"I really really really want to take a nap"

Being on my mission has taught me one thing (well many but this stands out) so far that I know will help me for the rest of my life. God, Heavenly Father, is so completly aware of all of His children. Which is everyone so that includes all of you. For those of you who know me really well I tend to be hard on myself (or so I have been told) and I don't say any of this to make everyone think "Gee Dang that girl is a good missionary" because I promise I have many faults and weaknesses, I am just telling you the many blessings that God sent my way. So this week was no exception to my being hard on myself and I just felt like I needed to do better and be better and baptize someone because that is what missionaries do right? I was getting discouraged that I haven't been able to bring someone closer to Christ by helping them make a promise with God through baptism. Which in hindsight is dumb because baptizing people is not the only thing missionaries do, although it is incredibly important and obviously one of our main focuses it is not the measure of our success. So this week we went to see April and she just opened up a lot and we talked about prayer and some of her concerns and this is one of the days I was feeling kind of like, "Eh I suck" and so April was talking and she said, "I am convinced you are here in this ward to help me. I know you haven't baptized me or anything but I also know that I wouldn't be going to church if the sister missionaries weren't coming to my house and loving me" That was a huge blessing from God to know that I am helping April. Second we had exchanges this week and I stayed in Rocklin and Sister Hanninen went to a different area. So we didn't really accomplish any of our goals for the day. We painted someones house, we helped with a stake activity and we helped someone with an Eagle scout project. That took the majority of our day and as I was reflecting on the day I was thinking, "Oh crap I didn't fulfuill my purpose today I didn't bring anyone closer to Christ" I started to doubt my ability as a missionary and then Sister Hanninen got home and as we were planning our next day she just stopped and said, "you know what I was thinking today, You are a good missionary. You work hard. You are always trying to imporve and today while I was in Auburn it just hit me 'sister Lyman is a good missionary'" Once again, I am not perfect and I am not saying this to toot my own horn or to make you all think I am the most amazing missionary there ever was (which I am not, that was Christ and I could never compare to him  ;) ) but it was just a nice reminder from God that I am doing my best and once again, I don't have to be perfect to be good. Then at church yesterday a lady in the ward who has helped us a lot and who I look up to said to me, "I was reading a stroy about a General Authority who went on his mission to Italy and he didn't have a baptims in over a year! I want you to know that you guys are good missionaries and I know that you are doing your best." I know that God was trying to tell me something, "Melissa (or I guess Sister Lyman sometimes I still refer to myself as Melissa in my head) I love you and I know you are trying your harderst, don't get discouraged, I am aware of you and I am proud of you" It was such a good week and such a good reminder that God is in charge and he loves me and he is aware of me.

 

I had a really great personal study this morning. I love my personal study time! I was reading in 3 Nephi 17 and as I was reading I didn't have any big revelation from a specific verse but I just felt this overwhelming love from My Savior. I just felt how much he loves each of us personaly and individually. I know that He is so aware of all of our needs and all of our faults, and yet He still accpets us. Just think of that, the most perfect person to ever walk the Earth is also the most compasionate, understanding, loving, and merciful person to ever walk the Earth. He loves me even though sometimes I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to take a nap. He loves me even though I don't always follow through with the promptings he gives me (I am trying to work on this), and more importantly He loves all of you. With all of your imperfections and weaknesses He loves you, perfectly. I also read the talk "The Hope of God's Light" by President Uchtdorf and it is a great one, so I encourage you all to go read it. But he said, "The very moment you begin to seek your Heavenly Father, in that moment, the hope of His light will begin to awaken enliven, and ennoble your soul. The darkness may not dissipate all at once, but as surely as night always gives way to dawn, the light will come." If you are struggling with perservering through the stuggles you have keep going! Keep going to church, keeping reading your scriptures, keep praying, I know that God is aware of you and slowely the darkness in your life is fading into light. I have felt that darkness that comes from making wrong choices and it was awful I don't ever want to go back again, it took time to get our and I am so grateful that I did. I am so grateful for my Savior and for his Atonement. We have so much knowledge of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, why aren't we sharing it with more people? Why am I not more bold and courageous when I see people on the street? I am going to strive to be a more effective tool in the Lords hands and do the things that He asks of me, afterall He knows best what will make me happy :) I love you all!!! I miss you all! Have a great week!

