The Spirit of Revelation

Good morning everyone!

I hope that you all had a wonderful General Conference experience! I know that I sure did. It's such a blessing to get to hear from the prophet and receive direction from the Lord. Someday I would like to understand how the Lord can inspire His servants to give just a few messages like that, and make it work out so that every sincere listener can receive the answers to their prayers. It's pretty cool to think about. I am so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost, as well as for the ability to receive those quiet promptings from God through the Spirit.

Favorite Spiritual Thought:

I was rereading some conference talks from last October and came across the talk from Michelle D Craig, "Divine Discontent." In it, she talked about how discouragement, from Satan, often leads to self-absorption: "Who I am, who I am not, and what I want." She then talked about how divine discontent, encouragement to improve, from our Heavenly Father, is focused on how we can become better disciples of Jesus Christ: "Who I am as a child of God, who He knows I can become, and what He wants." It's a cool thought. All of us can improve, but if we ever feel those feelings, we need to evaluate whether the thought is pulling us down or helping us to become better. If it's pulling us down, it's from the devil and is meant to confuse us and discourage us. But if it's helping us to become better, then it's from God, and following the inspiration we receive will be a divine experience.

Favorite Spiritual Moment:
We went over to do a member inspire with an active family, the Carlsons, a few days ago. The Carlsons are newly weds and are also rather new to the ward, but they're super awesome and are excited about the gospel and about sharing it. We talked about missionary work with them and asked them if there was someone they cared about who is not a member or who is less active they could reach out to. They brought up a few people, but what I thought was cool was that they also mentioned the people they minister to. Since they're new to the ward, they actually don't know most of those they're assigned to, but they really wanted to reach out, they just weren't sure how since they didn't know them. Then Brother Carlson asked us if we might know any of them. They went through both lists, and not only did we recognize all of the names, we were also able to tell them something about each of them as well. It was a cool moment because they were so grateful to learn about them, and it made them even more excited to reach out and get going. It was also cool to think about how the Savior knows every single one of us. As missionaries, we are representatives of Jesus Christ, and it was cool to get to feel a little bit of that as we helped this sweet family to know these people and to start to love them. Charity, the pure love of Christ, is so real.

Favorite Miracle:
We met two amazing people this week thay we would not have met if we hadn't received and acted on some spiritual promptings guiding us to them. They were on two different days, in two different areas, but in both neighborhoods we'd been there only a few weeks before and had already stopped by the people there, or so we thought. On the first day, we stopped by a man named John and the people nearby. We had actually met his wife before, but we felt like we should go back, so we did. Not only were we able to meet three other people in his area who we'd stopped by before but who hadn't been home, we also got to meet John in person. Guess what. Apparently he's a member! He has three kids of baptism age, and he and his wife were both raised with faith but have fallen away from it. Now, he and his wife are trying to raise their children to be good people, and are trying to figure out how to teach them about God. The second was Miguel. We were trying to visit a few other people we hadn't met before, and in the meantime, I walked through a large spiderweb that took me a few minutes to free myself from. If I hadn't walked through that spiderweb, and if we'd chosen to visit those houses in any different order, we wouldn't have walked past the house Miguel was working on when he was outside getting supplies from his truck. We OYMed to him and, by the end of the conversation, got to teach him about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. We have now seen him three times in four days. He's so prepared. I can hardly believe the way that the Lord can make things happen at the exact right moment, especially when it doesn't make any sense to be there in the first place. And yet, here we are, doing His work. It's such a great work.

Favorite Funny Thing:
Trainers are often called "mission moms" or "mission dads" in the mission field. It's because you teach missionaries things and try to set a good example for them, but it applies in other ways too. Between zone conference and General Conference this week, Hermana Despain and I both ended up packing extra snacks in our bags and carrying things around for our companions all day. ; ) We also both often end up being the trash holder and clean up after our companions a lot. On rough days, Hermana Despain and I often talk together about what we can try and how we can help, and we do a lot of laughing too. It's honestly been a huge blessing that we ended up in a four man pad for this transfer. But the funny thing was that, between sessions of conference on Sunday, Hermana Despain just turned to me and said, "you know, sometimes I feel like we're being single moms together." To be honest, it totally feels like it sometimes. ; ) So then we were comparing it to that random Disney show when two single moms move in together with their kids to help each other pay their rent. Yep. That's about where we're at right now. ; )

I know that the Lord's hand is in His work. His miracles are so amazing, and so is His Spirit. In these past 18 months, I've learned that there is no way I could do this without Him. So let us all press on in the work of the Lord. I promise that great miracles will follow.

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Garfield

Hermana Despain and I taking a "single moms" picture at Conference. ; )

"To missionaries, General Conference is like a combination of the super bowl and the next Avengers movie. We get to watch it in a big room, on a big screen, with the lights off, and it's so exciting!"