That moment when you're a missionary and someone you baptized is too...

- April 01, 2019

Good Morning Everyone!

This week was a super awesome week. There were so many cool things that happened, and so many little miracles!

First off, Emilio got his mission call!!!!!!! I'm so excited! Hopefully he's good with me sharing this with you all, haha. He's going to the freaking Marshall Islands/Kiribati mission! It's so insane. It's such a huge blessing to have been able to teach him and see his progression. I am so grateful that I got to serve in the West Hills ward and meet so many wonderful people there! I learned so much from all of them. : )

Favorite Spiritual Thought:

I was reading the story of the prodigal son (in Luke 15) this week and noticed something that I'd never noticed before. In the verses right around when the prodigal son decides he's made some mistakes and needs to go home, there's the phrase "and when he came to himself." The footnote at the bottom mentioned repentance, which I thought was cool. But what came to mind was that each of us is a child of God, and that we are Heavenly royalty. We have a pretty great, divine inheritance ahead of us. Because we are children of God, sinning is completely beneath who we are and what we have the potential to become, yet sometimes we sin anyway. We get lost, make mistakes, wander, and find ourselves very far from where we want to be. But when we "come to ourselves," we remember that we are children of God, and that we don't want to sin anymore. When we remember who we are, children of a Heavenly King, we have no desire to sin. We start to find our way back onto the path and we start to head Home, knowing that no matter how hard the path may be, we can overcome the things we've done and can start again, because of Jesus Christ and His love for us. It's like some great book I would like to read at home, except it's even better because it's real. And someday, we will walk through those Heavenly gates, perhaps a little battered and bruised but knowing that our Savior has walked with us every step of the way, and our Heavenly Father will embrace us. He will be so glad to have us home.

Favorite Spiritual Moment:

We had a lesson with the Gray family on Tuesday. Brother and Sister Gray are members, but their oldest daughter is ten and not baptized because they've been inactive for a little while. We're trying to help the daughters to want the gospel so that they can help their parents come back, and so they can eventually get baptized. Anyway, we had a lesson about prophets - who they are, what they do, and why they're so important. We talked about ancient prophets, and then we talked about how we still have modern prophets today, who can talk to us during general conference. We asked the girls what it would mean to them to hear from a prophet of God, and they were so excited at the idea. Seriously, they were so thrilled! It was really cool to see how much trust they had. We told them that they could know if a prophet was really a prophet by listening to his voice and praying to ask God if it was true that was enough for them. They valued the concept that they could hear what God wanted them to know by listening to the prophet's voice this coming weekend. We are so blessed to have a modern prophet!

Favorite Miracle/Funny Thing:

Sister Buss' mom happened to be over when we had a lesson with the Busses this week, and she joined us for the lesson. It wasn't until we were in the lesson and were getting to know her better that we found out that the mom is actually an ordained minister. Oh boy! We weren't quite sure how everything was going to go, but we felt like we should still teach what we had planned: tithing. It actually turned out super well! We read the scripture from Malachi and explained what tithing was, talked about what it's used for, gave the kids some Monopoly money we found to practice, and testified of the blessings of living this commandment. The funny thing was that the mom almost acted as our member present! She made it pretty clear that she pays tithes, and then talked about how the church can't function without it. Then she shared a little bit about the widow's mites, and when the Busses asked us some questions about their situation, she actually even added her testimony to ours that she knew that if they trusted in the Lord, He would bless them with the ability to pay their tithing and do the other things they need to do right now. It was super weird, but was also really cool and was a little miracle for me. I was so grateful that the lesson went well and didn't turn into an argument, and when we talked to Sister Buss about it afterwards, she told is she thought it was actually really good for her mom because she got to see that the things we teach are good and true. It was such a cool way that the Lord helped everybody to be on the same page, and helped the mom to be supportive of the Busses' baptisms. I'm so grateful for this lesson!

The Lord works in mysterious ways. He knows His work, and He knows what He's doing. Sometimes, the things He asks of us are a little weird, but we have to just trust Him! He loves us so much. : )

I hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Sister Garfield