A baptism, but not the kind you might expect. ; )

- April 02, 2018

Hey everybody!

This week was really kind of a weird one. For some reason, it just seemed really long, and there were a lot of random things that happened. Some of them were really sad, but others were really awesome. Ah, the life of a missionary is an adventure. ; )

Favorite quote:

"You are called to represent Jesus Christ in helping people become clean from their sins." Preach My Gospel, pg 2.

I thought this was really cool to think about. As a missionary, I know that I am a representative of Jesus Christ, but until reading this line, I always thought of it kind of like being a representative from a company: we wear His name, and it's pretty easy for people to figure out that we're there to do His work. But after reading that quote, I think my perspective changed a little bit. The actors who portray Jesus Christ in the Church's Bible videos and other things receive a calling to do so. They must be worthy of that calling. Everything they do and say must help people to think of their Savior. As a missionary, I have a very similar calling to represent Jesus Christ, to stand in His place, to act as He would act, and to say what He would say. When people see me, they're supposed to be reminded of Him. I don't mean that in a sacrilegious way at all, but just as a motivation for me to be better. I don't know. It just changed the way I think about being a representative of Jesus Christ.

Favorite miracle:

We went to go visit Carol this week, a super nice, inactive lady that Sister Reynolds and I met a little while ago. She's been letting us share scriptures with her and her girls, and this week, we shared James 1:5. We invited them to pray when they have questions, and then Carol's oldest daughter, Jade, said the prayer when we left! It was so cool! The spirit was just super strong, and we were able to pick her up as an investigator. Jade is just so ready for the gospel! It's so cool.

Another cool miracle was actually with conference. We got a text from a guy named Jason, whose number was in our phone, but we couldn't find him on any ward list. He just asked us if it was still a missionary number, and then asked where they were showing conference. We told him, and he came! It turns out that he is an inactive member who heeded a prompting to go watch conference at 9, even after getting off work at 4 in the morning! We're hoping that his good experience will help him to have a desire to come back to church with us.

Favorite funny thing:

So this wasn't laugh out loud funny, but more just amusing. And it turned out to be a little, tender miracle too. We were knocking on Saturday and a few minutes from the end came across this lady who was busy getting her three kids ready for their Catholic baptisms in an hour. Obviously she wasn't super interested in what we had to say, and she was just super stressed, but she was nice and said that she's good friends with a lady in our ward. Since we didn't want to bother her too much more with her being short on time, we just asked if there was anything we could do for her. She said no, that she just needed to frenchbraid the little girls' hair as soon as they were out of the shower and then would deal with the rest of it. Sister Pinter jumped in, offering our help again and just saying "I'm really good at french-braiding hair." She just looked at us and then said, "Can you come back in ten minutes?" We were surprised, but we said yes. So we came back and braided her little girls' hair for their Catholic baptisms. It was a kind of weird experience, but we were just really glad that she did let us help with it. The girls were super cute, and they loved the way their hair looked afterwards. It was just a cool experience that we hope those girls will remember someday when future missionaries knock on their door.

Other stuff:

My mission is now a Facebook mission. Which means that I now have a Facebook. Ha. Who knew that would ever happen? I'm not going to be communicating with friends and family that way, but I thought I'd put it out there so everybody would know. I literally know nothing about facebook because I very much liked living under a rock before my mission, so you all probably know a lot more about it than I do. But yep. ; )

Anyway, I love you all!

Love,

Sister Garfield