Wow oh wow! Has it been a year? Happy Birthdayyyy!!!!!
Hello family!!!!
Wow, thank you sooooooo much for all of your emails this week! I truly felt the love coming my way. And it was perfect timing because I am about to hit my year mark this week! It is so crazy, and time has gone by so fast since I have come on my mission. Yesterday, I was pondering a lot about who I have become since I've come on my mission. I contemplated about the lessons I've learned, and the experiences I've had, and the perspective that I have gained. I didn't truly realize before just how much I have changed. And I am so grateful to have had these past 12 months to grow and stretch and learn and progress in many ways.
Get ready to read! So I discovered that when I speak into the voice recognition thing, that it makes emailing a lot faster because I don't actually have to type it out. I unfortunately can't do that at the library considering as it would be embarrassing for me haha. But today is your lucky day! But please forgive me if there's any grammar issues in here, it's not my fault aha.
So anyways,
I feel like my perspective on life has changed, in that I have been able to focus on more important things, rather than those things that really don't matter in the eternal scheme of things. I feel like I had become closer to the Savior. And I have come to realize just how important it is to understand the restored gospel, and how crucial it is to follow it in order to gain "peace in this life and eternal life in the life to come". I have come to realize how vital daily scripture study and prayer is to our spiritual well-being and survival. I've come to learn things about myself that I would not have otherwise learned had I not come on a mission. I have learned what it means to work hard and to keep trying and have faith in the Lord's timing. I have learned how to pray sincerely and fervently for not only other people but for myself. I have felt just a taste of what the Savior feels when we refused to except his gospel and keep his commandments.
I have learned that nothing is worth the spiritual damage that comes from Satan, and that by submitting our will to his, we receive the promise of much greater blessings and we could ever imagine. I have learned obedience is not a burden, but it is rather a blessing and an opportunity to exercise my agency righteously. Through my turning my will to God, I have witnessed miracles that have happened that would not have otherwise happened had I not listen to the promptings of the Spirit. I have learned how crucial it is to not do anything that would disrupt or hinder the spirits guidance and influence in my life. I have learned that obedience to the simple things could to foundation
that allows us to make the greater decisions later in life.
I have learned that family is everything. I have seen destroyed homes, destroyed marriages and relationships, and ruined lives, and depressed souls. These are those of the gospel can heal our hearts and give peace to our minds and souls.
I have learned the true happiness comes in the Gospel, and that there is no equal replacement. One of Satan's greatest tricks is to present us with a cheap alternative and impersonation and imitation. But what he offers us will never ever be anything compared to the glory and grandeur and await us from following the council of our Savior Jesus Christ. The Scriptures are the key to happiness. The book of Mormon is the word of God, Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and through him Jesus Christ restored the very same church that he created when he came down personally upon the earth.
God speaks to his prophets today. God hears our prayers. He is merciful, he is loving, but his judgments are just. He will never take away our agency, only we can do that. Satan will try to convince us that Preston dating the day of our repentance is the way to go, but it is not. I have found joy through repentance, and life is so much easier when you don't have that burden of sin on your shoulders.
Since I have come on my mission, I have come to realize my own individual worth in the sight of God. I have begun to see this as I have seen others who don't understand this truth. I have been able to help people realize their divine nature and individual worth it in the sight of God, you're sharing the doctrine of God being our loving heavenly father. That is the first The doctor and we teach as missionaries, and it is for reason. Nothing else matters unless that is true. If God did not love us, we would not be here and this life would not happen, nor would we ever have the chance to become like him. We would not have agency, Nor would we have joy. Families would not be together forever. There would be no Savior, for if God did not love us he would not have sent his Son. But he does love us. And because he loves loves us, he has reached out to his children in love over and over again since the time that mankind began. He gives us modern day prophets who revealed to us God's will for us in order to receive joy and strength and peace.
Because he loves us, he inspired many men to write down their spiritual experiences, their history, there are prophecies, and other things that are they esteemed of great worth, not for themselves, for they had already experienced it; but as Moroni tells us, these things are written for our benefit that we might come to know the Savior, and know that we are not cast off forever, but that through the Savior, we might have eternal life.
Because God loves us, he has given us his organized church through which we can receive eternally binding ordinances and make covenants with God that last forever. We have temples in which we receive peace, and power, and protection, and guidance. And because he loves us he allows all of these promises to me made to the living and the dead. How great the love of our heavenly father!
Sorry, the actual report will be a little short haha.
This week we had a couple of tender mercies happen. Our investigator Diane came to church! Also, we are able to serve at the Bishop storehouse in the cannery, and Rod came!!! We bagged beans and collectively with those other volunteers who came we bagged 2100 pounds of beans. It was a lot of fun, and we had been looking for ways that we could give service. Our investigator Jayda is still going strong and progressing towards her baptism at the end of this month. She is amazing.
Sister McCombie and I gave a training at zone meeting this week about diligence, and it actually went pretty well! This song is pretty spread out, so we don't usually see each other very often. But today we are doing P day at the park, which only happens like once a transfer. It should be fun :)
Here are a couple of quotes/thoughts that I have a learned or heard recently:
"When God speaks and man obeys, man will always be right." -Thomas S. Monson
"The healing of our heart begins when we submit to and worship God. In order to have a healed and faithful heart, we must first allow it to break before the Lord." -Sister Neill F. Marriott
I have recently been studying about the spiritual gift to have faith to be healed. If you would like to study this with me, a couple of talks that I was going to study are: the master healer, the souls sincere desire, repentance: a joyful choice, the great plan of redemption, and yielding our hearts to God. Forgive the capitalization issues.
Also, I wanted to invite you to listen to a song. It is called I Love the Lord by Daniel Beck. It has become one of my favorite songs, and it is beautiful. Very powerful. It is to the tune of Be Still, My Soul, and it is based upon Nephi's psalm in 2 Nephi 4. Let me know what you think!
Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful week, and I love you!!!
You are always in my prayers.
Love,
Sister Inman
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