DAY 41 ALREADY?!

Today is day 41 of my mission since I entered the MTC!  Holy cow!  First week in the field felt like a year, but now it's like, has it really been over a month already?!  Mission time-warp.

Anyway, things have been happening this week.  I'm still alive, so that's good I guess.  These last few days have been interesting for me, though.  Randy Johnson is progressing, he still hasn't committed to baptism yet, but he's doing all he can to make sure he's ready, and that's what really counts.  Speaking of being ready for baptism, Sister Lemke was going to get baptized this coming Saturday, but she needs more time.  For a couple days I just felt off, not quite sure about her getting baptized this week.  It was causing some stress and distracted feeling for me and I wasn't really sure why I was feeling this way.  Our bishop felt Sister Lemke needed more time, our ward mission leader felt it.  Sister Lemke has been quitting smoking, and she always tells us she hasn't had one, but on Saturday we were teaching Neysa (Brother Lemke's mom who is also one of our investigators) and she was distracted the whole time we were there.  She finally told us something was bothering her, but she was hesitant to tell us what it was.  Eventually she told us that she knew that Sister Lemke was still smoking.  That's not good news, but oddly enough, I felt relief when she said that, because now I know why I didn't feel right about the baptism.  We met with the Lemkes last night with our ward mission leader and set a new baptismal goal with her.

Yesterday was hard, too because my companion found out that her grandma was saying her last goodbyes.  She was diagnosed with ALS 6 months ago.  It's especially hard for Sister Muir because she was excited to see her grandma in just two weeks.  President Eaton gave her permission to call her family and she got to talk to her grandma.  I am so thankful for the Plan of Salvation!  She knows her grandma's just getting ready to serve a mission on the other side of the veil.  It's still hard.  It's a good thing yesterday was Sunday and today is P-Day, so Sister Muir doesn't have to worry about seeing too many people.  We had a member signed up to feed us dinner, but our ward mission leader's wife called her up and asked if she could just bring the food to our apartment.  It's so great to see the amount of love and support the members show for the missionaries here.  I love this area.

In other news, I got my flute this week!  I got to play it in one lesson already.  We were teaching a lesson on family history, so I told about William Clayson and played one of his hymns on the flute at the lesson.  It was fun and the Johnsons loved it. And the Puyallup bishop wants me to prepare to play a musical number in Sacrament Meeting around Christmas.  That should be fun.  I'm also planning on playing at Sister Lemke's baptism.  She said she would love that.  I'm so, so, so happy I get to use my flute on my mission!  I was playing in our apartment during lunch yesterday and our next-door neighbor came over and said it sounded good.  Haha, I hadn't thought much about other people being able to hear me, but at least they liked it!  Two of the Hermanas living with us also play the flute.  It's so much fun!

Sister Muir and I are speaking in Sacrament Meeting next week in the Sumner ward.  Hopefully that will give some of our investigators extra motivation to come to church.  Or to not come, I don't know.   I am speaking on my mission experience so far for 10 minutes.  Sister Muir gets to speak on her mission as well, but she gets to speak for 20 minutes.  She said, "I wonder if Bishop is taking into account that you're quieter than me."  Haha!

 Hope y'all enjoy Thanksgiving and eat lot's of food!  One of the less-actives that we're teaching told me not to eat too much on Thursday.  She said, "Will you?"  I said I'd try not to and she said, "You will, we all will."  It was funny.

Well, until next week I guess. 

~Sister Davis

Aloha Familia!

Life is great as a missionary.  There is so much going on and I wish I could tell you all everything!

