Friday, November 13, 2009

The Greatest Treat is the Gospel. Don't Trick Yourself Into Believing It's Only For You! 10/26/09








Hello!

Happy Halloween! It should be interesting to have people knocking on OUR doors for once. Yay for reverse tracting! One of the members suggested we dress up like a triple combination. Maybe we’ll see if we can pull it off.

We had our second flat tire yesterday, so we’ve spent the morning trying to get that fixed. But now we’re done, and get to enjoy Preparation Day!

I guess the biggest news from this week is that I am now in a trio. Sister Brown flew in from the MTC late Wednesday night, and President and Sister Anderson drove her to our apartment around 11:00. Sister Brown was Sister Lamb’s MTC companion, but injured herself playing Volleyball in the MTC and had to have knee surgery in Provo. So this puts me in the unique situation of training again. I have two trainees at the same time! I finally know what all the “older” sisters I looked up to meant when they would stress about training. I pretty much cried when I found out. I still feel like I’m the one that needs to be trained for heaven’s sake!

Sister Brown is from Twin Falls, Idaho. She worked as a veterinarian technician before coming on her mission, and I love her! She’s very sweet.

We had Zone Conference this week all about using the Book of Mormon. Some of it was inspired by Elder Holland’s talk in General Conference. President Anderson gave us some good door approach ideas, for example:
“Have you heard of the Book of Mormon?...Yes? Well do you know who Mormon actually was?”Or. “The Book of Mormon came forth to prove that the Bible is true.”

I love that last one in particular. So many people deny the Bible, and I think that is of concern to many of our Christian friends. We met a man this week who thinks that Christ wasn’t even a real person. That comment surprised me! Most people will concede that Christ was at least a good teacher. But this man refused to believe in the Savior because there is no archaeological evidence that he existed. He says there is proof for John the Baptist, but no evidence of Christ ever living. I had to point out to him that naturally, there wouldn’t be any evidence for Jesus Christ. He was resurrected, and so of course there would be no physical remains to study. It’s amazing how many different positions people have on religion.

Sister Palmer spoke in Church yesterday (and we did too actually!) She was baptized about a year ago and will be going through the temple in about three weeks! It’s so exciting! I’ve written about her in my first e-mail from Albuquerque, but didn’t mention a name. We’ve begun teaching her husband and he came to Church yesterday! Sister Palmer didn’t tell him that she was speaking until they were almost there. She kept asking him throughout the week if he was coming to church, and finally on Sunday morning he said, “Well yes I’m going to church because I promised the girls I’d go.” We were so glad he kept his commitment!

One thing that I have known for a while, but really hit me yesterday was how much work went into preparing this area for us. Not only was Heavenly Father preparing the area, but there were some really good missionaries who were persistent in their efforts, but never got to see the fruits of their labors. Sister Palmer kept mentioning one Elder in particular during her talk that really was “her missionary.” People talk about him all the time, and I actually knew him from Farmington, but he was transferred before she even got baptized! Having been on the other side of this situation when I was in Bloomfield, it makes me wish I could write some of these Elders and let them know how much good has happened because of their diligence. I know first hand how hard it is to pour out your everything into an investigator and then never see any immediate success. It can be heart wrenching! But because of their efforts, I get to reap the benefits! I only hope the people I left behind will progress the same way.

Kim got baptized on Saturday. It went well and there was a good turnout.

I don’t have much to say, really. I feel so blessed to be in this area and to have such hard working companions. They seem to put up with my worrying pretty well. I think my worrying is getting worse than ever. But I am amazed at how comfortable I feel in the ward, I leaned over to Sister Lamb yesterday as we were sitting on the stand. In some ways, it feels like these were families I grew up with in the church. I haven’t really felt that way about a ward before. I absolutely love Albuquerque.

Thank you for your letters!

Love you tons!
Sister Waters

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