Hey everyone! So I'm going to try this
new thing where I'm sending out my mass email because, although I love
writing to each & every one of you, if you're a missionary or
have ever been one, you know how little time you have to email.
This week was really great!
Unfortunately, we weren't able to have any lessons with our
investigators. We've been trying so dang hard to get a hold of Alexis
(our 11yr old investigator), but alas, we cannot.
So Monday evening was quite awesome.
There's this family in our ward, the wife is less active & the
husband is not a member. They pretty much raise their own food. All
organic. They have chickens, goats, rabbits, a horse, & like 4 or
5 gardens with everything you can think of! We offer service to them
occasionally & a couple weeks ago the husband, Lester, was
talking to us about all the food he makes & it was pretty much
making us drool. Besides the fact the food sounded amazing, we knew
it would be an incredible opportunity to eat at their home because
less active & non-member. So we might have played our excitement
up a bit, but that's nothing new. ;) Anyway, they had us over for
dinner & it was AMAZING. Chunky sweet potato soup, fish tacos, &
apple crisp. ahhhhh. PLUS she makes her own lotions & soaps &
gave us a bar of soap. Pretty neat. And we were able to share a
message with them about faith, comparing the seeds they grow in their
garden to faith! Alma 32.
Tuesday nothing too exciting happened.
Except we met this 16 year old girl who is probably the most off-the-wall hyper person I've ever met. She knows who missionaries are. We
think someone in her family is a member, but we're not sure the
details because we couldn't get more than 5 words in before she was
jabbering on about something else, hahaha.
Wednesday we started our part-time job!
We were encouraged to volunteer at the Phelan library, so we decided
to do that. We work every Wednesday for 2 hours, shelving books &
anything else they need done. We had a really great conversations
with a 15 year old girl who also volunteers about what we do as
missionaries & how our church is different than all other
Christian churches. It was awesome!
 |
| First day working at the library. Kind of like the first day of school! |
Thursday wasn't all that exciting. We
had a couple lessons with less active members of our ward & a
couple investigators cancelled lessons....wooohooo.
Friday we had the wonderful privilege
of going to the dentist...again! 3 hours later we drove back to
Phelan & went to dinner at the Pizza Factory. Don't let people
fool you, it's really not that great of a pizza.
Saturday we were planning on going to
this sick JustServe service project called Wagon Train. I'm not sure
exactly what it is, but the idea is building a Pioneer town next to
the historic Mormon Trail in Phelan, California! But we got there &
there was nobody to be found, so I guess we need to make a
reservation next time. So here we are in our service clothes, which
is quite rare, without any service to do. So we stopped by the
Dyerly's because we were going to borrow hula hoes. (I'd never heard
of them before coming to California but they are the BEST tools ever
for getting weeds! I'll pack one in my suitcase to bring home haha).
We ended up weeding at the Dyerly's & they fed us lunch. I mean,
the 8 year old heated a chimichunga up in the microwave for us to eat,
haha. We saw a fire about a mile away from us! It was scary & we
felt like we should help somehow, but couldn't. Turns out it wasn't a
house & didn't turn into a wildfire, so that's good.
Sunday was really great. The highlight
was contacting a referral we got last week. So last week I asked Sis.
Hutton if she knew anyone who would be interested in our message &
she said "funny you should ask, I was thinking that I should
send you over to my neighbor, Monica." So yesterday we went to
contact Monica & asked if she'd be interested in the message we
share & to my surprise ("o ye of little faith" I
know...) she said YES! We set up an appointment to teach her on
Wednesday. She has a husband & 4 sons. I'm PRAYING these people
have been prepared for us! Pray for Monica & her family PLEASE!
You might have noticed the subject of
this email being "Come unto Christ and be perfected in Him."
We've been sharing Moroni 10:32 with the less actives we've visited
this week, & oddly enough our zone leaders asked us to read an
article from the July 2014 Ensign titled "Becoming Perfect in
Christ". We're commanded when Jesus was teaching the people on
the Sermon on the Mount to "be ye therefore perfect even as your
Father in Heaven is perfect" & when Jesus appeared to the
Nephites in ancient America, he taught "be ye therefore perfect
even as I, or your Father in Heaven is perfect" Why, only in the
America's after His resurrection did he say "I"? How can
we, as imperfect humans be perfect? It's impossible in this life to
be without mistake. However, "perfect" does not mean
without mistake or flaw, it means "complete or finished".
The Savior's life & ministry was complete & finished when He
taught the Nephites. Therefore, He was perfect. We too can become
perfect in Christ as we "deny [our]selves of all ungodliness"
& "love God with all [our] might, mind, & strength"
(Moroni 10:32). It is only AFTER we have finished our journey in this
life, doing all we can possible to walk in the path of Jesus Christ,
that His grace is sufficient for us. He is perfectly loving &
perfectly merciful, but we must do our part to show our worthiness.
I've come to understand this better on my mission. Doing daily things
to come closer to Christ is essential: pray morning & night,
daily scripture study, service, honesty, charity, humility, etc. It
can seem like a ton of things to take on & can be overwhelming at
times, but as long as we are trying our very best & repenting, we
can at the last day stand blameless before Him. I love the love our
Savior has for each one of us!
Hope you all have a fantastic week!
Love you tons.
xoxo Sister Viraldo
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