I can't believe it. I don't want to believe it. There is still so much more that I have to do here, there are so many more people to find and teach and baptize and love!
Tuesday was a great day! We taught 5 lessons in four hours and we hit almost every single goal we had set that day. We taught la familia Palacios, Maricruz, then Maricruz's boys, then Priscila, and then a less active lady in our ward. But even more important than teaching lots of lessons, every single one of those lessons was filled with the spirit, there were some points when you could cut it with a knife. The spirit led us to ask just the right questions, and helped each of these people to understand the concepts that were being taught and apply them to their lives. They opened up in the lessons and we were all able to strengthen our testimonies together. It was beautiful and was yet another experience that reminded me what this work is all about.
There were actually a lot of really neat things that happened this week but I don't have the time to write them down right now, and my mind is kind of all over the place... I'll tell you about them on Wednesday.
Our conference with Elders Sabin, Maines, and Ballard was fantastic! They all spoke of missionary work, of course, but they shared some of their personal missionary experiences from when they were missionaries, and told us how we can be more focused and successful. Elder Sabin's talk was about The Book of Mormon and how it is the cure to sadness, and the gospel is the source of all happiness. If we want to be effective missionaries we need to be humble and pure. It was a great talk! Elder Maines shared a really neat analogy with us. If you are familiar with the painting of Joseph Smith's first prayer you'll remember him kneeling in a grove of trees taken aback as he looks up at The Father and The Son. Joseph was the ultimate investigator- he had all the right questions about the nature of god and which church to join, and he was willing to do something in order to find answers. As he prayed in search for an answer, he was visited by 2 messengers... Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ were the very first companionship of this dispensation, and their investigator was Joseph Smith. They are the ultimate companionship... and he asked us "how are we following in their footsteps in our own companionships?" Pretty powerful, huh? He then talked to us about how to know if the people we are teaching are really searching for truth and if they're ready for it or not yet- and you can tell by if they are keeping their commitments or not. If they are reading, praying, attending church, and keeping the commandments, then they are ready and they are true investigators. It was a neat talk and gave Hermana Woodruff and I some revelation for our area. Elder Ballard's talk was focused around 3 things that will help us to be better missionaries: 1. "if you want to baptized more people you need to talk to more people." He then proceeded to talk to us about speaking with as many people as possible in a day, and going out of our way to do it. If we would double the people we talk to then we would double our baptisms. 2. We need to be taking more time to make sure our investigators truly understand what we are teaching them- so we need to simplify our teaching and ask questions to see what they understood. 3. if we internalize the doctrine of the scriptures then we will be better teachers, be able to answer questions, and will have the spirit more strongly. GREAT CONFERENCE. AND WE GOT TO SHAKE THEIR HANDS AND THEY EVEN LOOKED AT EACH OF US IN THE EYEBALLS! Elder Ballard's hands are soft and plump haha.
I want you to know that my mission is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and there has not been one time that I have ever regretted my decision to come. I know the Lord put me here for a very specific reason, and that there are people here that I was supposed to meet, not just to help them, but they have helped me and shaped me to who I am now. I love these people. I consider them my family and would do anything for them. I am so grateful for the blessing that it has been to work so hard, and also to grow closer to my Savior Jesus Christ through the trials and hardships that came (and will still come!). I see miracles every day, some bigger than others, but miracles nonetheless. This is the Lord's work and He knows every single one of His children and is there to help and uplift us, always. I know that this gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. We still have a prophet on the earth today and we are so so blessed to know this. I love my Savior and I am so grateful to Him for his sacrifice and allowing me to feel even a small portion of what he might have felt that night in Gethsemane. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
-Hermana Inman
See you on Wednesday.
