement or gratitude can go a long way, truly.

Actually, there was so much more that happened including me driving for an hour and a half literally hydroplaning the whole time. It's been raining like crazy here! It was so dark I could only see the lights in front of me between the windshield wipers, the darkness, and all of the water pouring down. It really made me realize that the lights of the other cars are so important. If they didn't have lights, we would have been dead. I'll let you figure out the gospel analogy from this story by yourself....

I love and miss all of you and wish you a wonderful week!”