First Area Week 7-Undecided between Praise to the Lord the Almighty and Come, Ye Disconsolate (9-16-2013)

Family and Friends!
So this week has more ups and downs than I thought possible for a week! So I had to choose two hymns for my week instead of just one :D

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise him, for he is thy health and salvation!
Join the great throng,
Psaltery, organ and song,
Sounding in glad adoration!

Praise to the Lord! Over all things he gloriously reigneth.
Borne as on eagle wings, safely his Saints he sustaineth.
Hast thou not seen
How all thou needest hath been
Granted in what he ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy way and defend thee.
Surely his goodness and mercy shall ever attend thee.
Ponder anew
What the Almighty can do,
Who with his love doth befriend thee.

Praise to the Lord! Oh, let all that is in me adore him!
All that hath breath, join with Abraham's seed to adore him!
Let the "amen"
Sum all our praises again,
Now as we worship before him.

Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish;
Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
Here bring your wounded hearts; here tell your anguish.
Earth has no sorrow that heav'n cannot heal.

Joy of the desolate, Light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure!
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,
"Earth has no sorrow that heav'n cannot cure."

Here see the Bread of Life; see waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God, pure from above.
Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing
Earth has no sorrow but heav'n can remove.

So I will start on last Monday and move on forward in order of what happened.
We taught our recent convert little boy, Austin, and he was way distracted. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he was all over the place. His younger brother was throwing a temper tantrum so we were trying really hard to keep the Spirit there, but it just wasn't. We are really hoping that our lesson this week will turn out better.

Tuesday we got to pick up our new companion! Sister Valikoula is the "greenie" that we added to our ranks. She is just really quiet! She gives us answers but never really volunteers stuff about herself and she never starts a conversation. I think she does know that Sister Roberts and I have a really good relationship, so that is probably really hard for her. She was recently reactivated right before she came out. She says she has had a really hard life, but I don't know what. Both Sister Roberts and I have tried really hard to include her and not get to reminiscent about last transfer. I think she talks to Sister Roberts a little more, because she is her trainer.  Transfers pretty much took all day, but we did get to do some service for a family in our ward after dinner. It was a pretty good day!

Wednesday we got to experience a really wild storm. It was raining so hard and there was so much lightning that we couldn't see anything! But, we were still able to make it to our appointment with Heather. Heather is an awesome less active that we have been working with. She is slightly less accountable and she has some crazy health issues for someone her age, but she is so great. She has progressed so much since the missionaries have started visiting her. She has completely given up tea and now she is working on giving up coffee. She lives in a kinda sketch part of town, but her apartment is a safe haven of the Spirit that is always a joy to walk into. I remember the first time I visited her apartment the feeling of it was so much different! I am so excited for her and the changes she and Heavenly Father have made in her life!

Thursday was the best day ever! The Finks who feed us every Thursday ended up cancelling their dinner appointment with us. Well... we ended up getting 2 referrals from the Church Headquarters, which never happens. And because the Finks cancelled dinner, we were able to contact the referrals the same day! Linda asked for a Bible and Book of Mormon and asked us to come back Friday. She was great and happy to see us. Elizabeth was beyond awesome. She has a whole bunch of Mormon friends. She just moved here from California and decided she wanted to talk to the missionaries. We were able to visit with her briefly and share a Book of Mormon with her. She said she wanted to come to Church on Sunday and that she wanted to start meeting with us regularly.

Friday was a blast, the best Friday the 13th I have ever had. We taught Linda the first lesson and she said that she believed that everything we said was true. We also got to do some tracting and Sister Valikoula had a great time doing that for the first time. We also taught a less active family, The Boles. Sister Boles son was there at the beginning which was really great. He was baptized when he was younger, but questions about the Church have risen to the surface and he is kinda iffy about it now. He is going into the military and said that it was okay if we had his records sent to wherever he goes. Brother Boles wasn't there so we changed our lesson plan. Sister Boles is actually friends with Linda and she asked if she could come to the next lesson, so we went over the Plan of Salvation so she knew what was going to happen in Linda's lesson next week.

Saturday is the reason why I chose Come, Ye Disconsolate alongside Praise to the Lord the Almighty.During our lunch hour while I was making some calls, Elizabeth sent us a slew of texts. In these texts she said that her best friend, a less active in Idaho, knows her better than anyone and she said that the Mormon Church wasn't for Elizabeth. She backed out of our appointment with her and told us she wasn't going to come to church on Sunday. After a companionship pow-wow Sister Roberts called her to talk to her in person. She committed Elizabeth to find out for herself and not just take her friend's word for it. She said she would consider it, but she really had some strong concerns. I never felt so bummed in my life. Here we were standing in front of her face, with exactly what she had been looking for all her life. And because of the words of one person she turned away from it! 

