Mar Vista: Transfer 11: Week 1‏ / April 4, 2011

General Conference!!! Woo! Yeah! Wasn't it awesome?!

Ha Ha, yes, as missionaries we get pretty excited about conference. Its almost better than Christmas even. :D I loved hearing from the prophet and the apostles. The fact that God still speaks to us through his prophets has got to be one of my favorite things to share with people. Heavenly Father loves us, so of course he is still going to speak to us. Why wouldn't he? I loved the emphasis on charity, and really being true disciples of Christ. I felt like it was a call to action to be even more sincere in everything we do, and be motivated by true, Christlike love. I also love how it talked about sacrifice and suffering being part of our journey as disciples of Christ, and that it is what shapes and defines us. We can't expect life to be easy, or to have a quick fix for our problems. God is the Gardener! He wants us to learn and grow. It is so true! If our life were just cushy and comfortable, we wouldn't learn and grow, and Heavenly Father wouldn't really be showing his love to us, because he wouldn't be helping us to be better, happier people.

We had transfers this past week and my companion and I were blessed to stay together and in the same area, but it was still a really hard transfer for me. Three of my companions finished their missions and went home. I've been together with them for my whole mission, so we've become really great, close friends, and it was hard to see them leave, and also to realize how close the end is for me. It is a hard reality to face, and a very bittersweet thing to think about. My problem wasn't really trunkiness as much as it was feeling all of these doubts and fears about the future that Satan was trying to convince me to believe. I've been doing a lot better now as I've realized that I need to take President Monson's advice to "Fear not! The future is as bright as your faith."

I was feeling really down that morning in the Visitors' Center, but then we went out into our area that afternoon and saw some incredible miracles. We had received a referral for someone that had requested a Bible on mormon.org, and they had put the address for an apartment building but not an apartment number, so we said "ok, for some reason Heavenly Father wants us to go to this specific apartment building." We went and started knocking on doors and finally Maxine answered. At first she asked "Who are you? What do you want?" and we told her we were looking for someone who had ordered a Bible, and she told us that she hadn't requested one online but she had asked the Jehovah's witnesses for one but hadn't gotten it yet, so we told her "Well, this Bible must be for you!" She was so happy, and she told us that she had a mormon friend that had taken her to church a few times and she really enjoyed it. She told us that she had been taking care of her dad who is really sick and she apologized for being rude with us in the beginning, because it had just been hard for her to see her dad sick and she almost didn't answer the door. We gave her a "Together Forever DVD" and she told us "Oh, I'm sure I'm going to love it! I'm going to watch it tonight with me dad, and then I'm going to watch it again with my granddaughters. She thanked us for brightening her day by coming by, and really wanted us to visit with her this next week, so hopefully we'll see her again soon. It was an amazing miracle, and it reminded me of one of my favorite scriptures in Alma 31, where it talks about our afflictions being "swallowed up in the joy of Christ." Now matter how bad or how hard something is, God always gives us more joy and blessings than we could ever deserve and that far outweigh our sorrows and sufferings. We can't give him a crust without getting a loaf in return.

Have a great week!

Sister Dansie