Another Week in Happy Abby {week 60}

Hello Everyone!

This has been a great week! I'm super happy because it rained this week which means fall is coming!!!! I love fall!!! And I'm even more excited for winter because that's my favorite season!! 

This is also an amazing week because MARCIA GOT BAPTIZED!!!! I've had the privilege of working with Marcia for the past 3 weeks and I am so grateful for her! She is an incredible person and is going to do so much good in the world! I felt the spirit so strongly at her baptism! Earlier that day Sister Robison and I had been talking about the 7th verse of the song "how firm a foundation." The lyrics read

The soul that on Jesus hath

leaned for repose

I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes;

That soul, though all hell

should endeavor to shake, 

I'll never, no never, I'll never, no never,

I'll never, no never, no never forsake! 

That song has always had a big impact on me and lately I've really been reflecting on the principle of enduring to the end. We have to commit to never forsake Christ every day of our life. We were listening to this song on the way to the baptism so it was fresh on our minds. Then the first speaker at the baptism quoted those exact lyrics! The spirit was so strong! It was amazing to me because Marcia was making a commitment to follow God that day. But it is a promise that she will continue to make for the rest of her life. I also have made that promise to accept Jesus Christ, keep His commandments, and always remember Him. And it's one I want to make for the rest of my life. I am so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost that helps me to be capable of keeping that promise for the rest of my life. 

As we were leaving the baptism it was our job to lock up the church. The church has this big gate locking up the parking lot and I couldn't get it closed for the life of me. It was raining which was making everything a bit more difficult. Sister Robison hopped out of the car and we said a prayer asking Heavenly Father to help us close the gate. On our very next try the gate closed! It was such a testimony to me of the power of prayer! 

This week I also had the blessing of being able to go on an exchange in the Abbotsford 2nd ward!!! Words cannot express how much I love that area! And the missionaries serving there! I am so grateful I get to be so close!! I never thought I would experience so much love for a place and the people who live there. I never thought such a love was possible. It's amazing to think that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us even more than we can imagine! On our exchange we managed to get hopelessly lost (the area no longer has a car so we were on foot/ using a bus). We were about a mile away from the nearest bus stop. We were also in a place were there isn't as many houses or people. We saw one house though and decided to knock on the door. A lady answered who was so happy to hear our message! I definitely know that God is guiding our steps in this work. He has a plan for us. 

On Saturday we took one of the branch members around with us practically all day! She is such an amazing person and I really look up to her example. We took her finding with us and it was just so fun to have someone else with us! She reached out in love to all who were with us. It was awesome to see how serving someone else had such an impact on her. I love the people in this branch so much!

I hope you all have an amazing week!

Sister Bloomfield 

Don't Strive to be Mediocre {week 59}

Serving in Langley YSA is so awesome! I love it here so much!

We've been working with a girl whom I will call Gabby that is a devout catholic. She is so strong in her faith and we couldn't really tell if she had any intent because she was too afraid to pray about the Book of Mormon. She was scared because by praying about the Book of Mormon that would change her entire reality if it was true. We talked about her and were trying to decided if we should stop meeting with her. I kind of felt like she had more intent than we thought because she always has lots of questions, keeps her commitments, and keeps wanting to meet with us. It's just a different situation because she doesn't know if she wants to believe what we're teaching her. We decided that we would have a lesson with her telling her that we couldn't meet with her anymore but then we had the thought to invite her to be baptized first so we could really gauge her intent. So we sat down for the lesson with a recently baptized member and after talking for a little bit invited her to be baptized. She then surprised us by saying that if she knew it was true she would get baptized. We were so surprised! We set a date with her and are going to keep meeting with her! I really admire her faith because she wholeheartedly believes the Catholic faith is true, but recognizes truth in the Book of Mormon and simply wants to do what God wants her to do. It may be a difficult road with little family support but I have the faith that God will help her on her path. She is an incredible person!

