Week 81- What a Wonderful Mission

Hello, Everyone!

This last week was great! We attended a baptism at 6:00 in the morning, which was fun. We took a ton of pictures, proselyting on campus, and worked as hard as we could! It was super fun. I love being a missionary.

Well, today is my last time emailing you as a full time missionary! Tomorrow I fly home. My mission has been such an amazing experience. I have learned so much and felt such an overwhelming sense of gratitude for this opportunity.

I want to share with you all some of the things I've learned on my mission, that are particularly impactful for me.

First, YOU are a child of God, and He loves you. He knows exactly who you are. He is aware of you and He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to the earth to suffer the price of your sins. Christ is our Savior, and through Him we can be forgiven of all of our mistakes. We can return to live with our Heavenly Father and our family as we rely on Him and live His gospel.

Second, I learned that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. I never made that connection throughout my life, but THAT gospel is what we need to live in order to return to live with God. And the Atonement is what enables us to do that.

I've also learned the crucial skill of communication. Having companions has been such a blessing because I've learned how to communicate my feelings and give correction, as well. I've learned how to talk to people, even people I don't know and just met on the street.

In a lighter sense, I've learned more skills that assist in dress and appearance, which is also super necessary. I've learned how to make meals without a recipe, how to iron and mend clothes, and that it's a bad idea to use cleaner while wearing dress clothes.

There are millions more things, including time management, prioritizing, obedience, honesty, exercise, and many many more things. But most of all, I've learned that I love missionary work! I know that missionaries teach the first principles and ordinances of the gospel. I know that it is through faith, repentance, and baptism that we return to live with God again, and I know that repentance is a joyful process. I know that Joseph Smith is the prophet who restored Christ's truth to the earth, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church of Jesus Christ, restored to the earth in the latter days. I know that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ, and the words written inside it are true. I love the gospel. I love Jesus Christ. And I have loved being a full-time missionary.

Love,
Sister Minson

PS- I am giving my homecoming talk on March 12, 12:00 pm, San Tan building: 20637 E. San Tan Blvd, Queen Creek, AZ. Please come! I would love to see you.

Our trip to the Aquarium today and Erin, the tour guide! :)

Making bags for potatoes at Feeding Tampa Bay!

Me and Sister Graham, saying goodbye

 

Saying goodbye to friends in the YSA ward

More friends

Week 80

Hello! It is so good to email all of you. This week was a pretty good week! It was the fastest week ever, let me tell you. We did a lot of fun things, though!

 I am coming up on my last week in the mission field-- next Tuesday I am being released as a full-time missionary. So fair warning, apparently I'm sending a final email next week. It is so bizarre to me to think that my mission is already almost over! But I've still got a week left, so you better believe I am going to work hard.

We had Zone Conference on Thursday, and we talked about repentance. It was a great lesson for me! And we also had an exchange! Sister Gustafson came with me, and we had a blast together. I love being her exchange-companion. It's good.  On Friday we had service at Feeding Tampa Bay, and we were working with a TON of volunteers from Home Depot. It was cool! I'll attach a picture.

We are finding some new people here in YSA, and it is really fun to teach them. We are teaching a man named Rwho has a lot of faith and really wants to learn more. It is so amazing to see the Spirit work inside him as he hears the gospel. He came to church yesterday! We are also working with a man named L. He is gone on trips frequently, though, so it's slow going with him. But we meet new people every day! There's never a dull moment in the YSA.

Oh, the story behind the title. Sister Graham had a sore neck for a couple days, so I made her a rice pack in a sock. BUT, the sock had a hole in it (that I covered with tape because I'm a problem solver). SO when sister Graham went to go heat up her rice pack, she decided that she wanted it in the OTHER sock, without the hole. She pulled out the sock and began the tricky transfer from one sock to the other. About halfway through, she pulls the hole-y rice sock out of the whole-y rice sock, and the remainder of the rice pours onto the carpet. How fun! She died on the floor because she was laughing so hard. We got the vacuum, and tried to vacuum it up. But our vacuum hadn't been cleaned in about 9.2 years, so instead of removing the rice and eliminating the problem, it instead distributed the rice around our room. 😑 So we've been picking up rice by hand and disposing of it the old fashioned way. Yay for rice socks! Anyways.

I know God loves you all, and you are so important to Him!

Have a great week!

Love,
Sister Minson

Car inspections at Zone conference

Brandon Zone at zone conference

Yummy lunch served by the Relief Society sisters

My district

Fun photo shoot!

Me and Sister Graham by the brick wall

Me, Sister Graham, Hermana Whitlock, Sister Alder, Sister Suman,
and Sister House. This is the Ark riders... we all share the car. It's
so fun, though!

Service at Feeding Tampa Bay

Week 79

Hello everybody! This week was a really incredible week. It was a fast week, to be sure.

Monday and Tuesday were fast because of FHE and service at Eckerd. On Wednesday we had a Sisters Specialized Training, which was incredible. We talked a lot about confidence. I learned a lot about the difference between sin and weakness. We can overcome sin with the cleansing power
of the Atonement, and we can overcome our weaknesses with the enabling power of the Atonement. It is so incredible how the Atonement literally helps us to overcome everything, even death.