After the initial shock and disappointment of this sad series of events, I came to a realization. How often does the Savior come to us with the healing powers of the Atonement and because of the word of one other, Satan, do we turn our nose away from exactly what we need? All He wants is to give us what we need and He knows that it will bring us the joy, comfort, and peace that all of us seek. I have never felt a stronger sense of gratitude towards the Savior and a tiny sliver of understanding. Because of this turn of events I have been given a stronger desire to utilize the Atonement to its fullest! If I can be this saddened over a person turning their nose at the Gospel, how saddened is Christ that we turn our nose at the greatest gift He has given us! " For behold, I , God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent..." He gave up everything for us, all we have to do is come unto him!

Remember the Lord loves you and the Church is True!

Sister Nay

First Area Week 6- Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy (9-9-2013)

Family and Friends!

I know most of you are waiting on pins and needles to find out if I have gotten my visa... My visa is not here yet, but I get to stay in Ohio with Sister Roberts and we are getting a Sister fresh out of the MTC too!         

Brightly beams our Father's mercy
From his lighthouse evermore
But to us he gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.

Let the lower lights be burning;

Send a gleam across the wave.

Some poor fainting, struggling seaman

You may rescue, you may save.

One of my favorite things about missionary work is to know that Heavenly Father is the real missionary here. Every person that I come in contact with is Heavenly Father's investigator first, and I just get to add a little bit on top. But, the neat thing is that they need both Him and us missionaries to get all the way to the shore of eternal life!
We have learned that there is a woman who has been reading the Book of Mormon and wants to know more about what we believe. She is the Young Woman's President's daughter-in-law. We are trying to make contact with her and stuff like that, but it just amazes me that Heavenly Father watches out for all of His children, wayward or not.

Dark the night of sin has settled;

Loud the angry billows roar.

Eager eyes are watching, longing,

For the lights along the shore.

Let the lower lights be burning;

Send a gleam across the wave.

Some poor fainting, struggling seaman

You may rescue, you may save.

Sometimes the world confuses and distracts those that we love and teach. We have lost Tammy and Susan as investigators this week. Tammy has moved out of the mission and has turned off her phone. Susan is moving and doesn't have time to meet with us anymore. But, I have no doubt that their meeting with us was not in vain. One day they will remember the light which they saw and felt while speaking with the missionaries and begin looking for it again!

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother;

Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,

Trying now to make the harbor,

In the darkness may be lost.

Let the lower lights be burning;

Send a gleam across the wave.

Some poor fainting, struggling seaman

You may rescue, you may save.

Sometimes God works in the wildest ways and I cannot help but feel undeserving of all the miracles that He puts in my path. But, 6 weeks ago when I got here, Kurt seemed like the least likely to be a stalwart investigator. And here he is, our last hold out who has changed so much in the past 6 weeks. He is taking baby steps towards coming to the waters of baptism, but those baby steps are huge bounds for him! He did not grow up religious and has never prayed before. He suffers from PTSD and really has a hard time reconciling what he has seen with a knowledge that God loves us. But, Friday he said that he had been praying with his wife, who is a member. He says that he is not good with words and often has her say what he is trying to say in everyday conversation, which is so true:D  So we thought that it was so cool that he was praying with Christi! We have been talking with him about baby steps and we asked him what he thought the next baby step for him would be, and he said that he thinks he should pray by himself. I almost cried at that moment, the Spirit was so strong and I know Kurt is making small changes in his life everyday! I have never been so happy to not have my visa in my entire life! I am so glad that I get to stay here longer and see Heavenly Father work more on Kurt! Also, his favorite thing is NFL football and his team was playing Sunday. When I got here, he said that once football season started he would not be coming to church. Guess who came to sacrament yesterday and THEN went home to watch the game!?! Kurt did! I can't believe the changes that I have been able to witness in him just in the past 6 weeks!

Like I said many times before, the bulk of our work is with less actives. Heather is a reader like no other. She is reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon together and she just gets through stuff so fast. She has stopped drinking tea all together and she is weaning herself off of coffee. I also can't believe the change that has been wrought in her the past few weeks. The Boles are pretty good, neither of them had ever really had a strong religious background or anything so we are working with them to gain a faith in Jesus Christ. We have an appointment with the Davis family who has an 8 year old who hasn't been baptized tomorrow and we are so excited for that!

Miracle of the week: well one of them... :D

Sister Roberts got something absolutely wild in her eye Friday night on the way home. After an hour her eye had kinda swollen up a bit and it really hurt. There is an eye doctor who lives in the Elder's area and our ward, which means she is in West Virginia on the other side of the river. It was about 9:45 at that time and we decided to call her for some help. Well, she just happened to be in St.Clairsville with her husband and came over! Crazy right, not really, God totally knows what's up! Anyways, she took the thing that was in Sis Roberts eye out and gave her some eye drops. It was some sort of grit that ended up scratching the surface of Sister Roberts cornea, so we got some more eye drops the next day from Sister Wiley. God really looks out for His children and provides a way to help all of us all the time!