We also met with this guy from Egypt who is converting from being muslim to being a Christian! He said that He would read the Book of Mormon in exactly one month! Haha it's amazing to see the miracles around every corner 

Serving in this area has been really amazing because I've gotten to know the stories of so many amazing people! The member we brought with us to Gabby's lesson is one of those people! He was just baptized this May despite a lot of resistance from family. Not only that, any time we ask him to come to lessons he always readily responds with some of the happiest and most faith filled/ positive texts I've ever received on my mission. He's always early and has to bus every where he goes which takes forever. One day we asked him to come to a lesson and he agreed even though he had already been out with the elders that afternoon! I'm just always so grateful to see the example of such faithful people.

There's another member in the branch who was baptized last Saturday. This Sunday he bore his testimony and it really struck me. He talked about how before he met the missionaries he was living for nothing and struggled with depression and anxiety. After learning about the gospel he found a reason to live. He also realized his identity as a child of God. He said that his whole life he had been striving to be mediocre then he realized that he didn't have to be mediocre. Throughout his testimony he kept repeating the phrase "don't strive to be mediocre." That really hit me. God truly has so much more planned for us than we do for ourselves. He wants all of us to be extraordinary and we have every reason to be. I heard another quote this week that hit me as well. That one is "be the person that you've always dreamed of." God has given us our agency so we can do amazing things! Why just sit and dream when you can actually become the person you've always dreamed of? Because of Christ we have the power to become anything. I'm so grateful for Him and His sacrifice.

The members in this branch are seriously so amazing! I love it here so much! It makes me unbelievable happy to just walk around the streets I was once so familiar with. I love being a missionary! I know that God enables us to do things we never thought we could before.

Have an amazing week! 

1st Week in Langley YSA! {week 58}

Hello everyone!

This has honestly been such a weird/ absolutely amazing week! I LOVE being in Langley YSA! This area is amazing! We have already seen so many miracles! 

It is such a blessing to be in an area that covers all my old areas. On my first day here I got to see some friends from the Abby 2nd ward and I'm seeing people from Brookswood and Willoughby on like a daily basis. I cannot express enough how much I love serving here! On Sunday I was amazed to see a girl at church who I knew from Brookswood. When I got to Brookswood her family was not attending church at all and was pretty angry towards the church. We worked with them the entire 6 months I was there when finally at the end of the 6 months the mom decided it was time to come back. Her daughter however, was not as convinced. But when I went to church on Sunday I saw her daughter there and heard that she had apparently been coming to church for the past few weeks. It made me so so happy. Heavenly Father is so merciful to allow me to serve in this area again. I'm practically crying tears of joy everyday. 

Being in YSA is such a different experience. It's awesome being able to work with people who are my same age! I'm learning so much about how to minister from being here. 

Despite the fact that this week was INSANE it was pretty miraculous. On Sunday we had planned to drop by an investigator that had been found a couple of weeks ago because she had some YSA kids. She opened the door, let us inside, and ended up teaching the entire family (a family of 5) about the Book of Mormon. They loved hearing about it. It's moments like that that make my heart melt. We passed them to the elders in that area. I love being a missionary. We are honestly so privileged to be able to help people hear about the gospel for the first time. 

I hope everyone has an amazing week!

Sister Bloomfield 

Nanaimo Zone

Saying goodbye

Saying Goodbye

Saying Goodbye

I'm coming home (to the Abbotsford Zone) {week 57}

Home to the Abbotsford zone!!! Transfer calls were this week and I found out I'm being transferred to Langley YSA!!!!!! I could hardly believe my ears! I'm going to be living in the same apartment I lived in while I was in Brookswood and Willoughby, going to the same chapel, and I'm going to be in the same zone! Not to mention my new area covers 11 areas in total, including all 3 of my areas on the lower mainland! I am BEYOND EXCITED!!!! I'm also going to be able to go on exchanges in the Abbotsford 2nd ward! That makes me SO HAPPY! I can't even believe this transfer call! It is literately everything I could have ever wished for! I thought I was staying in Nanaimo but every now and then this thought would pop in my mind of "you know it would be so nice to go back to Abbotsford. I would totally be ok with that." And now I'm going to Langley YSA! Words cannot express how happy I am!!!!

