I am so excited it's cooling down. I dream of leaves changing and the crisp fall air. I think I'm definitely okay with living in the Midwest with all four seasons.
This week was wonderful. General Conference was such a treat to watch on Saturday and Sunday. I'm so thankful we have a living prophet and apostles on the earth today to lead and guide us. There were just so many good talks. I received so many revelations for myself, investigators, and area. General Conference is truly a blessing to be able to listen to.
One of my favorite talks was Edward Dube. His theme was to "look ahead and believe." It was a great reminder for me to focus on the future and all that it holds. We must endure to the end for the prize is Eternal Life. He talked about how Christ says unto all of us, "Come unto me" (Matt 11:28-30. It's one of my favorite scriptures). We must have faith and trust in Him. During Edward Dube's talk I thought of the talk by Hugh B. Brown about the currant bush. God is The Gardner and He knows our potential.
The other talk I enjoyed was S. Gifford Nielson's talk about missionary work. I hope everyone if fired up about missionary work after this conference. We as full-time missionaries can not do this work alone. This is His or and His glory, but He needs us to be His instruments. S. Gifford Nielson asked us to do three things:
1. Pray for the missionaries serving in your ward by name
2. Pray who specifically you can share the Gospel with
3. Invite those who come into your mind with a specific invitation
Will you pray for the missionaries and those you can share the gospel with? Then will you invite? Ok, good. :) I'll be following up in two weeks to see how it's going.
There was a lot about in conference how we can protect ourselves from the dangers of the world by being converted to the gospel. There's so much more and I enjoyed listening to it. I know I can't wait for the November ensign to come out so I can review and read the talks. I am determined to study the talks throughout the year so I can remember what they said and the revelation I received so I can become more who Heavenly Father wants me to be. President Nattress also asked us to find all of the Apostolic Promises in General Conference. It was neat to see who promised what and what the blessings were.
Here's a few highlight's of the week. When we went to dinner Tuesday night, they had one of their friends over who wasn't a member, Nick. We were able to talk with him and he was actually very curious about the church. Unfortunately he doesn't live here in Arizona, but he will be visiting off an one for the next month. He accepted a Book of Mormon and he said he is willing to meet with us. We're hoping he gets the job here in the Gilbert Fire Department so we can officially teach him. It was fantastic to start to see the members being more missionary minded and willing to share the gospel. We've been working a lot with the members to help them trust us and feel comfortable with sharing the gospel.
Transfers were also this Wednesday. Nothing has changed with us. We still have all three of our wards and we're staying together. We were also able to paint walls this week for a part member family! It took us about 5 hours to paint, but it was well worth it. We can tell the husband's heart is softening. They were very appreciative. I am indeed thankful I learned how to paint walls correctly before the mission- thanks Dad!
We did have a funny experience this week. There was this "Help Us" sign outside of this house in one of the neighborhoods. It was too hard to resist. So we went and knocked on their door and said, "We saw your sign outside and we're here to help! We're missionaries!" The man didn't think we were serious, but we assured him we were very serious. He started asking us questions about what we believed. It was too bad he wasn't really into hearing our answers, but was just looking to bible bash. We ended the conversation as quickly as we could and bid him good night.
The work is hastening and I'm so thankful to be a part of it at this time as a full-time missionary!
Love,
Sister Collins
The Arizona Gilbert Mission has a blog:
http://arizonagilbertmission.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAUREN!!!
Texas Roadhouse!
Bouncy House
Help Us Sign
Purple, Sparkly, Shiny Truck?!
General Conference is coming!
I think we need haircuts?!
