Well this winter really has been very dangerous. We had freezing rain again and of course we are now pro ice skaters! A stake near by cancelled church but not our stake. I don’t think Alaskans know what bad is. They will tough out everything and anything; so different coming from a state that has “snow days” and cancels school.
P-day: I am glad we are branching out and not spending all our time in the church playing sports. We went bowling on Monday. It was a lot of fun. We played in teams for ice cream. We had played a couple of games before we played for competition so my arm started to get fatigued. I normally start off really good for the first two games of bowling and then drastically decline because my arm gets too tired to hold the bowling ball. I have learned that that is when I need to switch to a lighter ball. By the end of the competition game we were neck and neck with our scores. I was the last one to bowl and all I had to knock down was 4 pins. 4 pins would be nothing but there is a lot riding on you when you are the last person who could make or break this and you aren’t playing your best game because of physical exhaustion. Lo and behold I got a strike!!!! That was the best reaction ever! So fun and our team won ice cream. Later that evening we had a lesson with Patrick and taught the Plan of Salvation. There is still something that we aren’t sure of on what his hold up is. He tells us one thing but I feel deep down there is something else.
Chapel Tour: We accidentally tracted into members last week for exchanges. We got a referral from them to try by their friend Lynette. She said she was having company over then and we scheduled a time for us to come back. Later she texted us and said she couldn’t meet then either and then rescheduled. We turned our appointment into a chapel tour and a lesson! Her thought process with a lot of things matches a lot of what the Church teaches which was cool to see. We had Sister DeKay come with us which was beneficial. She was suppose to come to church yesterday but texted us saying something came up. Hopefully we can still teach her because she is so prepared at this time for the gospel.
Nicole: We had a lesson with her this week which went well and we offered to have her receive a blessing. We set up for the bishop and one of her member neighbors to come and give her a blessing. They wanted to get to know her a little bit before but that then took over an hour which it should have been just half that time. It went well though and I am so grateful we are able to teach her. She is so prepared for this Gospel and I can truly see her thirsting after it. It is a true blessing to be an “instrument in the Lord’s hands” to be apart of someone else’s conversion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Danica: We finally had our first lesson with Danica, the 10 year-old who wants to be baptized. She doesn’t have much religion background so we definitely need to make sure she understands what she is getting herself into. Getting baptized is a commitment. That doesn’t mean you need to know everything there is about the Gospel; just the basics for your salvation. You still need to be aware of the promises you are making to God, though, so you can actively keep your promises. We have children at the age of 8 get baptized because we believe that is an age where you are accountable to make your own decisions. Even attending the children’s baptism a few weeks back made me realize that the kids didn’t know everything as they were still acting in faith. If you don’t know everything, you know enough. There are more promises we make with God later in the temple but that comes later on in life allowing us time to gain more understanding of still just the basics of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Have faith but also have an understanding of what promises you are making with God.
Facebook: We spent a lot of time talking about different ideas we can do with Facebook now that we have the ability to proselyte online. The ideas are endless and it is cool that we are given the ability to be creative with spreading the Gospel. We drove down this street and saw that someone drew an inappropriate image on the frosty fence. We thought to change the negative image into something that could be positive. It was a day later that we did this and we are sure many people have driven by this fence and had seen what was on it before we changed it. It was cool to be doing something like this; something that would have never crossed my mind prior to serving a mission. I like that I am learning how to spread the gospel online because that is something I can keep doing when I go home. This allows me to be a better member missionary when I am no longer a full-time missionary.
Sent from ALASKA!
Sister Shelley Willden
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