This week has been really great!  The conference with Elder Hamula could not have come at a better time.  With the emphasis we've had on faith lately, we felt impressed to talk about it to Brother Johnson (his first name is Randy, by the way).  The lesson we prepared for him ended up being entirely the Spirit's lesson.  We planned before hand that we were going to invite him to be baptized no matter what we thought his answer might be.  Every time in the past he has said no and that's what happened when we asked him at first.  Then we continued on reading in the Book of Mormon and talking about faith.  We asked him again and he didn't say no this time!  He's still not committed, but he is SO CLOSE!  We know he felt the Spirit, even if he won't say that he knows he has.  This experience has shown me how a lesson should really be taught by the Spirit.  We plan, pray, and prepare as much as we can, and then when we get into the lesson, He takes over based off of what we have prepared.  I have been thinking a lot this week about the D&C verse "whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants it is the same" and how, as missionaries, we are His servants.  I thought, but how do I know if I'm right and what I'm saying is really what God would say?  Then during that lesson, at one part I was speaking, but I really wasn't thinking.  At all.  It was entirely God speaking directly through me to His son whom we were teaching.  And that has changed my view of missionary work entirely.  I felt a small portion of what Heavenly Father feels for our investigator--and for all of His children.  I'll even say it's changed my life.

One thing that Brother Johnson discovered during the lesson was that maybe he just needs hope.  He doesn't know what he hopes for.  Later that night I remembered the song in the "From Cummorah's Hill" program called "The Power of God".  It's written about the part of the Book of Mormon that we were reading from.  It says, "The power of God is plain to see, there are wonders on every hand, to those who will see through eyes of faith beyond the mind of man.  For how could we hope to see His face, who never could see His hand?"  Maybe that's why Randy doesn't know what he hopes for--because he doesn't acknowledge miracles in his life.  We hope we can help him with that in the next few lessons.

One funny part about that lesson:  we were talking about Korihor the Anti-Christ and how he doesn't believe in God, because some of Randy's questions were very similar to what Korihor was preaching.  For example, Korihor said that "it is the effect of a frenzied mind" and Bro. Johnson has said that he doesn't want to brainwash himself into thinking there is a God.  As we were reading with him in Alma 30, he said, "I'm pretty sure if you look up Korihor in the back of the book, in the definition it'll say Randy."  It was pretty funny.

Oh!  You can tell Brother Pullman that I used "Jenga" for a lesson with the Lemkes.  I think it was a really good hands-on visual for them and it helped them stay focused a little bit more.  We talked before that about keeping the Sabbath day holy.  It ended up being really good. :)

Well, I hope y'all are doing fantastic!  I love you!

-- ~Love, Sister Davis

GOD IS REAL!

 

Monday was a Zone Conference (which is why pday is today instead of Monday).  Elder Hamula of the Seventy came and spoke to us, mainly about faith.  It was a really good conference!  In the first part, Sister Eaton extended an invitation to study the life of Christ and write down ways for us to live like He lived.  I think I would like to further extend that invite to all of you.  Read in the New Testament and even other things written on the life of Christ and "Jesus the Christ" (and maybe you can even do this all together as a family) and think of some things that you can change that will help you be more Christ-like, and write them down.  And then do them.  I know that it will seriously be a great blessing to do so!  And I will do it with you.

 

We are working with a couple of investigators who have been working with the missionaries for years and both of them are married to a member.  Brother Whitman is one of them, and we had a lesson with him in the chapel on Thursday or Friday that was really good.  We talked about the Atonement and how it applies to the Sacrament and to him personally.  And he came to church on Sunday! 

 

Brother Johnson... wow.  Sister Muir called him a "dry Mormon" because he knows so much and just hasn't been baptized.  He has said, "If God is real, then the Mormons are right".  His only struggle is knowing that God is real, but Sister Muir and I feel like that stems more from his fear of making commitments such as baptism and actually becoming classified as "Mormon" when his family is against the church than it really does with him not believing in God.  He just needs to build faith that will cast out his fear.  We're really hoping that the lesson we prepared this morning will be really powerful and delivered by the Spirit to help him gain that faith in order to see the miracles.  We have an appointment with him at 7 tonight, and we're going to be praying for him all day!  And no matter what we think he's going to say, we're going to invite him again to be baptized.  I think that Elder Hamula's conference this week could not have come at a better time, because in preparation for it we have been studying a ton about faith.  And that is what we need Brother Johnson to understand.  Hebrews 11:1 (With the JST) "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."  I love the words "assurance" and "evidence".  This scripture states that faith is evidence of things not seen.  Faith itself is evidence that God exists.  This is what I hope Brother Johnson will understand today.  Other than the story of Korihor when Alma says "all things denote there is a God".  Everything that exists is proof that God is real.  Even faith itself.

