As I’m sure most of you already know, I am staying in the Village ward another transfer with Sister Van Heel!! Whoop whoop. Alright, on to business. Little warning before you start reading this though: it could be a doozy. We had a ton of great things happen this week and I just have GOT to let you know!
On Friday we had a special Zone Conference where Elder Golden (of the area 70) and his wife came and talked to/trained us. When we have conferences like this we are always asked to ‘prepare for it’. Luckily, I had an incredible Zone Leader in Hesperia that explained to us the way we can ‘prepare’ is by going with a question that we need answered in our heart. I totally forgot all about that until Thursday night when I was lying in bed.
Well, Sister Golden got up to talk to us and let us know at the very beginning that just yesterday when she was getting to train the missionaries in our mission down in the Valley she talked all on ‘enduring the end’. She told us, however, that she was prompted to say this: You are SO important to Heavenly Father. He loves you. He knows you’re working hard and trying your best. You are so very important to him.
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| Zone Conference |
She literally talked to us about this for a good 20 mins. I sat in complete awe. Little did she know that the prayer I had come to that meeting with in my heart was this: Is Heavenly Father proud of me? How does He feel about me right now? I need to know He isn’t disappointed in me. WOW. I know that obviously there were more people there than just me that needed to hear the words she spoke. However, the thing I took from it all was this: I am so important to Heavenly Father that He allowed her to change the course of her message to answer MY question because He cares about me that much. She was talking TO me FOR Heavenly Father. I will never forget that experience. Afterwards I went up to her and thanked her over and over for following the prompting of the spirit that allowed me to get an unshakable answer that Heavenly Father loved me. We cried together. It was so special. Isn’t it great to know that He hears every single one of our prayers and that He will do whatever He has to do for us to get our answers and for us to understand we got them?
-I saw Vanilla Cokes on sale somewhere we went and got one simply because it made me think of Emily Grace and our love for them. Yep. Yall might assume I never think of you anymore, but you’re darn wrong :)
-While having a lesson this week with a grandpa and 3 little boys the 7 year old of the bunch, after the older 2 getting a little rowdie (and yes I know that’s not how you spell rowdy, but that’s how we spelt it in cheerleading so it just feels right ;p) he stands up and goes “Ok. We are getting off track!” HAHAH. So great.
-Sister Van Heel and I were talking during lunch the day before Zone Conference and I asked her what she was wearing to it, she told me she didn’t know and I responded (in all seriousness…which is the part that makes this sad hahah) “Look. We’ve already talked about laying out your clothes at night.” She makes me feel like a mom haha. I guess it’s good practice? :p
-WE GET TO DRIVE A JEEP NOW. WHAAAAWHOOOOO. I seriously get to drive nicer cars on my mission than I’ll ever own in my life. Love the mission life. And thankful we have a car!
-Our Zone Leaders had to come get something from our house and at some point in the conversation we brought up how Vicky gave us those awesome fur coats last week…I think you already know where this is going.
-President Hobbs said ‘Yall’ on Friday. Warmed my little heart.
-After a really long and busy week of mostly service and meetings and feeling like we hadn’t got to do much teaching at all we had 13 honkin’ people at church on Sunday. It was the most incredible feeling to be sitting there and to keep seeing more and more people walk in that you never thought would come. We couldn’t thank Heavenly Father enough the rest of the day for that miracle. Shoot! I’m STILL thankin’ Him! It’s just proof to me that no work goes unnoticed to Him and that hard work will always pay off, even if you don’t get to see that until the eternities.
Sister Hobbs on Friday asked us “If you were to go a week without food how would you feel?”
Elder Coburn (who I love and miss dearly): “DEAD.”
Well, that’s how we will feel when we don’t feed our spirit. We have GOT to be reading our scriptures, praying and obeying the commandments daily. We are literally a THREAT to Satan as we study daily. We can’t think we can go weeks or even DAYS without that spiritual nourishment. I want yall to try harder this week to spiritual feed yourselves. Ok?
We met with a part member family this week. The mom is a non-member and her son is leaving for his mission in like 2 weeks. My heart went out to her. Yes, I know it’s hard for my mom and many others to send their “baby” out into the world with little communication and knowing they will have hard times and such. But at least they get it. They have the gospel in their lives. They KNOW the importance of letting us go out and share it with everyone. This poor mom had no idea. She doesn’t have the gospel. She is scared silly and I love that she is allowing her son to leave even though she doesn’t get it. That’s faith. It makes me even more thankful for the gospel though. It’s there to heal our broken hearts, give us peace and reassurance and to help us see the bigger picture of it all.
It’s starting to get pretty chilly up here in the Hi-Desert, so I want to go to a bonfire. NBD though…there’s time for allla that at a later day :) I can’t believe I only have 4 transfers left. I know there’s still a lot of work left for me to do in this area. Oh and btw: after 12 long months of questioning where I need to live after my mission and after making the decision to not think about it anymore 4 months ago…I know I need to be in Utah. When it comes to school I got no earthly idea, but I know I need to be in Utah. Phew. How’s that for a public announcement? LOVE YALL! <3
-hugs-
Sister Toolan
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| The greatest GOOD BYE hug ever from Sister Havens! |
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