I am quite sad to be leaving Nanaimo. This ward is ON FIRE! I have never had such a big teaching pool in my life. It's incredible! It will be sad to say goodbye. I do feel that I'm headed to where God needs me though. It will be exciting to see what He has in store! I can't wait to hit the ground running and just get to work! 

This week has been insane! I feel like I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. And it doesn't look like that will be stopping anytime soon haha. We have been running from appointment to appointment along with finding so many other people to teach. I have never been so busy in my life! 

This week we reconnected with someone who had been taught a lot in the past! She is so sweet and it's amazing to see how she may have not been ready a year ago, but now is her time to accept the gospel. She loves watching Mormon movies, like the Best Two years and the other side of heaven, and you could just see the happiness in her face when we told her she didn't just have to watch the magic from the sidelines, but that she could be a part of it! The gospel is for everyone and everyone can be a part of it! 

This week we also had MLC! It was an awesome MLC where we spent a lot of time planning for our zones. Then after MLC we literately ran out of there as fast as we could to catch our ferry. In the summer it's a lot more busy. We missed the Nanaimo ferry but were able to get on the Victoria ferry. Once we got into Victoria it was about 7:30 and we had a decision to make. Do we stay the night in Victoria or do we attempt to drive back to Nanaimo (2 hours) to get home at 9:30 (we had permission to get home at 9:30). The GPS said we would get home at 9:35... which was pushing is a little bit. As we started to leave Victoria we said a prayer asking if we should stay or not. The first impression I got was that we needed to stay in Victoria. As I started to reason it out in my mind I couldn't logically find any reason why we would need to stay. It would just be a nuisance. And the spirit confirmed to me that we would be able to make it home safely. I just wanted to get  home because we had been so stressed out the whole week. So as we drove we talked about what the best option would be without making a decision. Then before we had decided we reached the point of no return. That's when we realized that we should have stayed but it was too late now. We rushed home and pulled in at 9:35. We were perfectly fine and were able to let the APs know we had made it home safely. I was pretty satisfied with myself haha. That is until we opened the trunk to find that we had a bunch of stuff that needed to be delivered to Victoria. That's when it hit me. That spiritual prompting was not for my benefit. Heavenly Father needed us to stay not for ourselves, but to help someone else. Our reasoning was exactly correct, we were able to make it home safely and everything was ok. We just missed out on an opportunity to be of service to someone else. In the end, everything will be ok. We do have a way to deliver the stuff to Victoria and we are safe. But I learned a lot from that experience. I learned the importance of being obedient to the spirit. This last general conference President Eyring said "Obedience may mean to move quickly. It may mean to prepare. Or it may mean to wait in patience for further inspiration." Most of the time we won't understand the reasoning behind different promptings from the spirit. But it is so important that we listen. Because God knows far more than we do. Not to mention, the reason we have the gift of the holy ghost is not to bless our own life, it's to bless the life of others. Our life shouldn't be for us. That was a lesson I had to learn this week. I listen to the spirit not for my own benefit, but for the benefit of others. President Eyring also said "It seems to me that we receive the Holy Spirit best when we are focused on serving others. That is why we have the priesthood responsibility to serve for the Savior. When we are engaged in service to tohers, we think less about ourselves, and the Holy Ghost can more readily come to us and help us in our lifelong quest to have the gift of charity bestowed upon us"

It was so sad saying goodbye to everyone in Nanaimo! We have so many people planning on getting baptized and had a ton of people at church on Sunday. More than I have ever had on my mission. The people here are amazing and I'm so grateful for the time I've had to serve here. It made me so happy to see people in the ward just accept and love all those who came to church. 