I am glad that we have had this time together! I miss you guys and am so glad that you are so supportive of my efforts as a missionary! I know that this Church is true!

I want to challenge you guys to go to mormonchannel.org and watch the Bread of Life mormon messages, they are awesome!

I could write so much more... but I don't have enough time!

So long until next week!

Sister Nay

First Area Week 5- Who's on the Lord's Side Who? (9-3-2013)

 Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
Now is the time to show.
We ask it fearlessly:
Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
We wage no common war,
Cope with no common foe.
The enemy's awake;
Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
(Chorus)
Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
Now is the time to show.
We ask it fearlessly:
Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
2. We serve the living God,
And want his foes to know
That, if but few, we're great;
Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
We're going on to win;
No fear must blanch the brow.
The Lord of Hosts is ours;
Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
3. The stone cut without hands
To fill the earth must grow.
Who'll help to roll it on?
Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
Our ensign to the world
Is floating proudly now.
No coward bears our flag;
Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
4. The pow'rs of earth and hell
In rage direct the blow
That's aimed to crush the work;
Who's on the Lord's side? Who?
Truth, life, and liberty,
Freedom from death and woe,
Are stakes we're fighting for;
Who's on the Lord's side? Who? 
Family and Friends!

I can't believe I am entering the last week of another transfer! Time flies as a missionary and I can't wait to continue to be a missionary wherever the Lord wants me to be!

This week our investigator pool shrank from 4 to 1. Susan is moving and we haven't been able to get a good time to set up with her. Tammy turned off her phone and won't talk to us. Tammy's mom, Diane, is also not answering her phone or returning our phone calls. Brother Vanstone is the only one that we are still technically teaching. He comes to church most weeks and he is awesome! He is like a Brigham Young investigator though, he will take a while to get to the point where he wants to be baptized.

But on the other hand, we had lots of service this week, which was way fun! The nursing home that we volunteer at had a benefit Car Show that we helped with. We helped set up and run the raffle ticket booth. It was way fun to see all of our friends from the nursing home get out and excited. They loved seeing the old cars and the music was from the era that they grew up in. They all came alive and it was beautiful to see!

We also had the opportunity to help a recent convert family paint their house. We spent almost all day there, but we had such a blast. We helped paint their fireplace, kitchen, and ceiling. The Finks are so awesome and they are preparing to go to the temple next month!! It is always a blessing to serve others!

 

 

  

The Elder in blue is my District leader and also one of the elders that serves in the ward with us. Elder Rassmusen.

  

Tender Mercies of the Lord! We made contact with a less active family and set up and appointment with them for next week. They have a son who has not been baptized and then and 17 year old and a 22 year old. They were really excited that we contacted them and want to teach them and their sons!

We have been mostly working on the less actives here in the area. We actually had 5 less actives come to church this week. One of which, his wife is not a member but has been reading the Book of Mormon! She wants to take the missionary lessons, so that was way cool. 

We had a tiny miracle in our teaching efforts this week. Randy and Michelle are a less active couple that we have been working with about once a week. They have some problems and we were going to share the movie, Together Forever.  When we got there our DVD would not play in their DVD player! They had a couple other movies, one of which was The Testaments, which we ended up watching. It was exactly what they needed! Randy and Michelle both were very touched be the message that the DVD had. Later that night when we went home we put Together Forever in our DVD player and it played just fine. God knows what the people we are working with need better than we do!

I chose Who's on the Lord's Side? as my hymn for the week because we have had a couple downs with our investigators, but we have also had some amazing miracles! Like the second verse says, "We serve the living God, And want his foes to know That, if but few, we're great; Who's on the Lord's side? Who? We're going on to win; No fear must blanch the brow. The Lord of Hosts is ours; Who's on the Lord's side? Who?" also the fourth verse, "The powers of earth and hell in rage direct the blow That's aimed to crush the work; Who's on the Lord's side? Who? Truth, life, and liberty, freedom from death and woe, Are stakes we're fighting for; Who's on the Lord's side? Who?" I know we are fighting a very important battle with the adversary and he is going to do all in his power  to stop us, but with the Savior on our side, we will always come off conquerors! (Romans 8:35,37)

Love, 

Sister Nay

PS-

So I keep forgetting to tell you that the Finks have an African Grey! His name is Peanut. He loves to dance to music and talk like Sister Fink. I am totally in love with him and I want one when I am a grown up!

Sister Roberts is better.  She got a blessing and used some different meds, she isn't completely better. But she can stand it now.  

 

I will do nothing if I don't convince President that Rob Gardner is worth adding to that elusive list! I hope he never stops writing music, it changes lives and testimonies in ways that other ways cannot!