 

Mind.  Blown.

 

I love you all so much, and wish that I could tell you every little thing that's happening!

 

~Sister Davis

SMALL MIRACLES

Halloween in the mission is fun.  We went to two trunk-or-treats this week because we're in both wards.  And normally we do our weekly planning on Thursday morning, but since Halloween was Friday, we just did it that night instead so we weren't out while all the holiday stuff was going on.

 We live with a threesome of Hermanas in our apartment.  And there's some Elders a few blocks away from us.  I think Sister Muir and I are the only English-speaking Sisters in the Sumner and Puyallup wards.  There's one pair of Elders in Sumner and one in Puyallup.

Yesterday was AWESOME!  I thought MTC Sundays were the best, but when you get out to the field and you have three investigators come to church and one less active also come AND bring a non-member friend on your first Sunday out... THAT is the best!  We're teaching a couple of part-member families and one of them had two of their kids blessed yesterday in Sacrament meeting.  Brother Lemke (lem-key) is the member, but he's kind of less active.  His wife and his mom are both our investigators.  His mom's name is Neysa and this week was the first time she's come to church and she liked it! :D  She can't really hear very well, but when we visited the Lemkes last night, Bro. Lemke said that she told him she could hear everything.  He said, "That's because the Man Upstairs opened your ears 'cause you needed to hear this."  Miracles happen in such small ways.  I've really grown to love the Lemke family so much.  They're working on quitting smoking and their goal is this week.  You can really see a difference in their life.  They're happier and more unified in their relationship with each other, and I can even see that change after less than a week knowing them.

Another small miracle was on Saturday night.  We were driving to a less active member's house around 8:00 and we saw a guy who could barely even walk forward he was so drunk.  It was really sad.  When we got to the member's house and said our regular prayer before a lesson, we decided to pray for that guy.  I said the prayer, and I prayed that he would be able to be safe and that whatever was going on in his life that he might be able to overcome it.  Later, when we were driving home, we saw him again and another guy was walking beside him.  I knew that was an answer to our prayer.  God's tender mercies come in so many different forms.  During Sacrament Meeting yesterday, I was thinking randomly about the song Praise to the Lord of the Small and the lyrics.  "Praise to the Lord of the small, broken things, who sees the poor sparrow that cannot take wing, who loves the lame child and the wretch in the street, who comforts their sorrows and washes their feet."  The part "and the wretch in the street" stuck out to me in a way that it never has before, because of our experience Saturday night.  I told about that when I bore my testimony yesterday.  God loves all of us, "even the least of these, thy brethren".  It doesn't matter where we are in life right now, or where we've been,  He knows what we can become.  He "comforts their sorrows and washes their feet".  Being on a mission, I've really come to view people in a different light than I ever thought I would.  I love that God has been able to show me a little bit of how He sees people, not with worldly eyes, but with unshakable and unconditional love.

Also, one girl from the Sumner ward bore her testimony.  She's going to the MTC in 17 days.  She was a Primary teacher as well.  The lady that got up after her said that she needs to take the spirit of the little children with her on her mission.  So, when I got up, I told that I was a Nursery leader and that both of my MTC comps. were Primary teachers as well.  I think it's really interesting the way God works.  We do need to have the spirit of the little Primary children to teach all of God's children.

I love you all so much!

Love, Sister Rebekah Joy

P.S.--I got to see Mt. Rainier once while the sun was shining on Wednesday!  I haven't seen it since...   Also, I thought it was cool that I'm by a volcano just like Rachael is.