My Heart is in Texas: A Time of Thanksgiving

Hastening the Work through Social Media - So let me just tell you... The Lord is hastening his work!

Last sunday we received a call from Elders Blake and Cluff in the Santa Rosa California Mission. Elder Cluff is from Spring and has been teaching a friend from high school over Skype! They have iPads and Facebook in their mission so they have been "friending" their friends from school and teaching them the first couple of lessons over Skype. They then call the missionaries in the area to refer and transfer their friends over. So Elder Cluff called to transfer one of his friends to us! It was crazy! They have all the paperwork such as progress records and information on their ipads on an app. The goal for their mission is to tranfer one investigator a week to missionaries. They have also been teaching people in Pakistan and Mainland China! Isn't that great? No matter the circumstances the Lord is preparing people and reaching out to others in countries that missionaries can't even go to! We are rumored to have ipads in this mission in February. Who knows I might still be here.

So on Tuesday we decided to follow up on the referral from the Santa Rosa Elders. His name is Juwan and we called to set up an appointment. When we got there his little sister who is a junior in high school, Tamara (pronounced Tuh-my-ruh), joined us as well for the lesson. This was the first time that I gave a lesson and the spirit was so strong throughout the entire lesson! Sister King felt that we needed to ask them to be baptized before we got there and my heart was beating so fast during the entire lesson. I also knew we had to ask them to be baptized. And so I did... Tamara couldn't say Yes fast enough. Juwan has already been baptized but expressed a desire to be rebaptized by someone holding the priesthood authority that Jesus had when he was on the Earth! Since Tamara is not young single adult age yet we have decided to pass them off to the Elders in their home ward. But I am excited to hear how they will progress and hopefully attend their baptisms in the future!

The Time the Lord prompted us to walk 6 miles one afternoon...

Saturday night we didn't have any appointments and so we prayed for direction in what we were supposed to do. After the prayer Sister King shared that she felt we needed to walk somewhere and she thought of a member of our wards house. I thought to myself "That's really far away to walk!" So we prayed again to know if that's what we were supposed to do. During the prayer my heart was beating out of my chest. I knew we were supposed to walk there. So we headed out on our adventure not knowing if anything would come out of it. We did meet some great people and a potential investigator that we hope will come to Family Home Evening tonight. Nothing significant happened but we followed the promptings of the Holy Ghost. After 3 1/2 hours of walking, 6 miles, and blisters on my feet I can say that it was a great experience!

My Favorite Holiday- Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving morning we worked with the East Texas Dream Center and volunteered feeding the homeless. It was so great and there were so many volunteers! They also had a coat drive and were giving away things left and right. What a great cause and we were so happy to be a part of it! It definitely made our Thanksgiving!

We then were invited by a member of our congregation to attend Thanksgiving with them (The Jones Family). We had the greatest conversation and message about the Atonement with them. I cannot get over how much we can continually learn more and more about our Jesus Christ and his suffering for us in Gethsemane, death, and resurrection. President Jones was talking with Elder L. Tom Perry about the Atonement and shared that when he thinks of Christ suffering for our sins he likes to think that he saw each and every one of our faces. And Elder Perry assured him that he did! It was a very personal experience for him and is for each of us. The Atonement is such a special and great gift that we should strive to utilize weekly, daily, and hourly.

I am so thankful for the Atonement and that I can be forgiven of my sins. I am also thankful so that I can make my weaknesses stronger and continually improve upon myself so that one day I can return to my Heavenly Father's presence, give him a great big hug, and hear the words, "Well done thy good and faithful servant."

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving holiday! Love ya'll!

Sister Loo