Yep, I am definitely still alive.
The work has been a little bit slow but that's okay. We spend a lot of our time tracting and finding.
BUT ARE WE ALL STOKED THAT WE GOT TO HEAR FROM A PROPHET THIS WEEKEND??!??!
Here are my thoughts on conference:
Every day this week, we've been inviting people to come listen to a prophet of God. And it literally never hit me until coming out here that other religions don't really have something like that. Like the Baptists have their preachers, but every preacher teaches something different, and the Catholics have the Pope... but the Prophet literally gives us modern day revelation that applies to us and is directly from God. FATHOM THAT FOR A SECOND! We are so blessed to have a prophet here on the earth today! I feel like such a dingus for taking it for granted all my life. There were so many times where I would listen, but be on my phone most of the time, or fall asleep, or not even watch a session because I was "busy." Being out here really makes me realize what a blessing and privilege it is to hear the counsel Heavenly Father wants us to receive. I pray that when I come home, I won't forget how special that is, and that the rest of us can remember as well because...well, it's awesome! (Also SHOUTOUT to the Riverton youth choir! That ruled. Also, I think I saw Kimber's sister..???)
Anyway... conference ruled. We watched it at the church and invited tons of people to come, so naturally, no one came :) YAY. It was just us all by ourselves in the church with the other missionaries who also got no one to show up hahaha. I got a ton of new things out of it that I'm going to try using to help me become better and improve! My companion and I really loved the idea of "PONDERIZING", so we have taken the challenge: we will be ponderizing one scripture a week for the duration of our mission and even after we come home. The first scripture I chose this week (and you are totally welcome to do the same with me this week if you would like) is 2 Nephi 27:23.
"For behold, I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today and forever; and work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith."
Here is what I've 'ponderized' so far about this:
God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He never changes. Something that we talk to people about down here a lot is the idea of Prophets. They are familiar with prophets in the Bible like Moses and Noah, but they think prophets ended when Christ died. So our favorite thing to tell these people in the South is that God has again reached out to us in love and provided us with a prophet, just like He did in the days of old. He doesn't love this dispensation any less than he loved the people in the Bible, so why wouldn't he give us a way to receive direct revelation and help from him, just like those in the Bible? So going back to the idea that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only church on the earth with a prophet called of God, exactly like those in the Bible, GOD LOVES US ENOUGH TO RESTORE THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL BACK ONTO THE EARTH THROUGH A PROPHET OF GOD SO THAT WE MAY RECEIVE THE FULLNESS OF HIS BLESSINGS. Bam! I hope that all made sense, because I was so mind-blown during personal study about this idea today. Also, cross reference this verse with Mormon 9 if you are wanting to do some more studying. PROPHETS ARE AWESOME!
Other things that happened this week:
1. Santana is getting baptized this weekend! October 10th to be exact. Sister Russell and I are singing a song and stuff so that'll be cute. She had her baptismal interview and is so excited! Everyone keep her in your prayers, she needs it!
2. We were able to go to the temple on Friday! I LOVE THE ATLANTA TEMPLE. It reminded me of the Jordan River one on the outside, but the inside had been completely redone. It made me excited to see the JR temple when I come back. When are they starting construction on that by the way?
3. Sadly, Lunjua has fallen off the face of the planet and is no longer on date. We have been trying to meet with her so many times, but she's in the process of moving so she's hard to catch at a good time :( please pray for her too. She is so ready for baptism, but we are worried that Satan is getting a hold of her and causing her to doubt. UGH.
4. We helped 2 different people move this week. The first was the Womble family and here's a hilarious story: After we helped them unpack, they bought us wings to eat and forgot to mention that they were ATLANTA INFERNO hot wings. So naturally, I took a huge bite, and cried my eyes out because such lava in my mouth. Definitely that was the most painful experience of my life.
The second person we helped move was this cute old woman who said "can you come help me move a few boxes?" So we go to help her in our dresses and skirts and it turns out she actually had 2 GIANT storage units full to the brim with boxes and large furniture. And she needed it all out. Shockingly, it only took us 2 1/2 hours to do. But right before we went to move the couch, Sis. Russell and I were super nervous because it was seriously HUGE, so we decided to say a prayer for #strength before coming up to the unit to move it. When we came up, we saw that the 2 old women with broken backs and canes had somehow moved the couch out of the unit and onto the carts to push it down the hall without our help. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Prayer works guys.
5. Hilarious story of the week: Sister Y. (a woman from the ward) called us one day and started going off about her toe being infected with a staph infection and how she couldn't leave the house or do anything because of it. She ranted about it for 5 or 10 minutes and it totally reminded us of that episode of The Office when Michael shuts his foot in the George Foreman grill and can't do anything for the rest of the day. We laughed for hours haha.
6. I HAD MY FIRST "PRAYER TALK" EXPERIENCE THIS WEEK and it was magical. We knocked on this door and this Mexican woman pulls us in to say a prayer for her. She spoke mad Spanglish and asked me to say a prayer for her health (P.S.--the best thing about the south is that you can knock on a random door, ask if they want you to say a prayer for them, and it's totally not even weird.) And she starts this crazy, mighty Spanish prayer-talk while I’m praying for her. It was so bizarre. And it was so hard to say the prayer without laughing. I am horrible :(
Welp, I think that's it for this week! Talk to you next week! :)
I LOVE YOU ALL.
1. Atlanta Temple!
2. Typical #DayInTheLyfeOfSisterLawson
3. Photo/text from the Samuels Family in the Snellville Ward
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