Never Ignore a Spiritual Prompting

Hey there!

I hope that everyone has such a great week and is enjoying their Veterans Day! Our week was pretty good, with some fun service opportunities and a decent amount of teaching, in both English and Russian! We're slowly but surely getting things going here. 

Favorite Scripture:

Alma 60: 6-12. So, this is actually going to seem like a super depressing scripture when you read it, but the reason I put this on here is because I was thinking about it from a missionary perspective. Moroni is accusing Pahoran of neglecting his people and withholding provisions from them that they need to survive. I was thinking about how, as missionaries, we have the spiritual provisions people are in need of in order to make it through this battle against Satan to make it back to our Heavenly Home. From this perspective, I was thinking about how I never want to be caught withholding those spiritual provisions from people who are seeking the gospel. Instead, I want to do everything I can to help people to receive it, so that they can stand against the enemy and so we can be victorious together.

Favorite Spiritual Moment:

This was actually from last week, but I forgot to include it in my last email. Last week, the Russian missionaries helped to translate sacrament meeting into Russian for the first time ever in our ward. It was kind of crazy because we were all throwing it together really short notice and had to get everything set up, and it was fast and testimony meeting, which made it hard for Sister Howard and Elder Stratford to translate since they had zero preparation with what was being said. We also are kind of awkwardly camped in this weird hallway between the chapel and the main part of the gym so that we can hear the meeting but not be distracting, which is kind of funny. But what was really cool was when Elder Stratford translated the sacrament prayers. I was thinking about those Russian members who have been coming to our ward diligently for years, not being able to understand a word of Sacrament meeting, but sitting through it anyway so they can partake of that special ordinance. Then I thought about how cool it must be for them to hear the words to those prayers in their language. The spirit was just really strong as we were sitting in there. I was glad I got to be a part of it, even if I couldn't understand.

Favorite Miracle:

This week, Sister Howard and I have been focusing on having the Spirit with us and acting on the promptings we receive, as well as having confidence in our Heavenly Father. We've been trying to make sure that we don't ever ignore a prompting. There was one night this week when we came home to have dinner, but as we pulled in, we felt like there was still something the Lord wanted us to do. We thought back to our plans and realized there were two people we'd planned as a backup that we hadn't gotten to, so we decided that maybe we needed to go see them. We turned right back around and visited them, and when we stopped by the second person, we were able to set up a return appointment with him! It is so cool to see that the Lord knows what He wants to happen within His work, and that He is willing to let us know what it is.

Favorite funny thing:

So this week during sacrament meeting, when my companion and the Elders were helping to translate, the guy speaking was telling a story about his dad who used to own a construction company. Sister Howard didn't know what most of the words meant in English, so Elder Stratford took over to try to describe it in Russian over the headsets. The speaker mentioned the word "sandblaster," and Elder Stratford just got this expression on his face like "how the heck am I supposed to translate that." He thought about it for a second, then just said a short Russian sentence that ended in the English word, "sandblaster." It probably isn't that funny to read, but it was just so weird to hear the contrast between the Russian he was speaking, with a decent accent, compared with the American, super-Utahn pronunciation of "sandblaster." I laughed so hard. ; )

Until next Monday. ; )

Love,

Sister Garfield

Welcome to the International zone!

Sister Jenkins and me with a future apostle

The one, the only, Emilio!