Hi from Vacaville!!
Shout out to my family for the packages and letters. Thank you so much!! We have our little Christmas tree up with decorations :)
Also, shout out to Dad - happy birthday!! Sending you a card today - sorry it will get there late, but I am so grateful you are my dad :) This week especially I just see how much you have done for me and am so thankful for your example of hard work and dedication.
So last week and this week were AWESOME.
We did service for the Festival of Trees on Saturday - it is this totally nonprofit organization that donates all the proceeds to the homeless shelter called Opportunity House, this shelter is unique because they don't just shelter the homeless, they focus on helping families down on their luck find jobs, get educated, and become contributing members of society. We helped set up and decorate all these beautiful Christmas trees! I'll send pictures!!
Monday evening we decided that we wanted our week to be the best week of our mission, so Tuesday we worked suuuuper hard and went on splits from 7-9 that evening. Not only did we get two members to come, but had Kelsey Andrews, a recently returned missionary, bring our investigator, Destiny! Destiny LOVED it. She is basically already a member and she hasn't even been baptized yet haha. Her baptism is in less than 2 weeks - on December 20th. She shared the neatest thing with us the other day. She told us that when she first started meeting with the missionaries, Sis. Nickolette told her about the temple in Oakland. She was curious about it, so she Googled the temple and the first picture that popped up was a wedding picture of a couple kissing outside the temple. She said she felt this overwhelming pull to it and the thought, "You HAVE to go there." This is what has helped her balance her doubts. Also, we left her with a quote from Dieter F. Uchtdorf: "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith." Her family felt good about her venture into the church at first, but now that her baptism is approaching and they realize she is committing to it, her family is becoming less supportive and her grandmother even shared some anti-Mormon material with her.
Interesting how if there is truth, then Satan will work even harder to keep people from it! What I love about Destiny is that she still feels great about her baptism. We asked how she is feeling and she said, "I feel great about it. December 20th is perfect. I want to do it for Christ before Christmas." She is so amazing :) We also taught about the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity and were a little nervous, but she is totally fine and already lives them! She is so ready for this :) I am so grateful and privileged to teach her the Gospel and see God's hand working in her life. Keep her in her prayers that she will be protected from the adversary!
We also got Desire to come with us on splits, and she is a recent convert in the ward. She absolutely loved it! We had two amazing lessons with our investigators Janae and Dulce about the new Christmas video "He is the Gift" and ended up sharing the Restoration with one of them - Dulce. Dulce and Arely both accepted the invitation to be baptized and we are excited to help them start progressing.
As a Sister Training Leader, I go on exchanges during the transfer with the sister I am over. I had a wonderful exchange with one sister, Sister Majors. We had a pretty intense experience. We were waiting to exchange back Tuesday evening and decided to tract (knock) a few doors. The 1st door we knocked was this sharp-looking middle aged man. He seemed super excited to talk and pulled seats up onto his porch. As soon as we sat down, the Spirit put this thought into my mind: "You need to leave." I looked over at Sis. Majors but she was just smiling at him, so we started talking. Turns out he is a Born-Again Christian. Nothing against the religion, but it was a pretty sad experience.
This man first told us we were wrong. In every sense. That God and Christ are the same. He said "You're at the top of the ladder balanced in between two buildings, and you have decided to move the ladder to the wrong building." My heart burned within me and God let me know right there that this is true. That Christ is God's Son. That this is TRUE.
I wanted so badly to keep the Spirit with me for comfort so I just said to him, "With all due respect sir, I am not lost. I may be young and like you said, 'truly sincere,' but I do know and can testify in Christ's name I know this is true with all my heart. I do not appreciate a fellow Christian like yourself trying to force me to believe something I know is not true. Thank you very much for your time." Sister Majors added her simple but powerful testimony and we got up to leave. He got this look of annoyance on his face but when we said good bye we could tell he felt rather dumb for trying to pull our religion down. Interesting how many different churches, including nondenominational Christian churches, Baptist, Jehovah's Witness, Catholic, Born-Again Christians, etc. lash out specifically against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It strengthens my testimony of this Church's truthfulness and divinity because it fulfills all the prophecies Christ gave that His true Church and His followers "shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved" (St. Mark 13:13). Not only that, but we are the only Church on the Earth whose organization is like Christ's original organization. And more importantly than walking where Jesus walked, we strive to walk as Jesus walked.
