May 16, 2011

So it's not often, maybe never, I think, that I'm able to write to you
on one of my mission birthdays... But today I am 11 months old.
Someone asked me yesterday how long I'd been out on my mission, and
for the first time, I was kind of hestitant to talk about it. It's
weird. Up till just recently, I've been looking forward to being
finished. I'm still excited about coming home and getting back into
life, but I'm also not looking forward to it, if that makes any sense.
lol. It doesn't, but I can't explain it any other way... :)

I hope you all had a good week. Mine was pretty great. We did a lot
of teaching this week. We were able to meet with Michael finally(our
20 year old investigator that I think I told you about last week).
His work schedule has kept him pretty busy so we weren't able to meet
with him until just Saturday night. We taught him about the
restoration. We had a hard time keeping the lesson very spiritual the
last time. Probably due to his age and the fact that he's super
adorable, and the member we brought with us is a super cute girl who
is exactly the same age. lol. I should have realized.. hahahaha.
Anyway, this time, instead of doing much talking, we watched the
Restoration video. It went really great. When the video was over,
Michael practically had tears in his eyes and told us that he wanted
to have a spiritual confirmation that what we were teaching was true.
We told him how he could know and asked him to have a kneeling prayer
with us right then. The spirit was so thick in the room that I almost
couldn't breath. It was epic. My companion recommitted him to be
baptized and then set the date with him too. He said yes. So we're
planning on a baptism in June! YAY! The only tricky thing is that
he'll be moving to go to college in 2 weeks. :( So he'll probably
get baptized in the singles ward where he moves. No matter. I'm
priveliged to have been able to have this experience with Sister
Barfuss and Michael.

We had a pretty interesting experience regarding obedience this week
as well. It's kind of a long story, so hang on with me. :)

We had a mission conference on Saturday (I think I remember telling
you about it, and I'll talk about it in a second...) and we found out
early in the week that ALL of the other sister missionaries in the
entire mission were coming up to Yuba City, which is in our Zone, the
night before, so they wouldn't have to drive 2 hours (which would mean
that would have had to leave at 5:30 am) on Saturday morning to get
here on time. They would all be spending the night with members and
the other sisters who live in Yuba. Sister Barfuss and I have really
missed having sisters around, which, when you live in the south of the
mission, happens all the time. But since we live in Colusa, we almost
never see any missionaries, ever, let alone sisters. So we called the
Assistants to ask if we might be able to have a companionship or two
come spend the night with us, or if not, at least maybe allow us to go
to dinner with all the other sisters who were all getting together
anyway. They told us no, which I couldn't understand and so was hard
for me. 12 of the 14 sisters were together on friday night, and the
only ones missing were Sister Barfuss and me. It was really hard to
deal with. I was mostly over it on Thursday, but I was not looking
forward to Friday night, being in Colusa, working, while the rest of
the sisters were having fun together without us. So we went to our
dinner appointment on Friday night and sat down after dinner to teach
our regular dinner lesson. Which, by the way, is about internalizing
the Doctrine of Christ, and it has so far not failed to produce major
spiritual growth and commitment from the members we've shared it with.
The family we ate dinner with are an older couple. The wife is very
active, but the husband comes out of a sense of duty to his wife.
He's a convert of 6 years, I think. Anyway, we taught it and we asked
"how can you make the Doctrine of Christ part of who you are instead
of just knowing it?" and the husband said, "I don't know. That's the
problem I've been having. Can you tell me?" It was so cool to have
finally, after almost 4 months of working with this family, gotten to
where we needed to to help him find and grow his testimony. And it
wouldn't have happened if we'd been in Yuba with the other sisters.
So my testimony in following the counsel of my priesthood leaders has
really grown this last week. :)

So about the conference on Saturday... Here's who was there: Elder
Trythol, an Area Seventy over Northern California, Elder Waddell, of
the First Quorum of the Seventy, Bishop McMullin of the Presiding
Bishopric, President Halstrom of the Presidency of the Seventy, and
Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve. It was
amazing. We got to meet and shake the hands of each of them. They
spent about 20 minutes each instructing us on the messages that they
felt they needed to share with us to be better missionaries. Then
Elder Christofferson gave us an apostolic blessing. It was pretty
much amazing. I left feeling more renewed and committed to the work
than I ever have before. Maybe that's why I've suddenly gotten leary
about having been here longer than the time that I have left... I
dunno. It was good. And I'm excited to see the changes in me, my
companion, and the area I serve in, as a result of the the things I
learned there.