Well I have so much more to say but not much time left. Just know we had like a billion lessons, invited a ton of people to be baptized (and they said yes!), invited a ton of people to church (and they came!), and had an amazing week! Oh we also had a spontaneous basketball game with a bunch of Japanese foreign exchange students. I do not remember the rules to basketball nor do I speak Japanese. That made for and interesting experience.

Have a wonderful week!

Sister Bloomfield  

A Luau! {Week 56}

Hello Everyone,

Lately I've been thinking a lot lately about how grateful I am for the opportunity I've had to come on a mission. Every experience, the good and the bad, is precious to me. I've changed more than I thought was possible and have grown to know and love my Savior more. There is nothing better than serving God. 

We have seen so many miracles this week. I think we get numb to it sometimes because as missionaries we are on the front lines and witness so many amazing things. This week we were teaching the Word of Wisdom to a girl I have been working with a lot since coming to Nanaimo. I've called her May in the past. We decided to teach the Word of Wisdom in a way I never have before. We taught it by teaching her about her worth as a daughter of God. We read 3 Nephi 27:20 with her which says "Now this is the commandment: repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day." After we read that she looked at us and said "Oh, it isn't a choice. It's a commandment." After a pause she said "you don't get to choose to have self worth, it's already there." That really struck me. As children of God we don't choose to be loved. He's going to love us whether or not we acknowledge it. The best way to live, is to live in such a way that we are spiritually capable of accepting the fact that God does love us. We can do that by living the commandments, which strengthen our ability to receive the spirit. God's love isn't a choice. It's always there. But knowing that He loves us is a choice. All the commandments He gives us, are just instructions on how to hear His voice. It really is quite beautiful if you think about it. After teaching May about the Word of Wisdom she readily accepted it and committed to live it. We were also able to reset her baptism date. It's amazing to me to see her progression since I've started to get to know her. She told us that she had gone through hell right before she met us and that the gospel saved her life. Hearing that made me so happy. That's why I wanted to serve a mission. 

This week we also had a ward activity! It was a Luau and was so amazing!!! We had 4 people who are investigating the church come! One is a man from India and as he walked through the door a bunch of members of the church ran up to him and gave him a hug. It turns out a lot of his friends are members! He was so excited and happy! He was also really surprised too haha. He was nervous to come but then ended up having the time of his life! 

We also had this amazing girl whom I will call Anne come. We met her a couple of weeks ago. I can't remember if I wrote about it, but finding her was a really cool experience. We were walking down the street because we felt like we needed to yet there was no people on the street. So we were about to turn around and leave when Anne started coming towards us. I had actually seen her about 20 minutes earlier pushing her baby in the stroller but we were in the car and I was sad that we couldn't talk to her. We walked up to her and started talking to her and she said she really wanted a message about Jesus Christ. So we taught her about the Book of Mormon and the spirit was so strong. We committed her to read Alma 5 which is kind of weird because that's not a chapter we usually give to people when it's their first time reading the Book of Mormon (since it's so long). But when we came back to see her she had read the whole thing and marked it up with pink highlighter. We had an amazing lesson with her about the restoration then this Saturday we were able to give her a church tour. She stayed for the Luau and had an amazing time. It turns out she also already knows someone who has just started coming back to church! It made me so happy to see how much fun every had at the activity. It was also kind of funny to me that we were doing a Luau because as missionaries there is this set of videos we watch called "the district" and it's basically just a bunch of videos of missionaries doing missionary things. In "the district" there's a part where they have a ward activity and it was a Luau! Haha. 

So many great things happen in a week! There really is so much good in life. I hope you all have an incredible week!

Sister Bloomfield 

Zone conference, exchanges, and blackberries {week 55}

Hello everyone!

It's been another great week as a missionary! Pday was moved because of zone conference yesterday! Zone conference was incredible, as always. I'm so grateful for the opportunities we have to learn. 

