This week was a whirlwind! (not literally, no more tornadoes! Don't worry!) I can barely remember this morning. It seems like the days just fly by and the weeks go increasingly faster... I am not sure how I feel about that, but I guess it means we are working really hard here in Richmond! This week I just had the epiphany moment that I am in love with Richmond. I absolutely LOVE it here. I love being a bike sister, I love being outside, even if it means being fried and I absolutely LOVE being a full time servant of the Lord Jesus Christ and my Father in Heaven. Nothing brings me greater joy in the morning than being able to put my nametag on again!
So here we go again! :) Another wonderful week in the GKLM!
It rained all week here, except one day and that day was a HUGE blessing. The water seems to just follow me... I move my desk to get away from it and it pours so hard that it floods all the way to my desk on the other side! It's all good though! I have mastered the art of sitting in my chair without my feet touching the ground because of the huge spider I saw.... between the bugs and the water, Sister Hannah was being attacked on all sides! I survived though. Everything is so comical to me. It is all about your attitude. If you can't laugh at yourself, how are you able to have fun? This day we also saw so many miracles! We met Marry, a single mom, who had been looking for a church to bring Colton too. We showed up literally as she was talking to her friend on the phone about it! We have begun teaching her and she is awesome! She relates all of the scriptures to herself and she has a burning desire to learn more! She is so prepared! :) I love finding the prepared people! They are so humble and ready to hear the gospel! :)
We also taught Blake the most incredible spirit led lesson.... it seriously jumped from commandments to law of chastity to reading Alma back to commandments. At the end of our lesson he told us he has a friend he wants to introduce the gospel too! YEAH! So we go meet his friend and he says he wants to learn more because of the change he has seen in Blake! YES! HE HAS SEEN A NOTICEABLE CHANGE IN BLAKE! That is awesome! I don't know what Blake was like before, but if his friends are noticing, he is really taking everything to heart! Blake is absolutely incredible! He takes everything with stride and knows that the gospel is true. As we sat there with his friend, Blake bore sweet and simple testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel and the Book of Mormon. It was so powerful!! Walking home from that Sister Jones and I came to the conclusion that there are no drugs that can make us feel as high as the spirit makes us! The JOY of missionary work is so indescribable!!
Man, as I am sitting here writing this I am trying to collect all of my thoughts and this week was seriously just so incredible. It feels like forever ago and my memories are all in my journal. Bear with me! :)
Thursday was by far the best day of the week. We had every single appointment go through, district meeting and ward coordination. The appointments were all so awesome and spirit led. Sometimes I feel like all I do is bear my testimony, but sometimes, that is all the investigator needs because the spirit is there. My favorite thing to tell everyone is "don't take my word for it, pray about it for YOURSELF." That is the most liberating thing ever. People don't understand how strong the power of prayer really is! That night we had Mexican Lasagna! so delicious! Thank you Sister Bennett! We then had a super cool experience with a previous investigator, Wendall. He suffers from schizophrenia and was reading in the Bible about Jesus casting out devils. He called us and asked if he could receive a blessing! I was shocked because he dropped us! I was also just thrilled because he recognized that we have the priesthood power in our church, JUST AS JESUS CHRIST DID!! YES! It is true!
Friday was another miracle day! We had 3 solid lessons in a row and they were all so powerful! My favorite was the lesson with Blake. We taught him about following the prophet and missionary work! At first he was dead set on not serving a mission. As we taught him about following the prophet his mind was changed. We showed him the clip of the age change announcement and bore our testimonies as to why we chose to serve a mission. (Both Sister Jones and I didn't think we would ever go). We testified to Blake that if we hadn't come to Kentucky, if we hadn't decided to serve a mission, we would not have found him and he wouldn't have heard the gospel. It totally clicked for him. He knows the gospel is so true and he is thriving! By the end of the lesson he said that he has been thinking about serving a mission for a couple of weeks because of our examples. It is him, it is these experiences that make every hard or rough day SO WORTH IT!
SERVICE IS SO FUN!! This Saturday was the only sunny day this week and we were privileged to go serve Marla on her farm! She had a barn fire and needed us to rebuild a fence and paint it. The men built and the sister painted. It was such a fun experience! We even got to feed baby cows! :) They are so precious!
Sunday. Oh how I love Sunday's. Spiritual revival. Yesterday I spoke in sacrament, Sister J and I taught Gospel Principles and sat in on Primary. I loved it! I was most definitely spiritually fed! I believe that talks are meant for the person giving them because boy did I learn a lot! I spoke on what my mission has taught me about Jesus Christ and boy has it taught me a ton! The one thing I have truly learned about on my mission is the atonement of Jesus Christ. It is real. It is POWERFUL. It is THERE for every single person to use. USE IT! We also attended a fireside for recent converts and investigators and the testimonies born were so powerful! The most powerful statement that was said was "remember the substance of the gospel. It is not the missionaries, they will get transferred. It is not the members, they will not always be as cool as your home ward. The substance of the gospel is that it teaches the truth of the plan of happiness with the proper authority." Oh man, how awesome is that? I just love it. It is SO TRUE!!
*Rookie moment of the week*
So I know nothing about bikes... as we are all very aware of. (remember riding on flat tires for a week?) This was just the greatest. We are biking up the busiest street in the city and my gears decided to change on me as I am standing up on my pedals to use my full body to make it up this hill. My gears had been acting up for a while, but since I didn't know any better I thought nothing of it... typical Sister Hannah. Well I am going up this hill and my feet lose their footing on my pedals and I hit the ground, bike still between my legs and moving full speed ahead as I attempt to wobble/run with it up the hill. Leave it to Sister Hannah. Needless to say, the bike was dropped off a the bike shop and not picked up until it was fixed. HAHA. My life!
Thank you for bearing with my as I collected my thoughts while I wrote! This week was one of the best weeks we have had! :)
I absolutely LOVE being a full time missionary! I love my Savior and His atonement. I love being able to share the pure JOY of the gospel with every single person I see.
This is the greatest time of my life! :)
Much love from the GKLM,
Sister Hannah
pictures can be found here:
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