Three is Better than Two

Such a good week! We taught Savannah 3 times this week and we love her she is amazing! When I was 14 all I cared about was volleyball, boys and what I was going to wear to school. But she has been thinking a lot about what God wants her to do and how she should live her life. I was actually about 14 when I stopped going to church, and if I did go I wasn't happy about it. But Savannah is coming to church consistently, in fact she went to 2 different wards yesterday and she is meeting with us multiple times during the week. She is amazing. We taught her the Plan of Salvation this week and she was happy to finally have the questions, where did I come from? Where am I going? and What am I doing here? answered. I am so impressed by her desire to learn. I am impressed with any religious teenager at all actually. There are so many youth who are so devoted to their church and their way of worshipping and they love God so much and I think that is wonderful. For example, Jehova (is that how you spell that? I don't know) Witnesses expect so much from their youth, they go knock doors, they don't celebrate holidays and so much more and their youth do it! I would have quit! But they do it and I am so impressed by that. Anyway.... We also met with Linda this week who is a recovering alcoholic and I learned more from her than she did from me. Her mom was also an alcholic and one night a few years ago Linda's mom got really drunk and Linda had to drive to her house, clean her up, take care of her, clean up the house, and while she was driving home all she wanted was a Martini, she couldn't stop thinking about going home and having a martini. And then she thought, "WOW I just cleaned my drunk mother up and all I want is to drink alcohol" and then she had another thought, "well I am not as bad as her" and then she said she very clearly heard a voice say to her "yet" and she looked around in her car and wondered where the voice came from. She said she felt that it was from God and it just touched her and she decided that she needed to do something in her life to change and now she is completely devoted to Christ. She explained to us how addicting and destructive alcohol was in her life and I never fully understood the Word of Wisdom and how we aren't supposed to drink alcohol this week. But now I know, some people can drink and they are fine, they don't lose control of themselves they can have one beer and its fine. However, there are some who drink, like Linda, and it slowely begins to take control of their lives and they don't notice because it is so subtle and it gradually happens. Obviously there are some other reasons why we don't drink but I realized that is reason enough for me. I don't want to risk giving my life up to alcohol so I just won't do it and so now I understand why we follow the word of wisdom even more. But we taught her the Plan of Salvation as well and when we taught her about the spirit world and how people will have the opportunity to accept Chirst in the after life she was so relieved, because her parents never did accept Christ. I felt very prompted to share the Plan of Salvation with her and the whole lesson I was thinking why are we sharing this with her? Then I realized once we taught her about being able to accept the Gospel in the afterlife that is the reason why, she needed that knowledge. But way cool story! I don't know the scriptures at all, in fact I just found out there is a book in the Bible called Joshua so now you know that I am not a scriptorian. But Linda asked us, "where in the Bible does it say that we will be able to learn more in the afterlife?" and I had NO IDEA so I opened to a scripture in Acts and it didn't work haha I just randomly opened and felt prompted to read something and it mentioned the resurrection and then it led me to another scripture in 1 Peter chapter 1 and that didn't work either so I am thinking "wow I suck at listening to the spirit haha I think I am being led away from the scripture I need" then I decided to read the chapter headings or chapter summaries and in 1 peter 3 it talks about Christ teaching the people in the after life in spirit prision! So cool I am so happy to be a missionary. I still don't know why God trusts me to do this but I love being here and I love serving. We are in a trio right now and it is a lot of fun. Love you all! I am out of time have a great week.

We are all imperfect... Isn't that great?

I was about to type this week was really good, and then I realized that I think I start ALL of my emails like that so I am going to switch it up, this week was a learning week (so much better than this week was really good haha). We had dinner with a family at the beginning of the week that taught me a very good lesson. Both the mom and dad are return missionaries and they were talking about their missions and the things they wished they had learned at the beginning of their missions and something the mom said really hit me, she said, "We don't have to be perfect to be good" literally I almost started crying (for those of you who know me well know this is HUGE that I almost cried infront of this family) and I just wanted to sit on that moms lap and have her rock me like a kid or something. As the week went on I forgot that advice from that family and Heavenly Father really wanted that message to sink into me this week because I got a letter a little later that said, "NO ONE expects you to be perfect, especially your Father in Heaven" (Thanks Mike G) It was so easy to get discouraged and focus on our weaknesses and I know that Satan uses that as a HUGE toold for me. He wants all of us to focus on our weaknesses so that we become discouraged and we want to give up because we aren't good enough for our Heavenly Father even though God already had a perfect son and he doesn't expect any of us to be perfect. Heavenly Father wants us to be happy and we can't be happy by constantly thinking about how much we need to imporve or how often we fall short. During my study time I read a talk from the last General Conference called, "Being Accepted of the Lord" and it says, "The ulitmate source of empowerment and lasting acceptance is our Heavenly Father and His son, Jesus Christ. They know us. They love us. They do not accpet us because of our title or position. They do not look at our status. They look into our hearts. Tehy accept us for who we are and what we are striving to become." I loved that! to often I think we think other people are perfect and they aren't!!! EVERYONE has weaknesses and short coming! Even Moses I am sure struggled at some points. That quote reminded me of an investigator we have, Jacquie and her kids. They have been investigating (why do we call people investigators it is so weird) the church for 1 1/2 years and they don't feel welcome at church. Her daughter Lauren is 13 and no one really sits by her in class or Young Womens and she feels really alienated by the ward, so do her little brother and sister and her mom. So when I read this talk I thought of them and it jus thit me, even though the people at church might not be the most accepting or it might seem that way. IT DOESN'T MATTER. It makes it a little more difficult to go to church and to stay positive and it is hard to feel alone with so many people around BUT God is always aware of us and he ALWAYS accepts us regardless of what weaknesses we have. He loves us so much!! In the talk he gave 3 steps we can use to feel more accepted by god and I encourage you all to get on LDS.org and read it but he ends his talk by saying as we follow the 3 steps, "we will come to know that we are accepted of Him, regardless of our position, status, or mortal limitation. His loving acceptance will motivate us, increase our faith, and help us deal with everything we face in life" It is a great talk and I know that God is so aware of us and he loves us so much and we don't have to be perfect to be good.

