Family and Friends,
HELLO! This week has been psycho, crazy, hard, busy, productive, stressful, and so so SO rewarding. Oh, and before I get, THANK YOU family for sending me Vanilla Bean Noel lotion. That is just the BEST scent - I should write Bath & Body Works and request that it be sold all year long. I can't ever seem to stock up enough of that scent of lotion to last until the next year haha.
I have a new companion now! Transfers were on Wednesday. Her name is Sister Elisabeth Zenger, and she is great! Some cool facts about her: she is already pushing me to work harder, to be exactly obedient, and especially to have 20 "spiritual conversations" every day, not just 20 contacts (in our mission we have the goal to talk to 20 new people about the Gospel every day). She has such a sweet, tender spirit. And every morning when we sing together in companionship study, I get to hear her beautiful voice! She is a music major at BYU Idaho, and actually grew up half in Florida, the other half in Rexburg, Idaho. She's the oldest of 7 kids! 3 younger sisters (2 twin sisters, Maddie and Kenzie (20), are on a mission in Argentina and Germany, respectively), and 3 younger brothers. Also, for her major, she has traveled EVERYWHERE to perform!
She's been to Austria, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, the Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, France, and England!
We also laugh together a lot, which is also fun. And finally, we both love to run!! It's such a tender mercy of the Lord to be with a companion who loves to run (both of my companions in the field so far), because that is truly a stress-reliever for me, and it wakes me up every morning.
So cool stories/happenings week:
1. I ate a pomegranate. Doesn't seem like a big deal, but it was amazing.
2. I had a super embarrassing moment the last day Sister De Rurange and I served together (Tuesday). We were contacting on the street and I saw someone a few strides ahead of us, so I quickened my pace and walked up to him and gave him a picture of Jesus Christ and said, "Who is Jesus Christ to - " SMACK (and a really ugly screech sound that I made as well) - I ran straight into a pole! Haha it wasn't one of my finest moments. Then Sister De Rurange and the guy I tried to talk to started dying laughing while I tried to blink stars out of my eyes from running into that darn pole with my head. Yup. We ended up having a good conversation with the guy, though.
And these moments I always seem to have is the reason why when I come home I want to write a book titled, "We've All Been There: Some of Us More Than Others."
If you have any great, horribly embarrassing, or just plain weird stories you want added to my book, e-mail my regular e-mail (nikole.decker@gmail.com). You think I'm kidding - but really. I need more than just my embarrassing stories to make a book. I promise I'll keep your name anonymous. Maybe. :)
3. We found this AMAZING new investigator, Ben Martin. Actually, he found us! He worked for 4 months in Salt Lake City, and another 4 in Orem doing construction on a new power plant. He was impressed with his co-workers, so he started going to the LDS church to check it out. He decided he really like it, so he took a few discussions from the missionaries. Now he's moved back here, and he came to church yesterday! He said he wants to be taught more. We invited him to an open house at President and Sister Alba's house, and he said sure.
So later that evening we met him outside their home and walked him through their house - Sister Alba set up all these beautiful nativities, and also many painting of Joseph Smith and the First Vision. We were able to teach him the Restoration right then and there, with President Alba at our side chiming in at times, and when we asked Ben his thoughts, he said something along the lines of, "I believe that." !!! We went to eat some fruit and sat down and talked more to him and introduced him to a few people, and he was so kind and gentlemanly and awesome! He was talking to another missionary, Elder Martin, and Elder Martin asked him if he was going to be baptized. Ben said, "Yeah, most likely." So, we may or may not have a baptism in the next 2-3 weeks. It was a miracle! God truly does prepare the people we come in contact with.
4. Anthony sent Sister Zenger and I this amazing dream he had via Facebook the other day. This is the story in his own words (it looks different because I copied and pasted it from the letter I wrote President Alba...).
"I was approached by Jesus. He told me that He and God are very happy with me going down the right path. Jesus gave me a glimpse of the Celestial Kingdom and it was absolutely beautiful. So beautiful, it made the Earth look like a small park. I felt a lot of happiness and that was only a small appetizer. He didn't show me everything though. Before Jesus sent me back to Earth, He told me to stay for a bit and to witness a man who just came home to God and Jesus. 'He had a very good and Honorable life,' the Son said to me. The man approached God & His wife and God gave the man a huge hug and said to him, 'Welcome home son.' The man cried knowing all his pain, worries, and suffering had ended forever.