Well, this has gone on long enough, and I'm about out of time. I love
you all, and I miss you. I'm doing great. And I love the work!

Love, Sister Reid

May 9, 2011

Hello everybody. I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's day weekend. I know that I did! I got to call home, and that's always amazing! Getting to talk to everyone was great! I miss you all tons, and I'm glad everyone was able to chat. It was bittersweet, though, because now we have to wait 8 months! Christmas seems like it will never come. lol.

So this email will be mostly for the benefit of those of you who were not on the phone call. Sorry. I wish I could have talked to everyone!

We had a great week! We taught some great lessons with a our new investigators Jan and Leonard. We taught them the Plan of Salvation at a member's home, and they liked it, and the spirit was definately there, but there was something lacking in their conviction. They were even suggesting that they might not want to be baptized on May 28th, like we committed them last week. We were kind of sad about that. And as we left the lesson we were concerned that they might be falling away. So after church yesterday, we went to thier home and visited with them a little bit. Something has happened between the last time we met with them and yesterday. They have a new light. The Spirit has taught them as they've read from the Book of Mormon and as they've talked about the things they're learning and prayed about it. Jan even made one comment where she talked about "our church". It was so cool. I love being a part of teaching them, but I know that I can only say words. As I've done this now for almost 11 months, I'm starting to recognize the pattern where my companion and I go in and teach them a few times, but they don't get it, and then we come back, and the spirit has worked with them in the meantime. And then they get it. And Jan and Leonard have gotten it! They still won't be baptized on May 28th, which is sad, because they'll be out of town for the next several weeks, and you can't get baptized till you go to church, which they haven't done yet, but as soon as they're back in town, we'll visit with them, teach them some more, and then recommit them. And that will be awesome!

We also picked up a new investigator earlier this week named Michael. He's 20 years old. His older brother is a convert of a couple of years. Michael has been to church with him a few times and said that he really liked it. So his brother, Andrew, went to the temple and asked for them to send missionaries to his brother. The temple sent us a text message and we contacted Michael. He's so prepared too. We've met with him once, and he readily accepted the invitation to be baptized! It was awesome. And we're looking forward to being able to meet with him again this week and to teaching him and setting a baptismal date with him. It will be so cool!

We had zone conference on Friday. It was an amazing meeting. We got to listen to a talk that Elder Holland gave to all the missionaries in the MTC in January. He talked about Peter, the apostle who became the head of the church after Christ left. Peter went home after Christ's resurrection, not really knowing what to do. He went back to his old life from before the Savior. He and the other apostles went fishing. Elder Holland said that that is what a lot of returned missionaries do. They go back to life after their calling is over. And they put everything they learned and have done for the last 18 months or 2 years away on a shelf somewhere. Some of them, more than they like to admit, even go inactive, having never recieved their own true conversion. But for Peter, and for all members everywhere, the calling to be His disciple does not end. Christ came to Peter and admonished him 3 times (3 being a fairly sensative number for Peter at this point in his life) to basically "forget yourself and go to work." The calling to be His disciple will not end for me in January. And it has not ended for any of you who are members of His church. Once you are a member you will never be the same person. You can't be the same. You've been changed. As a returned missionary, I will never be the same either. When I come home in January, I will not be the same person who left last June. "I have been called of Him, to declare His word, among His people, that they might have everlasting life" and that call will not end when I'm released from my mission. And it has not ended for any of you. Go and study 2 Nephi 31 - the Doctrine of Christ - and really internalize it. That will take time, and diligence and serious pondering. But when you do that, you will become who He expects you to be, and your joy will be above what you can even imagine.

