the Lord has church at 10 - change my mind

 https://photos.app.goo.gl/V1gka56kjUTcATXt8

HOWDY YALLL! This week was crazy, I honestly have no recollection of anything that happened... sorry for the lame sauce update 😬

Some highlights from this week: 

- I got to go on exchanges with Sister Howick😎 It was a party! We met this ELECT girl named Monica, she had lost her boyfriend the week before)): We were able to testify of the plan of salvation, do a house blessing! After the blessing she said she felt like a warm blanket🥲 We had another lesson with her this week and were able to put her on date!

- we had in person mlc, it was so good! We talked about the power that comes from the bom(:

- we got flamed by our members last pday when we played pickleball with them. Apparently I've been serving wrong my whole life... 

- a member gave me a skateboard for free!! So for pday we got to skate around for a bit👩‍🦽🥳

- we made chili for our branch chili cook off, we would've 100% won but we accidentally got Italian seasoned tomatoes and it wasn't mixing too good with the chili😐😑😐 it was still pretty bussin though🤑😎🔥

- We found some elect people this week, we invited tons of people to come to our general conference watch party with the ysa! #prophets+waffles=instant conversion🧇🤵‍♂️

Spiritual thought: 

I was reading King Benjamin's speech and something that stood out to me was how much effort, preparation people took to hear him. They all made sure that they had open hearts, even camped out to hear him. They hand wrote out what he said so that the people who couldn't hear could benefit from his teachings. It made me realize how much we sometimes take general conference for granted/ listening to the teachings of living prophets and apostles for granted. 

Invitation-> put in the preparation to get the most you can out of conference this weekend, create goals and plans based off the revelation you receive 

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"It's not chaos, it's coordination"

 https://photos.app.goo.gl/V1gka56kjUTcATXt8

HOWDY YALL! This week was sooo good! There have been sooo many miracles especially with the temple dedication this week! 

WEDNESDAY: PDAYYY! We went around bentonville square and went and looked at all the stores! We had a lesson with a less active that night and it was awesome! She hadn't prayed in a while, so we were able to testify of the power of prayer. The spirit was super strong and she we could come back and share messages with her🥳

THURSDAY: THE UNELECT👎

We had a church tour/ lesson with a guy we met at the gas station. Despite us being very bold with our purpose he got the wrong idea... he kept going on about his gym routine, modeling school...The spirit was super strong in our lesson but he was more interested in us than our message BIG THUMBS DOWN👎 Hey at least he has a bom now, and has felt the spirit🤷‍♀️

FRIDAY: EXCHANGES! I got to be comps with Sister Ogles for the day, it was a blast! We were in pea ridge, it's super fancy there! We knocked one of the nicest neighborhoods i've seen in a while! We did some store finding, found a ysa! We had dinner at a cute restaurant and were able to find our waiter there((: 

SATURDAY: AUSTIN'S BAPTISM! 🏊‍♂️

Austin was able to get baptized this week!!!! It was so amazing! It was absolutely crazy right before though. We weren't able to set up until a few minutes before because there was a baptism happening in a family ward. Our mission president was there, the stake president so no pressure haha! It ended up being amazing, the spirit was so strong! 

SUNDAY: THE TEMPLE DEDICATION 🙌

This was one of the most spiritual experiences I've ever had! The talks were amazing here's some things that stood out to me: 

- hesed : covenantal love. Covenant connection, you are connected personally to your father in heaven, the Son of God. That power can overcome and overpower all things 

- don't be casual or routine about your discipleship. 

- this is the greatest season in the history of the restored church. We live in a day when temples dot the earth. Prophets, priests have prayed and looked forward to the day in which we now live 

MONDAY: ARE WE IN UTAH OR BENTONVILLE? 🤔

There were sooo many members in town for the byu game and the temple dedication! It was insane! So many of them would stop us and talk to us which was so tender but we had to start hiding from members because they would try to talk to us for like 30 min😂 We low key felt famous this week though! 

We had the coolest experience on Monday! We had a zoom lesson with a girl who has family who's members but isn't a member. She's in rehab right now and is looking for some hope. We had an amazing lesson with her and were able to find her and put her on date for baptism😆 #godisgood

TUESDAY: JUST KEEP MOVING!

We were not feeling too hot on Tuesday, I had a super bad migraine and Sister Ellsworth's stomach was killing her. We got in some contacting and then went out and we were able to find someone! It's cool to see the power that comes from our covenants and how they give us greater access to Christ's enabling power. I honestly am not sure how we were able to even go out tracting but Christ was able to give us the strength that we needed!

Spiritual thought❤️‍🔥

During the dedication Elder Bednar talked about the parable of the pearl of great price. He related the box in the parable to to temple, the pearl to the covenants we make in the temple, in baptismal fonts. He talked about how we sometimes put too much emphasis on the box and not enough emphasis on the pearl. Yes, the temple is a beautiful building. But it's so much more than that. The temple would just be another building if it weren't for the covenants we make in the temple. The temple isn't just another building, it's the House of The Lord! It's a house of learning, a house of healing, a house of prayer. We can make our homes a house of the lord as we strive to make it a place where the spirit can abide. 

