September 12, 2016 - Capturing Every Moment

Sisters Retreat

So excited to have carpet and a real bed!

Cool tree

In el Yunque with all the STL's and zone leaders. 

With mission president, President Boucher. Hard to open eyes, the wind was so intense. 

Hello family! What a roller coaster week, but it was wonderful. Let's start with Tuesday. A new thing that we are asked to do as STLs is that we get to go to other district's district meetings to see how things are going over there and get to know those missionaries so this week we drove over to Humacao and had a WONDERFUL district meeting about developing Christ-like attributes. Christ is our example and each and every day we should be striving to become more like Him. My goal is to pick an attribute each week to study and work on and apply more in my life. I'm super excited to do it and I invite you all to do the same, because this is the only way that we'll be able to be examples to others and be able to reach our full potentials. I absolutely loved this district meeting! 

And then we drove back to Guayama and worked for a couple hours and then that night we drove to the mission home in Bayamon for a leadership activity! We had a little devotional and then a sleepover! It was the first time I've stepped foot on carpet for 15 months.... it was divine. :) We had a blast, but none of us were able to fall asleep that night so the next day we were soooooo exhausted. In the morning we left at 6 and headed up to the only rainforest in the U.S.A. the Yunque! It was absolutely gorgeous!!!!!! Then we came back and had MLC the rest of the day where we discussed personal revelation, goals, and church attendance. I love talking about personal revelation because it's something that has helped me in countless ways on my mission. We also talked a bit about our purpose as missionaries and that we're here to invite others to come unto Christ. It doesn't say that we're here to invite non-members or less actives, but everyone! At all times we can be representatives of Jesus Christ and help others know Christ, through our examples. It was such a wonderful and super spiritual meeting and I'm so grateful for the inspired leaders that I can learn from! 

And from President Gonzalez, he talked about three things: opening our mouths, finding common ground, and sharing the Book of Mormon. He encouraged us to talk to absolutely every single person that is put in our path and then before telling them what we believe, we should listen to them and find what they believe so that then we can be on common ground. And after we've found common ground we should go straight to the Book of Mormon because it's the best and most effective tool we have to share the restored gospel. We tried it out a couple times this week and every time the person would just flat out reject us, but we're going to keep trying and I know we'll see success and miracles because I know that the Book of Mormon is true and is the best way for others to be converted to God and feel of His love.

Then the rest of the week was a little bit difficult because we haven't had much success in finding new investigators lately so we were out contacting a lot, but yesterday we had a huge miracle! We felt prompted to do some follow up on past contacts and we found a 16 year old girl that we had met when we visited one of our investigators and we called her and set an appointment to visit her on Sunday. And when we went, we met her entire family and all of them are super prepared and super interested! They are active in a Pentecostal church but the girl told us that she goes because she feels good there but she doesn't know if it's the true church and she wants to find out which is the true church. It was awesome! We're going to visit them again tomorrow and I hope and pray that they accept to be baptized and come to church. They are wonderful! :)

This week it kind of hit me that I'm not going to be a missionary for forever. Sometimes it just feels like I'm going to be doing this the rest of my life and I get super excited thinking about all the cool experiences that I could have and then this week for some reason I had a reality check that the Lord has another mission for me back home and that this has to come to an end at some point. It was a tough pill to swallow, but it's helping me appreciate and enjoy every single moment as a missionary. Even though this week was a bit rough, I still had the opportunity to preach the gospel and invite others to come unto Christ and that's priceless. I absolutely love teaching Boricuas and I love walking all day just to see that miracle at the end of the road and I love feeling the Spirit so strongly at all times and I love getting to know my Savior on a more personal level and I just absolutely love being a missionary!!! This is the best thing I have ever done and that I probably will ever do. I wouldn't trade it for anything. 

I love you all so much and hope you have an absolutely wonderful week! and HAPPY BIRTHDAY dad!!!!!!!! :) :) :) I love you!!!!

--

~Hermana Allan