That's pretty much all the amazing stuff going on in Colusa right now. We have a full mission conference on Friday and all the missionaries will be in attendance. Which hasn't happened in, like, 5 years. We have the opportunity to be taught by Elder Christofferson, and 5 other general authorities who are all in town for a massive training meeting with all the leadership in northern California. They've requested to meet with all the missionaries for several hours beforehand. So I'm sure there will much more to tell you next week. :)

So until then, have a good week. Pray hard, read your scriptures, be better today than you were yesterday, and when you're not, pray for help tomorrow. :)

I love you all and miss you all and I hope this wasn't too preachy. lol

Love, Sister Reid

May 2, 2011

Hello my firends.

We had an awesome week this week. The first half of the week saw us picking up 3 new investigators. With the ones we're teaching, the new ones, and the ones we dropped, we're up to 14, which is AMAZING! We've started teaching an older couple named Jan and Leonard. Jan's two younger brothers are both less actives in our branch. We're working with both of them to get them active again. That's how we met Jan. She really likes the church and when we offered to start teaching her as well, she was very excited. We taught them on Monday, and both of them really loved the message of the Book of Mormon. We committed them to read and pray. It was fantastic. The Spirit was so strong and really testified of the things that we shared with them. We even got to bring some of thier neighbors who are members of the branch to the lesson. And they really hit it off. It was so cool. We had another lesson with them last night, and we taught them both the restoration. Again, the spirit was thick enough to cut with a knife, almost. They had both read the chapter from the Book of Mormon that we left for them to read several times since Monday, and they believe that the Book of Mormon is true. We talked about the need for a restoration and the priesthood. As we talked about the Book of Mormon and why we needed it, I shared the scripture in the New Testament where Jesus Christ is baptized "to fulfill all righteosness". I asked if anyone knew what that meant. When no one did, I was like, "that's why we need the Book of Mormon, to clarify the Bible." So we turned to 2 Nephi 31 where Nephi asks the same question, "wherein did the Lord fulfill all righteousness by being baptized, yeah, even by water?" And then he answers the question in the succeeding verses. It's so cool! I love the Book of Mormon. Anyway, while we were talking about baptism and the priesthood authority, we felt the prompting to invite them both to be baptized. It was amazing. Especially when they both said yes! And we set them for a date on May 28th! Woo Hoo!!! I love the Spirit. It's amazing!

We've also started teaching a younger couple. The wife, Teri, is a member but hasn't been active since High School and her husband, Chris is not a member. Teri's sister recently passed away, and they attended the funeral and then requested a priesthood blessing. It was especially cool because we didn't know they were in the branch. We hadn't had their records in the branch, so when they called the Mission office, we got to find out about them. After the priesthood blessing, Chris said that he feels warm, like he's home. And he wanted to learn more about what we know. So we taught them about the restoration this week too. We're planning on inviting Chris to be baptized on May 28th during our next appointment on Wednesday. We've got some tall miracles that we're asking of the Lord right now, and we're praying like crazy and fasting that we'll be able to see these wonderful families united together in the gospel. It's amazing what fasting and prayer can do. Please, as you all go throughout your days this week, keep a small prayer in your heart for the people we're teaching. We've promised our branch some mighty miracles, and we're hoping and praying that the Lord will back us up. And we could really use your prayers too. :)

We got to go to Yuba city on Saturday to help with the Stake's Mormon Helping Hands project. It was way fun. The stake had found a whole neighborhood who was willing to let us clean up their street. We painted their houses, did their yard work, and in some cases, even reconstructed porches. It was awesome. Our branch was a little slow in getting organized, so we're having our own Mormon Helping Hands day on the 14th, where we'll be cleaning the city pool and getting it ready for the summer. The branch is getting excited about it, and we're looking forward to being able to be really visible to the community while we get it done. :)

I think that's pretty much it. We've got some amazing things planned for this week, plus we have zone conference on Friday, which will be awesome. I love zone conference. I'm looking forward to being able to call the family on Sunday. And I can't wait until next week to tell you the results of all our crazy miracles this week!

I love you all so much. Thanks for everything you do!

Love, Sister Reid