Sister Jessica Garfield California San Fernando Mission

Hey Everybody!    Favorite scripture/quote: 3 Nephi 18: 32 "Nevertheless, ye shall not cast him out of your synagogues, or your places of worship, for unto such shall ye continue to minister; for ye know not but what they will return and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal them; and ye shall be the means of bringing salvation unto them." This may seem a little random, but it has a point, I promise. It even goes with one of my favorite spiritual moments for the week. I liked this scripture from the perspective of a missionary, because it lets me know that whether a person will accept the gospel or not is not up to me. It's their agency. But that doesn't mean that I don't still have a responsibility to share the gospel with them. I may not be the missionary that helps them to change their life, or even the one who touches their heart enough to help them begin to soften it. But they still deserve that chance. Because someda...

SORRY EVERYONE!  We were so excited to get letters this week, but also so busy that I forgot to post until today!  Here is the letter and pictures from Monday! Hey everybody! Favorite scripture/quote: 3 Nephi 28: 11 I love how this is just a simple testimony of the Godhead, and makes it clear the purposes of each member. It's just simple, but it stood out to me. 4 Nephi 1: 15-18 When we have contention, it drives away the Spirit. When we focus on Christ, it invites the Spirit. I want to make sure that I always am living in such a way to be able to have the Spirit with me. Favorite spiritual experience: Oh man, there were so many this week. We had a lesson with Monse and her family this week just a couple of days before the baptism. It was so cool. We read Alma 32 with them, which was super cool because Monse's nonmember sister was there too and loved the imagery of it. But the coolest part of it was that Monse bore her testimony to her kids. It was so amazi...

Hey guys! Favorite quote/scripture: DC 64: 33-34. I don't have time to type it out, so go look it up. I like how it talks about this work. I want to give my whole soul to the Lord as I go about doing His work. This is important. I want to make sure that I give my all. Favorite funny moment: So this wasn't like a laugh out loud moment or anything, but more of just a cool thing. We had a two week training follow up for all of the trainees and their trainers last Tuesday. One of the missionaries that came in with Sister O'Bourke is from Thailand. I'm not even going to guess at how to spell her name. She's still learning English, but she's been doing really good. Now that it wasn't her first day, I introduced myself again. Normally when I tell people my name, if they say it back to me to make sure that it's right, I say something like "yep, like the cat." She sounded it out to make sure she was saying it right, and I told her she got ...

Hey guys! Quick testimony: I just want to reassure everyone that God truly answers prayers. I'm going to be honest; the first half of this week was really rough. I didn't know what the problem was, but I was just really stressed and overwhelmed and unhappy, so for a few days I was just really pouring out my soul to the Lord to ask Him for help. I didn't even know what it was I needed, but I knew that He did, so I asked Him to help me in whatever way would be best. Just a few days later, I got my answer. It was in the form of a scripture, one that would never have stood out to me in any other circumstance. But it was exactly what I needed. I'm not going to share it because I don't want to go into what exactly it was I was struggling with, and it wouldn't make any sense otherwise. But I know that God answers prayers. I know that the scriptures were written for our day. I know that God knew ahead of time that I would be struggling with this right now, so He...

Ahh! Sorry! Short on time! Updates for this week that are important that you all probably want to know. ; ) So, Monse and her family are absolutely amazing! The night after I emailed last, we got her three oldest kids - Kelly, Sergio, and Mariah - on date to be baptized! They are getting baptized February 17th and are super excited about it. We've been meeting with them a ton, and they are just so amazing. They are doing everything they can, and so are we, to make sure they are ready by then. I can't wait! I'll keep everybody updated there. I found out this week that I get the chance to do something pretty cool, something that my dad also got to do on his mission: I get to serve in two different missions. In June or July, when my mission president is being released, the San Fernando mission is going to be dissolved and split between the LA mission and the Bakersfield mission. I don't know which part I'll be in yet, but it should be really cool. It ...

Hey guys.  : ) Favorite Miracle: I didn't know what else to call this other than a miracle, but it was pretty much all week long, and it was so amazing. We were on exchanges near the beginning of the week, and Hermana Vincent (one of our STLs) and I got a phone call from the bishop. He told us that there was an inactive sister in the ward who had called him and asked us to come over. We stopped by just a little bit later and got to meet her. Her name is Monse, and she has five kids between the ages of 15 and 3. She told us that she was a convert in about 2005 and was active for a few years until everything just fell apart. Now there's just so many things going wrong in her life, and she's having a lot of trials, so she starting reaching out to the Lord for help, and the answer she got is that she needs to go back to church. With her five kids, none of whom have ever been baptized. She's had us come almost every single night since to read scriptures with her and ...

Hey everybody! Favorite Quote: "If for a while the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who have ever lived." -Elder Jeffrey R Holland Favorite Spiritual Moment: I've got two this week, both focused around the Book of Mormon! We were knocking yesterday and the guy that opened one of the doors had obviously been woken up from us ringing his doorbell. We felt bad about waking him up, but went on to the message. He told us that he was Christian but didn't go to church because every church seems to interpret the Bible differently, and as a result, has a different view of God. So we told him about the Book of Mormon! We talked about how the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ, and how having that second witness helps us to understand God's word and His will for us. I thought about that visual with the two dots and the line from a conference a few years ago, with one dot representing the...