Hiya!
Wow this week was crazy. It was a week full of meetings again, which is weird as a missionary cause you don't have too much time to teach during these weeks, but I feel super good about our week! I don't know how you prefer my emails...do you like it when I go day by day or just write? Idk. But I'll go day by day this time.
So Monday, Sister Rosenkilde and I have a simple goal for this transfer, to get Sutton up and going this transfer. In order to do that, we have made finding a HUGE priority, but I can tell you I've never loved finding more on my mission. Knocking endless amounts of doors for hours on end is actually a lot of fun, you should try it sometime ;) but Monday night was the start of finding in a golden area. So we felt prompted to go contact a less active member and then to knock in her area. This LA member was not interested. But her area was such a good area! We met at least 6 people in one hour who were interested in learning more and we have been back to that area almost everyday this week. Every time we round the corner to this area literally more than half the people will listen to us...we don't know what it is about the area, but it's really cool! Lots of potentials we need to follow up with :)
Tuesday was MLC in Reading, so it was a long day again. We left Sutton at 6:30 and the meeting went until 5 again. This MLC was so good though and I'm starting to feel confident in my abilities in being STL. I actually participated in this meeting, which was a big deal for me, usually I just sit back and let others talk, but I set a goal to actually talk this one and I did it! Woohoo, go me :) but we made a lot of good plans as a mission for how to increase our faith, works, and obedience (three essential things in the gospel). For the month of December as a mission we are studying 3 Nephi. There are like 30 chapters so we are studying a chapter a day and "discovering why we remember December". So pretty much we are focusing all month on discovering Christ, as the new Christmas video invites us to do. Along with it we are also studying the scriptures from the index about Christ. So far I have loved this study, if any of you are looking for something to study this month, I would highly suggest this, it really helps you remember Christ during Christmas :). I Love MLC and any meeting where president speaks cause I learn tons of deep doctrine as well, a missionaries favourite subject haha. President spoke to us about how faith leads to conversion, conversion leads to consecration, and consecration leads to our calling and election made sure, which eventually leads to eternal life. SO COOL!!! I love deep doctrine, it makes me so excited haha. But the mission is focusing on consecration right now, complete consecration. To do this we are doing a 40 day fast, where you pretty much pray and ask for what you need to give up and do it all. It isn't easy, today is the first day of mine, but I know it will be worth it. It is little stupid things like drinking enough water everyday, staying caught up on my laundry, not eating so much chocolate, not emailing friends, etc. Just little things that the Lord has asked me to give up for him, I know this will lead to teaching with power and authority. And a good quote from Elder Bednar (at least I think) is "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten". I want to see baptisms on my mission, so obviously I need to change something. Woohoo consecration! We also had ward council Tuesday night, so it was a super long day! But it was good :)
Wednesday we got up and travelled to Crawley (a 1.5 hour train ride) for DLC, which is the same as MLC just we teach the district leaders what we learned at MLC. Funny story. So there is this thing going around the mission saying consecrated missionaries are early to meetings...well we took that seriously and got to the chapel almost 2 hours early haha. So we sat out in the pouring rain and read our scriptures :) I also was able to go on an exchange with Sister Baabo that day. She is from the South Pacific and it was a really good exchange and I actually feel like I am helping the sisters now. Yay!
Thursday night we were asked to speak at young women's in excellence. There are about 11 YW in my ward (which is so big compared to my past wards!) and apparently as they talked about who they wanted to speak at YW in excellence we were the first ones to come up. We spoke about how young women's and personal progress helped us get to where we are today and wow, as I have studied the YW theme and personal progress again (I think I may do it again on my mission...), that program is so cool! If every young women could take YW seriously and really learn from, personal progress they would be set for life. We invited the YW to ponder who they want to be and the type of mother they want to be in 10-15 years, then try to see how personal progress will help them achieve that. I fully understand now the importance of personal progress, it helped me spiritually, temporally, and emotionally prepare for a mission, even when I wasn't thinking about going on a mission haha.
So Friday we saw a huge miracle! So I don't know if I told you, but last Sunday we met a lady on the street who told us to come back Monday afternoon. So we went by Monday afternoon, sacrificing our pday and knowing the Lord would bless us. So we go and she's not home, kind of sad. But Friday we were on a bus that went past her house and we both felt like we needed to go see her. So we quickly jumped off and knocked on her door and she was home and let us in! (Which after talking to her was a huge miracle cause the only days she's ever home is Monday and Friday). So we show her “A Savior is Born” and she felt the spirit and recognised it! So cool! Then we teach the restoration and she once again felt the spirit and loved it! She kept saying how she had a peaceful calm feeling and she just knew it was true. She accepted a baptism date for December 19 and is so prepared! We saw her again this morning and taught her the plan of salvation. We had her pray right there with us to know if what we had taught was true and then we sat and just listened to the spirit and told her to speak when she felt she needed too. We sat for about a minute just in silence, and then she said she had that calm peaceful feeling again so it must mean it's true. She then asked "would God answer me that quick?" Haha she is so cute and just the best! We also spoke today about what she needs to do to increase her faith, we had covered reading the BoM and then she said "I think praying increases faith as well". This is a lady with little to no religious background. It is amazing. The gospel had already changed her and we are looking forward to helping her. Neither Sister Rose or I have ever found, taught, and baptized someone, and we know that she is the one we are going to baptise together. So cool!
Saturday we got a call saying that missionaries had permission to go to stake conference Saturday night, we usually don't go to Saturday session, but President Gubler felt like missionaries should go as well. So we called around and scrambled up our schedule to be able to go and it was so worth it! There was a member of the area seventy there, I can't remember his name, but it was really good. He invited us all to pray to know how much God loves us, then open our hearts and listen. I did this and it is so powerful, I was in tears last night as I was praying because of it. I would invite you all to do the same. That night we got to stay with the VC sisters, Sister O'grady and Sister Lammintus which is always fun.
And lastly, Sunday. We had stake conference again which was good. We got to the chapel early and our whole zone (about 28 missionaries) stood outside and sang Christmas carols as the stake walked in. It was a fun way to get in the Christmas spirit :) last night we were so overwhelmed with all that's on our plate. We have zone training this week we have to plan and present at, it's on Wednesday, and we're going on exchange today until tomorrow night, so pray I can have about 29 extra hours in the day.
But I love my life. I feel obligated to serve the Lord and talk to everyone he places in, my path. I want the Lord to trust me and I want to do all I can to bring his children home to him. I love you all and am so grateful for all you do for me! Continue to have a good Christmas season and don't miss me too much.
Love,
Sister Robison xxx