 

We found a new investigator (that really just sounds weird!) this week! Her name is Savannah and she is 14. I guess we didn't find her, I will not take the credit for that, but her friend gave us her contact information and her friend set up a time for us to talk with her. We had a lesson with her this week and it was awesome. She is really great and the spirit was really strong in our lesson. She almost cried I almost cried (I am getting more in touch with my emotions on my mission, its weird) and it was really good. She came to chruch on Sunday and she loved it! She didn't even realize it was three hours long haha but we are teaching her again on Tuesday about the Atonement so we are really excited. Her parents will be the biggest obstacle but right now they have told her they are happy with whatever religion she wants to be, we will see what they think if she wants to get baptized. Levi told us he won't get baptized :( it was a bummer but its cool we are going to keep talking with him.

 

God is so aware of all of us and He knows us all personaly and I am so grateful for this knowledge. I wish we understood exactly how important this Gospel is and how vital our role is in sharing it. I love you all! D&C 50:40-42

Missionary Work...

Hey everyone!

 

This week was great! We started teaching Levi and Paul. Paul is less than receptive. Apparently he read the Bible with some Elders a few years ago and he just wanted to talk to us about Brigham Young and his 27 wives. However, Levi has been more receptive and we met with him 5 times this week! He said he would get baptized if he found out it was true and he has been continuing to read the Book of Mormon and praying about everything. So we had some members invite him over to their house for dinner on Friday night and we all had dinner and then Sister Hanninen and I started feeling uncomfortable. Levi is 31 he is recently divorced and has a 4 year old son named Gram. He has some brain damage from getting hit by a drunk driver when he was about 16. But we started feeling uncomfortable because it seemed like his motivation to meet with us wasn't purely Gospel related. We went over to his house one day and I asked him what he had liked about reading the Book of Mormon and his dad Paul cut in and said, "I will tell you what he likes about the Mormons, is the Sisters" So we were a little concerned and then we asked a member who came to a couple of lessons with us if she thought there was some other motivation for Levi meeting with us and she said, "I wasn't going to say anything but I think he might be interested in you" So needless to say we are going to try to send the Elders over to his house and see if he is still interested with them teaching him. We were disappointed because we finally found someone who is interested in the Gospel and kept inviting us back and now we aren't so sure. But we know there are more people prepared to hear from us and God is guiding us to them, we found another guy who might be interested by Levi but he is married so hopefully his motivation will be just from the Gospel haha.

 

This week I have been thinking a lot about how I need to develop more of an urgency and desire to share the Gospel with everyone. I know this work is SO important but I also know that I don't completely grasp just how important it is. In Alma 36 it talks about Alma's repentance processes and how he was saved because of the Mercy and Grace of God. The verse that really stuck out to me was 21, "Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy." I know that the joy he was talking about only comes from the Atonement of Christ and Alma was descired as one of the vilest of sinners. I know the Atonement is for everyone and the only way back to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ is through the Gospel and the Atonement. We need to share this knowlede with EVERYONE or they are going to have to suffer even as Christ suffered which caused him so much pain that he bled from every pore. I don't want anyone to have to experience that. So I have been praying dilligently that I will have a stronger desire to share the Gospel with all the people I see. What makes a great missionary isn't a large amount of scripture knowledge (although it does help) its that desire and that sense of urgency to share it with everyone else.

 

I love you all! Have a great week!

 

Sister Lyman