Greenfield Park May 30, 2016

May 30, 2016

Bonjour tout le monde :)

How has another week flown by? This week things got very HOT. It is so so humid here. One day this week I felt like I was in Hawaii x3…. I was baking alive. We were sticky the moment we went outside. I'm just very grateful to be wearing a skirt every day. I'm feeling for all those elders right now… Thank goodness for being a sister!

It was pretty sad with Sangita this week. We were really hoping to be able to get teaching her again, and help her to get back on track for preparing for her baptism. It seemed a lot more promising than it has in the past… it was amazing when Sandra was able to come teach her and bring her to church. But Sangita called this week and said she's not going to be meeting with missionaries anymore. She's done this so many times… and is so back and forth. But we feel it's best to really give her a break. It's just so hard when you love someone so much and work so hard to help them. Agency is sometimes so frustrating as a missionary… :P

But this week we've been trying more and more to find those who are prepared… we realized that we really just need to clean out a big chunk of our investigator pool. Which is pretty sad when you love people so much. But we need to find those who are prepared or ready to be prepared. One thing we're doing is starting family mission plans with all the members in the ward… these are amazing! So I want to invite everyone reading this do sit down with the family this week (Maybe for FHE) and create your family mission plan… Here's what you do. Fast and pray(Perfect since fast sunday is coming up :) about specific names of people you know who you can help prepare to receive the gospel. These can be all sorts of people.. from work, school, neighbours, kids friends, people at the store… it doesn't matter who (Extra challenge when you live in Utah, I know. But there are still people needing the truth. This can be less-actives, too :) ). Once you have your names, you do some more praying and set SPECIFIC plans of how you are going to invite these people to come closer to Christ. You can invite them to meet with missionaries, come to church, give them a Book of Mormon… or it can be a little more subtle, like inviting them to dinner with the family, or a family home evening. Whatever it is, the spirit will guide you to know what you can do specifically to help these people. Once you set these plans (and WRITE them down!), you can put it somewhere where you'll have to look at it often, like the fridge? :) And then you keep working and working until you've done all those goals you set. Also, set a specific date you'll do those things by :) So please please please, I want to invite everyone to do this! I've already started making my own mission plan… ;) But really, there are so many people waiting to hear about the gospel. 

Think of all the blessings that you've experienced because of your knowledge of Jesus Christ, of the restoration of the gospel. How has the family been blessed? Your relationships? I love thinking of the story of Lehi's vision.. when he tasted of the sweet and desirable fruit. His first instinct was to SHARE it with his family. (1 nephi 8:12). Family… the people around us are our family. We are all brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is our older brother who sacrificed everything so we could all turn to him. We have been blessed with such great knowledge, and have the greatest blessing to go and share these things with those around us. I hope we'll all strive to help more and more with the Lord's work here on the earth :)

And I know there's so much happiness that comes from sharing… I didn't really learn this until becoming a missionary, but that's definitely something I'm so excited to keep applying for the rest of my life. Gratitude=Happiness. The natural result of gratitude should be the desire to share all those things we're grateful for. Spread that joy :)

Well, I love you all and wish you the best of weeks! I pray for you all and hope that all is well back home. :)

love,

Sister Heather Shelley

                                               Picnic and weekly planning in the park :D