Monday, August 5, 2013

August 5, 2013

Week 21

So this week...I'm having an honesty moment with you all...I was missing New Hampshire really really REALLY badly!!!! haha But the Lord gave me little tender mercies that reminded me of New Hampshire! One night was the craziest thunderstorm ever! And it just felt like New Hampshire and smelt like NH, and it was just so nice to have a little part of it! It happened again Sunday morning! It down poured in the morning, but by the time we walked to church, it was fresh and dewy and smelt like cut grass in some places! Sometimes on the walk there I would close my eyes and just picture me being there (not in a distracted way) but it just made me feel a little more at home. THEN! Today, we went on this super fun bike ride through an area that reminded me SOOO much of New Hampshire! And the Lord just rained down little tender mercies like that all week! Including the postcard I got from you Mom of the red house in NH :) Thank you! Another tender mercy!

This week was a humbling one! It is sort of humorous that the week after we had this amazing success of reaching the standard, The Lord totally humbled us to remember that EVERYTHING is in His hands...especially our success from last week! Not that numbers matter, but this week, i got the lowest numbers that I have gotten on my entire mission so far! And despite it, I was trying my hardest and everything was out of my hands. So it just goes to show that the Lord's work is run by He Himself and that I really am just a little week tool that He makes strong. I also re-recognized that people have their agency despite how hard I work. So I was grateful this week for the humbling experiences where I learned to give everything to the Lord. To try my hardest but recognize that I can only do as much as I can do and then I need to hand it over to the Lord. I was grateful for learning that this week.

An amazing experience this week was that this week we met with a woman who says she doesn't know if she believes in God because she doesn't trust whether or not feelings are from herself or not. She asked a really interesting question, "How are you so sure if your church is true? A Muslim might pray about his church and get the same confirmation and feelings that you all have confirming to him that his beliefs are right." Tracy Allen, the most fantastic person in the world (she's returned from her mission in Poland a couple years ago and is here for the summer doing a study program), she answered in a way that really made sense to me. She said, "Well it makes sense if that's the case. If someone is asking if they should follow a certain belief that is good, and they haven't had (or are unable to have) the gospel in their life, of course the Lord will say 'Yes! I can't get you the complete gospel right now, so yes, live the good principles that this teaches because it is good and will make you happy until you meet the Full and Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ." When she put it in that way, it was just really neat to think about! Many religions (I'd dare to say nearly all) have really amazing, great and truthful principles that can help someone become better. But it's only through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ that is that truth in FULLNESS. It was really amazing to learn that lesson this week.

Sorry that this letter is a bit short this week, but....oh well! haha

Funny Moment of the week: Sister Ellis has Dansko shoes and they are good missionary shoes, but i think they're a half a size too small for her...so that's not good... but the funny part is that we were at a less active member's house and her husband suggested her to buy some new shoes because they were too small and because "they look like shoes that you'd dance in while in Ireland!" and I was trying so hard not to laugh, but it was SO darn funny!

Well. I love you all!

Love,

Sister Blake
This is from our bike ride today! We went with 2 awesome members! 
The tall red head is named Ola and the other girl is named Cindy!

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