As the man chatted with God & His wife, Jesus brought a book out. It had my name on it. I sat on Jesus' lap as we read through the book. In the book, it showed everything I did, good & bad, since I was in elementary school. Everything I saw in the book, I remember & actually did do all that. Some things I didn't want to discuss but Jesus understood me. Since the day I was born up to now, the book only had a few pages that were written on it. The rest was all blank, only to be recorded soon.
Jesus said it was almost time for me to go back to Earth and had one last thing for me to see. God, His wife, and Jesus escorted the man into the Celestial Kingdom of Heaven. The man had a huge smile and was in tears. He entered the Celestial Kingdom.
After the man returned Home, God, Jesus, and God's wife turned and looked at me with smiles on their faces. 'You're becoming a better person Anthony,' said God. 'As long as you believe in me and my Son, nothing can stand in your way. When your time comes, I promise you will be happy for all eternity. Some of your ancestors are still in the spirit world and I told them you will baptize them in my Temple soon so they can come Home, and they were excited to hear that. Now go my son, you still have a lot to do and learn. I'll see you when you are ready, just remember son, praise me and Jesus, and you can do anything,' said God. Then I asked Jesus one thing: 'when are you coming back to Earth?' Jesus smiled and said to me, 'Soon.' I was so happy. God, Jesus, and God's wife went back into the Celestial Kingdom. As I started to go back to Earth, I looked back and saw light getting darker coming out of the gate of the Celestial Kingdom. The gate closed. I looked at it for a minutes longer, then I turned my eyes back to the Earth and suddenly I was at flying at warp speed back to Earth.....Few minutes later, I woke up in my bed."
AMAZING, huh? I understand more fully Lehi and his vision, now.
5. This amazing insight I had this morning:
This morning on our run, I was just thinking to myself how much running long distances applies to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When you first start running, you feel out of shape and every step, every breath, hurts. But it is good for your body - you are almost calling your body to repentance - to get into shape.
Similarly, learning about the Gospel and having to change your lifestyle to be more like Jesus Christ can be hard, and can sometimes hurt. It can hurt friendships and relationships where those friends and family members and spouses don't agree with the Gospel and want you to stop. And sometimes it hurts to simply feel godly sorrow for the things you have done wrong. But at the same time, it is so good for you. Repentance has a pain that comes with it that just "hurts so good," much like the pain you experience when starting to run.
As you run more and more, the pain lessens; it doesn't hurt so much anymore. Instead, your morning run feels relieving, refreshing, revitalizing. It becomes a part of you. And when you run a new trail, there are parts that still exhaust you, like running up a long hill or those long expanses where you can't see the end in sight. Sometimes you might not want to run that day, but you decide to just get up and do it, and you are always rewarded with a healthy body and invigorated mind for the remainder of the day.
In comparison, the more and more you bring your life in line with Jesus' teachings and come unto Him and follow Him in every way, including baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, repentance becomes a sweet thing because you know that the Savior always has your back - that you can be washed clean week after week, day after day, hour after hour. You really start to read your scriptures, pray, repent, serve others, etc. every day so that when those hard trials come, you can "run the hill" or the "long expanse" ahead of you. When you choose to do those things that bring you closer to God, you feel prepared, happy, close to God, and somehow have time for everything else to fall into place as well.
And then you are put into a race, and this race is who knows how many miles long. You want to give up - this course is much harder than any other trail: the hills are steep, the pace is fast, the day is hot, the trail is rocky. But you run and run, and even when it hurts, it still has that "hurts so good" quality to it, and you run and run and run, and then finally see the finish line in sight. And when you cross, you can look behind you at that course and say, "I did it."
That's what it's all about - the race of life. Enduring to the very end, even it hurts at times. But when we finish the race strong, we will look back and say, "I did it." And I'm sure that our Savior, and especially our Heavenly Parents, will say to us, "yes you have. Now let's go home."
You can do hard things! Enduring to the end is a JOY, not a punishment. It just "hurts so good." See 2 Nephi 31:19-20.
Take Elder Ballard's challenge he gave the world in October: to bring one person closer to Jesus Christ by Christmas time. This is the perfect time to share with those you love the message that Jesus lives, that He is our Savior, and that living the way He showed us to live is the most sure way to be happy.
I love you all, have a great week before Christmas!!
Until next week,
Sister Nikole Decker
No comments:
Post a Comment