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
