Week 8

Hello Lovelies!  So bad news: Transfers are this Wednesday. And Sister Dalley is leaving. She is transferring and training. Which means I'll be getting a new companion here in Palm Harbor!! Hopefully it'll also mean I'll get to drive. ;) I really really love driving. Goodness gracious.

I am doing really good. I am happy! I love doing missionary work, and I thank God for allowing me to be here every day. We do have a couple new investigators. T is really cool. She has 2 kids and she gets answers to prayers through dreams!! I've never met anyone who's had that gift before. So that's awesome. She said she would like to get baptized, but she needs to pray about it before we can set a date with her. We also have a couple more, but they aren't close to baptism at all, or even extending the invitation, so to save time I won't mention them. We are tracting some, but we actually have about 30 lessons scheduled for this week, so there's not a lot of time for tracting. I've taught the Restoration, Book of Mormon (President Cusick wants it to be a seperate lesson), Plan of Salvation, Gospel of Jesus Christ, and some of the commandments and laws and ordinances! So I'm pretty familiar with all the lessons by now. I can teach the Restoration in under 4 minutes! We're working on getting Book of Mormon and Plan of Salvation down to 4 minutes right now. They're in the 6 minute range. But that goes along with President's whole "Simplify and Intensify" quote. He wants us to be able to teach simply and powerfully, because people are accustomed to short, powerful pieces of information and testimony. And I can feel it! After we teach about the first vision, and I say "I know that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ." it is SO powerful. Then we pause, and Sister Dalley continues with her testimony then continues teaching. But it is amazing. I love bearing my testimony because I can feel the spirit testify when I do!

I am getting used to not knowing about events in the world. But it's really weird at the same time! I still want to watch movies. It's difficult to keep my mind focused on spiritual things all the time, but I appreciate the blessings I can see it giving me. I know I am more spiritually focused since I've been depriving myself of worldly things.

I am so grateful for my mission, and everything it is teaching me! One last thing: members are SO important to missionaries. Without members, missionary work just doesn't happen. Members are friends to investigators. Without friends supporting them and encouraging them, where does their encouragement come from? What will keep them in the church? Without members there to help investigators continue forward, it will be very difficult for them to continue forward in investigating! Members all know someone who needs to have uplifting and encouragement.

Keep up the fight!

With love,

Sister Minson