sister jessica lyn viraldo: Email from Jan 25

This week we had the awesome opportunity to be a part of a worldwide missionary broadcast from Salt Lake. It was way cool to hear from the leaders of the Church on the fundamentals of missionary work. I think I learned how to be a better missionary because of it.

This week in our "missionaries on fire Book of Mormon reading" we were on the Isaiah chapters of 2Nephi, so I don't have much insight on that, except the end is near....

So, my spiritual thought for the week is about sacrificing for the Lord. This week we had a lesson with a K&A who are in the YSA (young single adult) ward. When we got there they were so excited to tell us about the new schedule they started. "We started a missionary schedule!" Almost, anyway. They got up early in the morning, worked out, came home to make breakfast while listening to scriptures, then talked about it. The reason for doing these things, they said was because they feel like Christ isn't in their lives as much as they'd like Him to be. They realized they needed to change some things they were doing & substitute them for things that would bring the spirit in their lives more abundantly.

In my whole 21 years of life I haven't been as close to Jesus Christ as I have been these past almost 15 months. My relationship with Him has grown so much. I've come to know who He is & that I can rely on Him. I know it's because of the sacrifices that I've made, or substituting things in my life for better things. Although we all can't always be full-time missionaries, consecrating our time & attention for 18-24 months, we all have things in life that we can sacrifice for the Lord.

I would encourage you to not necessarily adapt the missionary lifestyle, but find time out of your day where you can substitute what you're doing that moment for time to read your scriptures, pray, or give service in some way. It's amazing to me that as we sacrifice for the Lord, we aren't really sacrificing at all. He blesses us so much more than anything we could "give up".

love you! have a wonderful week

xoxo Sister Viraldo