Remember the lady who took us on the crazy impromptu hike the other day? We met with her again this week! I have so much love for her which made this visit a bit hard. We were able to teach her about the plan of salvation and she had a lot of questions for us surrounding our decision to follow this faith. After listening to us express our testimony and invite her to improve her own life, she told us that she knew that what we were sharing was good and true but that she also knew that this was a time in her life when she couldn't accept our message. Tears filled her eyes as we hugged and parted ways. It was so sad. She knows that our message is true and would bless her life but wasn't ready at this time. I pray she runs into missionaries again some day in the Ukraine. 

Her questions have stuck with me. One thing that was so curious to her was how we knew so firmly that our message was true, and why we would choose to live in this way. I know there are so many religions out there, and so many people proclaiming to know truth. Some insist that God lives while others deny His existence. In a world of so many conflicting opinions and voices how can it be that I can claim to know the truth? How is it that I'm so confident in the life I have chosen to life? I am not the type of person that can do things half way. I couldn't commit my life to something that I hope is true. The only thing that gives me the strength to keep moving, is knowing with all my heart that there is a God and that He wants to speak to us. It's something I know is true. Even though I wish I could take my own testimony and help everyone to feel as I do, it doesn't work like that. In order for you to know that God knows your name, it's something you have to experience for yourself. If you lack wisdom, why not go to the source of all wisdom, the creator of the universe, your Heavenly Father? "If any of  you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed" James 1:5-6. If it doesn't make sense to you that I can say that I know there is a God, then you can ask Him for yourself. You can come to feel for yourself. You just have to ask. 

This Sunday we had a few people come to church! One of them is one of our friends who have been coming for a couple of weeks now. She is trying to figure out if God loves her, and it's amazing to watch her as she begins to recognize the spirit. It is through the feelings in our heart and the thoughts that come to our mind that we can know God is speaking to us through the Holy Ghost. We also had a family come to church too! One thing that really touched me was the amount of people who approached them and made them feel welcome. 

After church on Sunday we drove down and went on a little exchange with the sisters in Courtenay. It was so much fun! Courtenay is such a cute little area and it was so much fun to spend some time with the sisters! I love being a missionary! Its starting to be blackberry season and they're growing every where! I love blackberries so that's a huge plus for us! I'm so lucky to be serving here on the island!

I hope everyone has an amazing week! 

Sister Bloomfield 

Joy! {week 54}

Hello!

This has been such a great week! I've gotten to this point on my mission where everything just feels so normal that it feels weird to think that people don't do this everyday! Haha sometimes I even worry that I'm not working hard enough because doing all this stuff doesn't feel abnormal anymore it just feels like regular life to be running from place to place and talking to people from 10am to 9pm everyday. The stress of just everyday mission life isn't stressful anymore because it's just everyday life on the mission. I just love it so much and it's weird to think I ever did anything else. 

I am so excited about the work! I've never been so motivated in my life to just go out and work as hard as I possibly can! This week we met some amazing people and had some amazing lessons! Lately we've found a lot of people who like hiking haha. On Monday we went hiking with this super awesome girl and ended up talking about the restoration with her! Then on Thursday we were able to meet up and talk with her about the Book of Mormon. It was cool to show her something that is so special to me.

On Saturday we met up with someone from Ukraine and ended up going on an impromptu hike that was really uphill and really in the sun in the middle of the afternoon in our skirts. Haha it was so funny! It was fun though and we were able to teach a semi decent lesson. It was a little distracting because it was a really steep hike haha. Sometimes we do things as missionaries that seem normal to us (like climb a mountain in a dress and flats) but when you look at them out of context it's actually pretty funny. 

One thing I've learned the most, is that the Savior is with us in every moment. He's there to share in our joys and is there to walk with us in our sorrows. Even though life is an opportunity and a blessing it's no secret we were sent here to learn and grow. And that's not always comfortable. But I think that all of us will find that as we pass through sorrow it's as we look back that we see the joy. Because it truly is all around us. We just have to look for it! President Wong was telling us at MLC that he wants to make a wooden board with the word "sorrow" written on it and the word "joy" written on the back. Then he will have people walk up to the board and pass it only to look back and see the joy. 

Have an incredible week!

Sister Bloomfield