I have never gone to a service in our Church where we bashed on another religion, because Christ never taught us to be contentious. In the Book of Mormon Christ actually tells us, "The spirit of contention is of the devil" (3 Nephi 11:29). And if we are all trying to follow Christ, why pull others down? Christ himself said in Mark 9:38-39: "And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not is: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me." Moral of the story: be kind. I am here to preach the Gospel of Christ, not bash with people about conflicting beliefs.
It just makes sense. A friend of mine once emailed me and said, "If anything else, this doctrine just feels right. Nothing else even makes nearly as much sense as this does." He also said, "Our church may not have all the answers to all the questions, but it does have enough answers to inspire faith."
I want each of you to know that I have a testimony of this Gospel. I know it is true. I am grateful that as a mission, all the missionaries have been reading the 4 Gospels in the New Testament together because it has strengthened my testimony that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is truly Christ's Church on Earth again before His 2nd Coming. I love the scriptures and know that the Bible is the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. I also know the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. I know Joseph Smith saw our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and restored Christ's pure Gospel to the Earth again. I know that this Restored Gospel blesses families in every aspect. I know the temple is a house of God, and am so grateful I was able to go earlier today in the pouring rain :) I know Jesus is my Savior and He is the Son of God. I know God and Jesus have two separate bodies but are one in purpose. Why would we even have bodies if God was a spirit who could shift forms? God put us here to experience life and make choices to help us become more like Him. If He was a Spirit or was two or three Personages at once, then so would we be. But we are not. "Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness...So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:26-27). If God were just a spirit, what would be the point of receiving a body?
To become like Him? No, not if He is just a spirit. But God has a body. It says so in Genesis, and prophets of old saw Christ and Heavenly Father as well (Exodus 33:11, Ether 3:6-16). Satan rebelled against God's plan and because of that never received a body. If we were not here and if we were not Resurrected through Christ our Savior and His gift He gave us of His life, we would go back to being spirits forever and be like Satan - disembodied and miserable. But because of Christ, we have overcome the Fall - we will all be resurrected and receive our bodies back, perfect and glorified like Christ's and Heavenly Father's. And if we follow His Son, His Son will lead us to our Father and we will be forgiven of our sins and enter into the rest of our Lord. I know this without a shadow of a doubt.
Matthew 10:39: "He that findeth his life shall lose it: but he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." I have given up my will to Christ's and have found myself. I know who I am and I am God's and Christ's. I love Them and am grateful for them. For those of you who might not have seen the Christmas video "He is the Gift" yet, check it out on christmas.mormon.org, YouTube, or Facebook with the hashtag #sharethegift.
One more cool story: last Sunday was fast and testimony meeting, and guess who got up to bear his testimony? Alex!! He is the less-active member who has been struggling so much since I have been here but is now doing so so so much better! He wrote it down and bore the sweetest, most sincere testimony of missionary work, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and God's love. Then right after, his older YSA age brother, Will, bore his testimony!! I ended up bawling haha. It was so amazing to see their progression from no testimony to a simple, powerful one that they wanted to share in front of the congregation. :)
I had interviews with President and Sister Alba last Thursday and they went super well. I will miss them so much. They are like my mom and dad away from home and I have so much respect and love for them. They both told me thank you for my example and it just warmed my heart :)
I'll end with some funny stories from the past couple of weeks:
1. Sister Ngawharau calls the trunk of the car the "boot." I have been trying so hard not to say boot. The other day, she asked where her scriptures were. I replied, "Oh, you left them in the boot." Noooo!!
Haha I am turning into a Kiwi. Oh well.
2. Kelsey Andrews funny story:
-She went to look for a volleyball for FHE -Opened the door and Devan, a member, was standing the dark hallway. She hit him with the door.
-She was sooo surprised to see him she yelled sooooo loud and slammed the door.
-All we heard was a soft, "Ow" from Devan haha
That sister has some strong lungs haha. Louuuuud scream, too.
Sis. N and I get along wonderfully! She is amazing and hilarious and so much fun to be companions with. She has such a sweet testimony of the Gospel and I love learning from her example every day. Pray we'll be able to get her tummy situation figured out. Her stomach has been in pain on and off the past 3 weeks, and she gets results for tests back tomorrow.
I love you all! Have a wonderful week and remember that God loves you!
If you have any doubts, remember Destiny: "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith."
Love,
Sister Kolee Decker
P.S. I got pretty sick yesterday and Tuesday from getting my Flu shot for the mission this year...bleh. I feel much better now, though! Yay!
P.P.S. Christmas is only 14 days away!
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