What An amazing week we have had here in Mill Creek WA. Let me just say, the whether the past 5 days or so has been amazing! It has been so sunny and has been in the high 50's to the high 60's! Love the sun soooo much. Also I love Refit, but the songs are just constantly in my head!
This week we had lots of lessons with members in our ward which is awesome! and even more this week! We have been striving to get 20 lessons a week and our district set a goal to get 14 this past week(which we got 15!) then 17 this week and 20 the week after! But we have 4 lessons tonight after PDAY which is way awesome, two with members and 2 with friends (Investigators).
Laurie has been making some big life changes and is impacting her in an amazing way! She has been getting rid of a lot of her stuff in her house and we have been helping her out and it has been making her excited to just start fresh because she has just been dragging a lot of the stuff she has with her for years. We are also going to start the 15 step stop smoking program with her this week and she just wants to quit so bad. She is working so hard to change her life around and it has been a miracle seeing these changes in her.
Kurt is another one of our friends we've been teaching and we had the most bomb lesson with him this week! We sit outside with him and he had a little fire pit going and it was super nice. But he has been struggling with humility and trusting in God for help, he is the kind of guy who thinks it's weak if you ask help from anybody, but he knows he needs to change, but is super hard for him to. So we just talked a lot about humility and the spirit just filled our hearts, there were a lot of moments of silence and the spirit would just bare testimony to all of us. He came up with his own commitment and told us what he needs to do, and it was to read the last chapter that we left with him, Alma 32, but not analyze it, but listen to the spirit to receive an answer. He then said, "I feel very uncomfortable right now." And we told him it was the spirit, and he's like, "I need to learn to be okay with feeling this more." So it was way awesome! He is a really cool guy, excited to move forward with him.
We had Zone Conference on Friday and they asked me to say the opening prayer. It went good, We talked all about how we can become more like the messenger (Jesus Christ). I loved the analogy Sister Wilding used about candle making. We were reading in Alma 17 and in verse 2 it talked about how the sons of Mosiah waxed stronger in their faith. She asked us what it means to wax stronger? and then she pulled out a small birthday candle. She asked us if we knew the process of candle making, she then explained that you have different colors of wax sometimes in buckets and you dip the wick into one and let it harden and then another one layer by layer until it becomes a candle. It's a long process, but the more you do it, the stronger and longer lasting your candle will be. I loved it because when you think about the purpose of a candle, it's to give off light. How long and how much light we can share with others is our goal. Do we want to be a candle that only gives off warmth and light for a minute, or a candle that gives off warmth and light for a lifetime? But it's not only about how long our light can last, but how much light we can share with others. So we need to build layer by layer and make ourselves strong in the gospel!
We went on exchanges Friday night to Saturday night and I stayed here with sister Savoy. She was my Sister Training leader while I was in Oak Harbor as well. We had such an awesome day together. We had dinner with one of her converts Eric at this nice Mexican restaurant. He is such an amazing member.
Something I learned in my studies the other day was when I was reading in Ether Chapter 2:14.
It's when the Brother of Jared and his family and friends are all just chilling at the waters edge for 4 years and had forgotten to pray to the Lord for guidance. The Lord Chastised the Brother of Jared for 3 hours, but forgave him for his sins. Elder Neal A. Maxwell once said, "The Lord is truly there to chastise those whom He loves, including the spiritually preeminent. The Brother of Jared for too long had failed to pray. Even the good can become careless without the Lord’s being there to chasten. Later, the chastened Brother of Jared saw Christ!" Just thought that was something cool to ponder.
Hope you all have an amazing week this week! love you lots!
Love,
Sister Stokes
Sister Pedersen and Sister Peterson are companions!
Maren sent me this picture of us! Miss her.
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