WARNING this letter might not make sense all of my thoughts aren't very organized
CHICO!!! I love Chico! I miss Rocklin a lot and I miss the people there. I didn't realize how much I loved the people there until I had to leave. But Chico is great! It is completely different from Rocklin. There are trailer parks here, trailer parks! Full of humble people who are looking for something more in their life!!!! We found 3 new investigators this week and it was awesome. There is an apartment complex here where recovering addicts go to live. You have to qualify to live there, be interviewed, and all that good stuff. But we have a less active lady we visit there named Dawn. So we went to visit her one day and we were riding bikes, so we had to carry them up to her apartment (she lives on the 2nd floor) on our way up this guys door was open and so we said hi to him and then we went upstairs. We went inside and started talking to Dawn. 5 minutes later Mark (the guy we said hi to) comes walking in with his 10 month old daughter Skyla. He played with Dawns kids for a little bit and then he asked us, "so what do you guys do?" we told him and he said "oh okay" then played with Dawn's kids a little bit more. I asked him if he was religious at all and then he laughed and said, "I guess I should have expected that" then we started talking a little bit and we invited him to church, we also gave him a Book of Mormon. He came to church this week and is taking lessons with the elders (we have elders and sisters in our ward so males with males and females with females) but we also were able to teach this girl named Jane a lesson this week. She is the singles ward and she is awesome! She has a lot of mormon friends and is really wanting to find out who she is. We invited her to be baptized and she said she wants to come to church first haha it was funny I think she thought we wanted to baptize her right then but she is so prepared and the whole time we were teaching her she just looked happy. She looked so excited to be learning about the Gospel. I love humble people and I love serving in Chico! However, there are some challenges here that I didn't face in Rocklin. Such as, people smoke here a lot, and drink, and do drugs. BUT I love it! Although being in a singles ward is incredibly weird. 6 hours of church with like 3 hours of meetings is also a bit tiring but it is also very spiritually uplifting. I love being a missionary.
This week I have been thinking a lot about prayer and how I need to have more meaningful prayer. Sometimes if it seems like I don't get an answer to prayer I think, "Oh well I just need to keep praying because God can't answer my prayer yet" that idea is false. God who is a perfect parent and all knowing and all loving is not going to make us wait for an answer. This week I have just felt his love so much and he has been blessing me so much with boldness, courage, and a very strong desire to serve the Gospel. I can't explain how much I love serving a mission, words just can't explain the happiness that comes from helping someone realize they are a child of God and there is more purpose in this life than trying to get by, that there is hope in this life, and in the life to come. We also teach this lady named Yvonne who is really open but also very inquisitive and logical so teaching her is really different. She has a daughter that is 5 and her daughter didn't know anything about God because her daughters father and Yvonne agreed to not bring her up in any type of religion except his native American culture. So one day Yvonne's daughter said, "Mom aren't you glad God put me in your belly?" so Yvonne was really confused about how her daughter knew who God was so she asked her daughter, "How do you know who God is?" and her daughter said, "He talks to me and he told me that I need to keep you and my dad safe and that I wished you would be my parents so he let me come to you." (I am paraphrasing so this is not an exact quote but it is basically what she said) how amazing is that? I know that God is real, I know that He is our loving Father, and He wants us to so badly return to him. I am so extremely grateful to be able to share this knowledge with other people. Especially the knowledge of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I don't deserve even an eighth of the things that he gives to me but I am so grateful that he loves me enough to allow me to grow and progress.
I have realized this week how awkward I am going to be when I get home hahaha I am always going to be trying to bring up the Gospel, and I am going to be trying to teach you all about the Restoration and how Joseph Smith saw Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father because that is my life now! I wasted so much time at home not sharing the Gospel and I am so happy that I get to do that now and that is my only care in the world is to get people to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sorry this is long. I love you all! I can't wait for conference!!!!!!!!
Sister Lyman
355 E Lassen Ave
Apt #4
Chico CA 95973
My comp sis Paul is like my clone we are SO MUCH ALIKE! It is crazy but cool. Write me! Love ya!
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