☆Invitation: share the "pearl" with someone this week aka share the blessings that you've received from the covenants you've made in The House of The Lord 

Austin's Baptism

Roger's Squad

Knock off Swig here!! 

Speaking Austin's baptism! Parents watched the baptism on zoom. 

“Satan’s a cunning 🍑”

 https://photos.app.goo.gl/V1gka56kjUTcATXt8

HOWDY YALLL! The weather has been absolutely amazing this week! This week was crazy but in a good way haha!

WEDNESDAY:PDAYYY

We went hard on pday, we played tennis, pickleball, basketball, football it was so fun though! 

THURSDAY:ZONE CONFERENCE!

Zone conference was absolutely amazing! The spirit was insane!!! Here are a few things I learned:

" if your life is 4 minutes your mission is 3 seconds. What will you do with your 3 seconds?"

"Things that are sacred take sacrifice"

" information proceeds revelation"

" when the soil is dry it forces you to grow deeper roots" 

" enduring to the end is not a destination but a state of being. It's becoming like christ"

"Prepare yourself for a fall, decide now that you will get back up"

" we can endure to the end because christ endured to the end"

FRIDAY: EXCHANGES! I got to be comps with Hermana Fire for the day, it was a party! We did TONS of finding, found some elect people((: one super cool experience we had was when we were tracting. We didn't have tons of time before our next apt. but we decided to knock a few doors. We found this girl named Emily who let us right in, had actually dated a member in high school and had a bom already. She told us she's been really struggling, so we shared a scripture with HERSELF and did a home blessing. She told us after that missionaries had stopped by her sisters home that same day🤯

SATURDAY: SATAN IS THE WORST!👎 (Elder's in a lesson this week actually told the investigator Satan is a cunning butt hole... not the exact language I would have used but made us LOL.) 

Austin was supposed to get baptized on Saturday and was super excited but unfortunately he caught the flu the night before his baptism )): We had to reschedule it to next week but that's okay because more of our friends can come now. We also met this super elect guy at Walmart so that's awesome!

SUNDAY: BRANCH-> WARD😎

Our branch president has a goal to become a ward by the end of the year, so we're going to start doing lots of less active work, finding. We were visiting less actives on Sunday, had some awesome conversations with them. We actually found one of their roommates as well, had a really good convo with her😆

MONDAY: GOT TO SEE ALL THE PEEPS😎  we got to go help serve refreshments at a young adult fire side, I got to see all the ysa from our branch and my first ysa that I served in! It was crazy, I knew almost everyone there lol! 

TUESDAY: LESSONS AT THE TEMPLE🔥💯

we had a lesson with our friend Adam on the temple grounds and it was sooooo good! We talked about praying, answered some questions he had about it. He grew up atheist and had only prayed 2x prior to this lesson, one was about the bom. We invited him to say our closing prayer and he said the most amazing prayer, the spirit was so strong. We asked him how he felt after and he said it felt like electricity, we explained that that was the spirit! You could tell he wanted to feel that feeling more, it was so cool!  Then we had a lesson

❤️‍🔥Spiritual thought❤️‍🔥

LABORERS NEEDED!

Last week we were at a members home sharing a message, I noticed a sign on their front door. It said " welcome to the mission field". I love that so much, these members understood that we are ALL missionaries and are ALL called to share the gospel. This is a LIFELONG pursuit not just for when you're set apart as a missionary. It made me think of these scriptures :

Matthew 9:37-38

"Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;  Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest."

D&C 33:2-3 

"For verily, verily, I say unto you that ye are called to lift up your voices as with the sound of a trump, to declare my gospel unto a crooked and perverse generation. For behold, the field is white already to harvest; and IT IS THE ELEVENTH HOUR, AND THE LAST TIME THAT I SHALL CALL LABORERS INTO MY VINEYARD"

We are The Church of Jesus Christ of LATTER DAY Saints.  These are the last days. There is so much work to be done and not a lot of time to do it. There are LABORERS NEEDED NOW. Everyone is needed. Everyone is invited to participate. 

Last week my mission president said something that has stuck with me. He said " if you knew that christ was coming in 5 years, would it change the way you worked?". He then went on to explain that christ could very much be coming in 5 years and that no one knows. Why are we putting off putting in all our effort to help all our brothers and sisters get to the celestial kingdom? 

The proposal 😳🧐💍

 HOWDY YALLL!!! This week was absolutely insane! And is about to get crazier lol🫠 it's kinda nice to have a packed schedule though, at least I think it's fun haha! I LOVE THE YSA it's so fun, the people here are awesome! 

WEDNESDAY: PDAYYY! We played basketball and spike ball, it was super fun! Then we had some member lessons, those were awesome 

THURSDAY: T1 TRAINING! we got to do a training for the new missionaries that came in and is was both terrifying and super fun at the same time lol!  We had such a good lesson/ dinner after with someone the sisters had met and passed off to the Elders, they were sooo open and the spirit was so strong! The elders were able to put them on date so that was super awesome!

