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| I forgot to send this a while ago, during Christmas, but let's just say that it scared the heck out of me and we ended up driving back because I thought there was a poor man who needed saving. Dumb decorations... |
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| Goodbye Elder Wilstead! My old zone leader turned AP turned RM :( |
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| Welcome to the Houston Heights! |
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| I mustache you a question. |
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| Zone service project at the Houston Food Bank. |
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| One of our last district pictures :( |
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| Hermana Villanueva and I on a trip downtown. She goes home in 2 days!!!! |
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| Comp unity |
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| Everything is bigger in Texas! |
Happy Valentine's Day week!
So transfer calls have been made and the verdict is... Sister Bonner is leaving :( It is such a sad day in Melbourne. She has been here her entire mission, which is 71/2 months, so I guess it's time, but it will be a bummer for sure. That means I will be either getting a new comp tomorrow, or training and getting a new missionary on Thursday. I guess we'll see what happens. Luckily, as time goes on, transfers become less and less traumatic and you just deal with whatever happens. I mean it wasn't that bad before, but having to get to know a new person by suddenly living with them is always a little awkward. Like I said though, all is well.
So this past week was good as usual. It flew by, just like everything else seems to be flying by. I have no idea where this transfer went. I blinked and we were getting calls again. We were able to meet with Jontae again, and this time, after a couple months of meeting with him, we were finally able to teach him inside of his house. It was so cool, because his mom was there as well and she sat in the lesson and participated and loved it. She totally opened up about her life and about how she needs to have God and Jesus Christ in her life and she agreed to continue meeting with us and Jontae, so that was pretty cool. We also extended a baptismal invite to Jontae, and he agreed to pray about it, hopefully as we continue to meet with them they both will have a desire to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the proper priesthood authority. Jackie, on the other hand, has fallen off the face of the earth. We had exchanges this weekend with the Hermanas, and because Hermana Villanueva was the one who initially found her, we figured we'd stop by and see if Jackie would let us in because she was there. She did and we chatted for a little bit, and she promised she would come to church the next day, but she didn't and she hasn't been answering our calls. So hopefully that will resolve itself soon.
Speaking of transfers, because I was with Hna Villanueva, I got to go with her to the Spanish area for the first time. It was so fun. I got to use some of my new found Spanish to help teach the restoration, and I invited a woman to church in Espanol and ya, I'm definitely not awesome at it, but I can get by, which is encouraging. Anyways, other than that, the only other semi- interesting thing that happened was on P-day when we all went downtown and went to the very top floor of Chase Tower and took pictures. Haha that was fun. We probably didn't look as mature and dignified as we could have, but that's ok. It happens sometimes.
So a thought I had this week was on forgiveness. I have been reading the book "The Miracle of Forgiveness" by Spencer W. Kimball, and I love it. A lot of people don't like that book because they think it is too harsh and blunt, but I like it for just that reason. When you are clear on the rules and the expectations, there is no room for error because of ignorance. Anyways, there is a section in the book that concerns the repentance process and part of that process is, in order to receive forgiveness for yourself, you need to forgive others. This idea never really stood out to me before. There is a section in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah chapter 4 that talks about this concept. Basically it says, if someone is asking for our forgiveness and we fail to forgive them (sincerely) then we stand condemned. The reason being, that we are all beggars. We have all asked, or are currently asking, the Lord to forgive us for our transgressions, and if we cannot give that same relief to another person then we are hypocrites. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said a quote that I have probably mentioned before, but here it is again. "We don't want God to remember our sins, so there is something fundamentally wrong in our relentlessly trying to remember those of others." I don't think this really hits home until you are really trying to repent for something, and you realize that that is impossible if you have not completely forgiven those around you of any trespasses against you. I like it though. If we could all rid ourselves of any malice or anger or resentment towards others due to wrongs done in the past and that are sometimes imagined, the world really would be a better place. Obviously that is easier said than done, but I can promise that if you diligently seek to find forgiveness in your heart through prayer and fasting, that peace will come and your life will be blessed because of it. Anyways, that was my thought or the day.
I love you all and hope you all get to smooch that special someone on V-day. Or not, eating a box of chocolate is just as good :) have a good week!
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