A Work and A Wonder

This has been one busy week that I will remember for the rest of my life. I will start off from the beginning. 

We had interviews with our President on Wednesday, Transfers are next Wednesday and the 2 Russian sisters are coming. He told me that he wants to hear my thoughts on what I think would be best with them coming so he can have more of an idea what to have happen. So I might be training one of them English and just do some Russian on occasion, or sister P will train both of them! but we will see, If I train one of them, I would have to white wash somewhere (which means both of us are new in an area we don't know anything about) and that would be a little chaotic haha. But the Lord knows best!  

Exchanges!

We had Exchanges this week and I went to the University of Washington (U-Dub) YSA with Sister Lowry! It was such a blast, that campus is huge and soooo cool! I miss YSA and It was great being able to talk to so many of them. All you have to do is go outside an there are people everywhere and you just got to talk to them! We met some awesome people and even found an awesome potential and got her number. We were visiting Less active members of their ward who they have no idea who they are and the first one lived down town Seattle in this really nice apartment that was locked. We called her room number but no one answered, the front desk person inside asked us who were looking for and told him her name and he goes, "oh you won't find her there, she is on the 10th floor for the wedding reception" and lets us in thinking we are going to that because we're in dresses😂 once we're inside he saw our name tags and looked at us confused and it was a little awkward. He asks, "Is she expecting you tonight?" We go "no" lol and say, "we probably will just text her" and he goes, "Yeah, that's probably best" and walks back to the front desk haha.

We went to Seattle 3 days in a row: for exchanges, visited some referrals in west Seattle, then for President Nelsons Devotional.

President Nelson's Devotional!

We met with another zone at 3:00 to wait for our Bus that would take us down to Safeco Field, but 45 minutes go by and they tell us our bus broke down on the highway. We couldn't get a hold of the manager to send a new bus and so we decided to say a prayer and 30 seconds later the manager calls us and tells us there is another bus on its way! We finally get in our seats right when President Nelson is walking out, we got to sit in the Suites in the mariners stadium which was way cool! The spirit was so strong in that stadium, it has probably never been that reverent in a stadium with 49,000 people before ha! 

Each of the talks they shared with us were so powerful and spirit driven. I learned so much just by the spirit and gained a deeper love for our Prophet. Sister Wendy Nelson's talk was so amazing, She started off her talk saying something like this, "for some reason, the song 'take me out to the ball game' keeps echoing in my mind. I am craving a hot dog. That hasn't happened to me at a devotional before." She talked about her experience of being the wife of a prophet and some experiences she has had. Her witness and testimony of her husband being the Prophet for these last days and was foreordained for this calling was indescribable.  Sister Nelson talked about how her husband has more frequently than ever received revelation in the night time, and when he does, he writes it on his yellow notepad.  she said something on the lines of this, "One time, in the middle of the night, I was awakened by the spirit telling me I needed to go to the other room. 2 hours later, I came back to bed and my husband tells me that he just received the most amazing revelation these past 2 hours." She says she has never looked at what he writes because she knows how sacred it is, but when it happens, she normally will just be silent and listen to him so she doesn't overstep her boundaries. I have so much respect for her, she is an amazing example of what it means to be a women of faith.

So one of my goals to prepare for this Devotional was to read President Nelson's past Conference talks. One talk I read was from October 2001 called, "Set In Order Thy House" and while I was sitting and listening to President Nelson speaking on Saturday, He starts telling a story about a rafting trip he took with his wife and 9 daughters. I was so confused why this story sounded so familiar to me like I have already heard it, and I realized that it was because I just read it this past week in that Conference talk from 2001! It was so cool! He also talked about his experience in a plane and the wing caught fire and they were going down to their death, it is also a Mormon message. I loved all the inspiring words that were said during the devotional. I took away so much from it and am grateful for the Revelation we are able to receive as we listen closely to the spirit and what He wants us to learn. President Nelson at the end says he's grateful for all 45,000 of us who came tonight then sat down, The organ starts playing and he gets back up and stops the music and says, "I Believe repentance works" then said the total number of people in attendance is 49,089! we all laughed and cheered.😂 

Our Recent Concert Sergei and his wife were able to got to the Devotional and at church the next day they're countenance was so different, they were glowing! They were so happy to be there! That was super special. Vanya from our Russian group translated for the devotional to Russian for those there and he said that when he read over the talks they didn't seem special, just normal talks, but once they started giving the talks, it totally changed and the spirit struck him! 

I love this Gospel and am grateful for the many experiences I am given here on my mission. I hope you all will prepare in some sort of way to here our prophet in a short couple weeks in General conference! Love you all!

Love,

Sister Stokes