Serving the Lord in England : Conversion Leads to Baptism

Wow, where do I even begin. This week has been crazy that I don't even know what to tell you. But here we go.

Tuesday we had MLC which was AMAZING! I am so blessed to have the calling I do where I can go with just a handful of other missionaries and spend the whole day with President Gubler counselling about the mission. It was such a long day, we left Sutton at 6:30 AM to get to Reading for the meeting at 8:30 then we didn't get back to Sutton until 7:30 where we had to go straight into ward council. Talk about a long day of meetings! I was exhausted by the end of it!

But MLC was so good. In all of our meetings as missionaries we now do a Book of Mormon study to invite the spirit. To start MLC we studied Alma 5, which is one of my favourite chapters all about having a change of heart. Looking over my notes I learned so much! We spent an hour just discussing this chapter. We talked about the importance of personal conversion and why the Lord is having us do what we are doing, why we have to strive to be more obedient (even further than the missionary handbook says...so much obedience, but I love it!). Ultimately it came down to how this life is the time for us to prepare to meet God. I need to change and be obedient with a willing heart because if I am going to inherit the celestial kingdom (which of course I want! Read D&C 137 if you want to be pumped about going to the celestial kingdom) I need to love all that God loves. If I am going to become all that he is, I need to be like him! My mission is changing me into someone who doesn't or shouldn't have the slightest desire to do anything contrary to the will of the Lord. I need to love God and EVERYTHING about him and his life, I need to become heavenly here on this earth. This is why I say I want to give everything up for the Lord. The gospel is just the best. But wait, it gets better. Over the past 3 months the mission has been focusing on personal conversion, because we know we can't convert others if us missionaries aren't even converted. At MLC president stood up and very powerfully bore testimony to us of what the Lord sees in each one of us and of this mission. He looked us in the eyes and said he has been talking to the Lord about what the next step is for this mission and that the Lord has told him and he has had it confirmed to him that each of us missionaries are converted and it is time to move on. It is time to baptise. Conversion wasn't the goal, it was a step along the way. But pause, President Gubler just told me that I am converted. How cool is that? To have your mission president see that you have been converted and changed through the spirit. That meant the world to me to hear him say that. We then knelt in prayers as leaders of the ELSM and asked god if baptisms really is the next step, we said not one but two prayers to confirm it. And it is true, we are going to baptise. It won't be easy, in fact I will tell you right now that it isn't easy. My companionship is struggling a lot right now, but all things are possible through the Lord. Yay for missions. Oh and I had to sing at MLC. The APs asked me and sister Toomata to do a musical number...haha I don't sing. But it went okay.

Sister Dollman

Thursday as you know was my ONE YEAR! It has been the fastest year of my life. I realised the other day that I only have 4 more transfers on my mission and it made me really sad, that is like no time at all. But we had district meeting that day and the whole district meeting was focused on remembering. So it was a good meeting for me to reflect back on my feelings right before entering the mtc and how I feel now. It is a night and day difference! I have changed so much. I know the Lord is pleased with who I am now and that is all that matters to me :) that evening when we got back to Sutton from exchanges we went to dinner at our ward mission leaders home, which was good. We don't get fed too much here cause there aren't many members in my area, they are all in the elders area :( so it was nice to have a DA.

Awkward selfie but Happy 1 Year to Me!!

Friday was weekly planning and this is when the whole week got turned upside down. There has been a lot that has been bothering me about our companionship, I don't feel like we are unified or that either of us wanted to take the time or effort to learn how to work together. I kept this all inside me but I had been praying super hard to know what I needed to do and the spirit kept telling me that I need to be completely open and honest with Sister Toomata, so I told her everything about how I was feeling. As I said previously, we are struggling to work together, we have different strengths and weaknesses, but we are getting there. I see so much potential for this area and I want to work so hard. We are just different, but we are talking through it and figuring stuff out. Seeing as we are STL, we can't really help any of these sisters until we help ourselves so keep us in your prayers :) the ZL called us after we had accounted last night about how we were doing and they just laughed at us and quoted scriptures about being of one heart and one mind. It was hilarious, but we need to be more unified! Haha

Oh something else that has totally made me so much happier this week is that for some reason there are fireworks going off everywhere all week! It is some holiday here or something, idk, but there are fireworks everywhere. It reminds me that things will be okay :)

Oh and I did some wallpapering this week...that was a first #lifelessons haha

But that about sums up my week! Sorry it was super long this week, just thought I would fill you in with what's going on :) I love you all and appreciate all you do for me! Keep reading your scriptures, here is something I wrote from MLC "I need a lifelong pattern of immersing myself in the word of God. I cannot and will not survive if

I forget the word of God. Is my scripture reading too casual? I need to step it up. Scriptures are key to success. If leaders will immerse themselves in the Book of Mormon, everything else will improve." Is your reading too casual? It isn't enough to just read, but you need to read with a purpose :)

Love you all!

Sister Robison xxx