FRIDAY: 1ST FRIDAY! there's so many ysa in Bentonville!!! They do tons of fun stuff to which is nice for us because all the ysa are in the same place. For 1st Friday they had tons of food trucks, pop up shops, music... we went finding with one of our recent converts there, it was so fun!!

SATURDAY:  PPL WHO BASH HAVE TOO MUCH FREE TIME. We got bashed by someone we were teaching for a good hr and a half. Sister Ellsworth is a baller tho and ended it by sharing 2 Nephi 33:11. The rest of our day was awesome! We met some really kind, open people((:

SUNDAY: THE SABBATH DAY! We found an old church video abt fasting 12/10 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/video/2011-03-0098-wherefore-have-we-fasted?lang=eng

I got to meet lots of the ysa today, we have such a sick group of ysa! They are so fun, the recent converts are so solid! We had break the fast and we got to get to know the ysa a lot more so that was way nice!

MONDAY: MLC REVIEW! We got to hang with all the missionaries in our zone for mlc review, it was so fun! The spirit was super strong too! A member had asked us to come to his party to find some of  his friends and then teach one of them who was interested. We had a interesting lesson with Adam ( the members friend)... it was good but we got to the apostasy and I shared the basic Sister missionary analogy for the apostasy, asked Adam a question. The spirit was strong and then out of nowhere the member just goes will you marry me? I was like excuse me? Super awkward, nothing drives away the spirit like proposing to a sister missionary in a lesson.  The rest of the time we were just trying not to laugh lol. The rest of our lesson was pretty good though, Adam had lots of good questions!

TUESDAY: BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

We slightly overbooked ourselves on Tuesday so it was really crazy, but we had some baller lessons so it was way worth it! 

Spiritual thought:

I was reading in Matthew when Christ invites his follower to follow him. 

Matthew 8:22-23

"And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.  And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him."

At first I was surprised at Christ's response to his disciple, then I realized. Christ understood that the only true cure for his disciples pain would be to stop thinking about his grief and go to work. True joy and peace comes from bringing others joy. Sometimes Christ asks us to leave behind "nets" that seem impossible to leave behind. But through Christ all things are possible. There is no time to waste! Christ needs us and he needs us now.

Here's a bomb talk that goes really good with this scripture((: 

“Follow Me”

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2002/04/follow-me?lang=eng

Back in ysa baby !😎🥳

 HOWDY YALLL! Our pdays got swapped to Wednesday's so we can go to the temple when it opens((: I'm SOO STOKED to go to the temple!!

Wednesday: PDAYYYY! we got transfer calls and I found out I'm leaving st rob and going to Rogers YSA! I'm so sad to leave my St rob peeps but I'm way stoked to be in ysa again! 

Thursday: GOODBYES ARE THE WORST! I said goodbye to everyone, it was brutal😪 pro's and cons to being in an area for 7 1/2 months lol. 

Friday: TRANSFERS! I accumulated a lot of crap in st rob so poor Sis Ellsworth who had to help me get all my suitcases up 2 flights of stairs😬 we cover lots of Rogers and Bentonville and lemme tell you it's fancy here... people have teeth, and nice dogs, it doesn't smell like weed everywhere you go!

Saturday: BENTONVILLE IS SOOOOOOO NICE! we went around the square to try to find ppl, we had lots of awesome conversations! We also went to a farmers market that they have on the square, so many ysa were there it was awesome! They have so many cool things to do here. There are a lot of fancy business ppl that work for Walmart so it's kinda intimidating but oh well! 

Sunday: STAKE CONFERENCE! We had stake conference and it was so good! The members here are on fire for missionary work, it's so cool to see! I meet our branch president and the first thing he said was "welcome, this is a baptizing branch" I was floored! 😆

Monday: THE LORD LOVES EFFORT!

We went finding pretty much all day Monday, had no success haha. We even had a member with us! We ended up getting rejected lots and getting kicked off an apt complex. But ya know what we kept trying, we were able to have some good conversations with ppl. We didn't find anyone but we tried to plant a lot of seeds.

Tuesday: MLC IN PERSON!

It was so nice because when I was in st rob it was an 8 hr trip to get to mlc and back, now it's 3 minutes! Mlc was awesome and it was super fun to see all my friends. I was so tired after tho! We had soo much to do on Tuesday it was insane, honestly a party! Idk why but I LOVE when we have a super busy day!

Spiritual thought: 

2 Nephi 25:26

"And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins."

A member of the seventy spoke at our stake conference this week and he talked about keeping christ the center, having everything focused in him. He talked about how too often we go whole sacrament meetings without saying Christ's name. We use words like atonement, temple, gospel, sacrament and leave Christ's name out of the title. All these things would mean nothing without christ, so we need to not leave Christ's name out of his church. The atonement of JESUS CHRIST, the temple THE HOUSE OF THE LORD, the sacrament of JESUS CHRIST, the gospel of JESUS CHRIST. As we keep christ the center of our lives and try to keep his name in mind more it will bring the spirit more into our lives and others lives.