Thursday was weekly planning and institute, which means we never had any time. And Friday we went on an exchange with the online proselyting sisters! I learned how to work online, which was really fun! We chatted with people on Mormon.org, and we had some really awesome experiences! It was cool to see missionary work in a different field.

On Saturday we had the mini MTC. Youth from the Brandon Stake came for the day for a mini-MTC experience. We went and acted as the MTC teachers. We were given a "mission", the Edinburg Scotland Mission, and we taught the youth all day about different missionary things. We went over teaching skills, how to recognize and understand the Spirit, commitments, and other things like that. They had a Zone Conference and a testimony meeting. We also taught them how to teach the Plan of
Salvation, and at the end of the day, they taught it to some members from a ward in the Stake! It was really cool to see them improve and become more confident. The picture below is from the mini MTC.

Missionary work is the greatest thing in the world.

Love,
Sister Minson

Sister's Specialized Training

 

Me with each of my previous companions that are still serving!

The Mini-MTC with our trainees !

Sister Graham! (We were weekly planning, and had fruit as our snacks.)

Me and Sister Suman

A fun pic sister Suman took of me at Eckerd

Sister Graham and I found a pair of pants in the exchange pile that
we both fit into...

Having a fun time with Ava, the granddaughter of a Senior couple.

Week 78

Hello everybody! This was such a fantastic week. Last week I sent a list of micromiracles. This week, we have some macromiracles to share!

I think the thing that kicked off our macromiracles was that on Friday and Saturday, Sister Graham an I talked a ton and were able to unify our companionship even better than we had been before. We talked a lot and got more on the same page. Because of that, we were able to better teach and talk to people in unity! Which made it SO much easier.

On Friday we met a girl named N who is so excited to read the Book of Mormon and really seems interested in our message.

On Sunday a girl walked into the church building who wasn't a member but wanted to come to church. She told us she had always been curious about the LDS church, but when she was challenged to do something new as part of a class assignment, she decided to give it a try! We were lucky enough to be there and meet her. She wants to learn more about the church.

I know that God is aware of us and is blessing us for our diligence and desire to fulfill our purpose.

What miracles have you seen in your life?

Love,
Sister Minson


PS: The USF bookstore has hats!

Achicken heart! Hahaha. Happy Valentine's Day!

Selfie on the couch in the church lobby

Our zone after Zone Training Meeting

Wawa! It was Hermana Whitlock's 10 month mark, so we celebrated
with Wawa milkshakes

Selfie as we came back from emailing last week

Week 77

Hello everybody! This was a super good week! We saw a lot of micro-miracles, as a member of our ward said in testimony meeting yesterday. The little miracles are so meaningful if we look for them and appreciate them. Some of the micro-miracles I saw this week were:
- we met a nice old lady who gave us calendars with scriptures on them! It was very uplifting and kind of her.
- we have two members of the ward who told us they have invited friends who will come to church next week!
- we created a ward mission plan- One invitation a week.
- we met some very nice people on campus!
- we met a girl at a bus stop who said she wants to read the Book of Mormon and come to church with us
- we served at Metropolitan Ministries, and at Eckerd Raising Hope again
- Sister Graham and I are becoming more unified in our teaching

I love missionary work, and I love the gospel! I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to be a missionary.

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Sister Minson

At Bull Market (people set up booths on campus to try to get people to do stuff) board. The question was "what blessings have you seen from God in your life?" People put their answers on the board! It was successful. Woohoo!

At transfers 2 weeks ago with Sister Cooper (MPW)

Transfers with my new companion Sister Graham

After zone service project last week

Zone conference

Us in the car after service at Metropolitan Ministries

Sister Gustafson and I when our companions were at MLC

Documented proof that I have eaten Gator Tail! :) its good.

Week 76

Well, it's a new transfer, and I have an AWESOME new companion! So she is so cool. Sister Graham is from Herriman, Utah, and she is a dancer. She is also a cosmetologist! She served in Palm Harbor before coming here, and she LOVES missionary work. She is so charitable and humble, and she is so
loving. She is truly incredible, and I love her tons!

So the worldwide Missionary Broadcast was last Wednesday: 1 hr and 45 min of it was spent talking more about our purpose to teach repentance and baptize converts, and then the last 15 minutes, they talked about schedule changes.  It's really different because now we are doing lunch, companion study, and dinner at a time that works best in our schedule, throughout the day. Weird! I like it, though. They also changed the key indicators. Baptized and confirmed (as 1 key indicator), date sets, sacrament meeting, and new investigators are the only key indicators we have and report on now.

Sister Graham is helping me increase my faith to find. Oh, we had some members let us know they were bringing some people to church next week! So that is incredible. Miracles happen! We had a cool experience where we were prompted to talk to a woman who was walking at night on campus, so we did, and she asked us what our church believes about baptism! She said she had never been baptized because it wasn't something she was looking for at that point, but now she feels more
ready. It was amazing because we didn't even bring it up, she brought it up on her own!

I am so excited to serve with Sister Graham. I know though that revelation is real and President Cooper receives it for each missionary in the mission. How cool is that?

We took a ton of pictures with food this week because food is what we love:)

At Institute

At Institute with Sister Suman and her new greenie Sister House

Mug cake and ice cream

At Bobacup

At Jeremiah's

 Fun shelf pictures from our apartment!