What Faith Can Do {week 64}

Dear Family and Friends,

I feel like a completely different person than I was last week when I wrote. I don't know how to compose this email because I feel that words are not enough to capture all that I experienced this week.

I'd say the climax of this week was yesterday. Yesterday we had a tri-zone zone conference with Elder Klebingat. Elder Klebingat is one of the leaders (from the quorum of the 70)  from the church. He is from Germany but came from Salt Lake to tour our mission. The experience I had at zone conference yesterday changed my life. I look at the world with completely new eyes now.

Prior to zone conference it felt a bit like we were plowing through the week. It was one of those weeks where we kind of just had to run on fumes with the faith that our efforts were amounting to something, even if it wasn't visible to us. We talked to a lot of people and spent a lot of time at bus stops, but I had gotten to the point where I knew that I personally had fallen into a rut. I said the right things and went to the right places but I wasn't doing those things with hope.

When we went to zone conference Elder Klebingat began by teaching us who we truly are through the doctrine of the plan of salvation. Even though the plan of salvation is something I have been taught since the day I was born, it clicked in a new way. Because we lived with God before this life we trusted in Him completely and we trusted that Jesus Christ would have the power to save us. No situation is truly without hope because Christ broke any chains that could possibly hold us back. And it is by choosing to accept His help that we are able to become a new person. One scripture that has stuck in my mind this week is Mosiah 27:25-26. It says "And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming His sons and daughters. And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this they can in nowise inheret the kingdom of God." It's so amazing that because of Jesus Christ we are able to change and be freed from any bad habits, mistakes, sadness, difficult circumstances. Anything.

Anyways, I don't think I can adequately convey all that I learned, felt, and experienced yesterday. But I do know that it changed everything about the way I work. Yesterday after zone conference we went to look for new people to teach. I met this girl from Osaka Japan and started talking to her. I don't know how to describe it, but I felt the spirit so strongly from the conference that I could feel God with me guiding our conversation more than I have ever felt before. We talked about her family and about God. Being from Japan, she didn't have much of a knowledge about Jesus Christ. I took out a pamphlet that teaches about the gospel of Jesus Christ and showed her some of the pictures inside of it. The spirit prompted me to ask her what she felt when she looked at those pictures. She told me that she felt relieved. I asked her how the pictures made her feel relieved and she said "because I can feel that He is someone like my mom. He is someone I can rely on." The spirit was so strong and it just blew me away that someone who didn't even know the name of Jesus Christ could recognize from a 5 minute conversation that He is someone we can rely on. It was amazing.

Everyday we go from place to place, meeting with different people and teaching them the gospel. I've seen so many different family situations and life stories but one thing I know is that no matter what your situation, Jesus Christ has the power to change and help you.

My faith has grown to the point where it rests in Jesus Christ, not in any outcome.

Sister Bloomfield

YOUR Final Dispensation {week 63}

Hello Family and Friends!

 Sorry but I'm kind of running out of time so bear with me, this email may be full of a lot of spelling and grammatical errors. I just have so much to say because so many amazing miracles happened this week!

 The other day we got a media referral who I will call Jessica. She goes to trinity Western University and according to the missionaries who referred her, she is golden. We met her and they were not lying, she is pretty golden! She has been researching the church for the past few months and just drinking everything in! She is a fourth of the way through the Book of Mormon and loves it! Our first lesson with her was such a miracle because she introduced us to 3 friends who are also now reading the Book of Mormon! Then she brought 5 friends to church on Sunday and to the devotional with President Nelson (spoiler alert- the prophet came to Langley this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) It was so amazing!!!!!!! It made me so happy! Teaching her is so much fun! We teach her at her college dorm! The university is a Christian based school so it feels a lot like BYU! I felt like I was back at BYU hanging out with my roommates! It was so awesome! It really hits me when I see someone just soak up the gospel so readily! It is also a miracle because it's usually difficult to talk to people at Trinity Western because they are usually pretty set in their beliefs and not too interested in learning more.

 This week was full of so many little miracles! It was a pretty good week! Oh, transfer calls came and both me and sister Robison are staying! I'm so happy! I love this area and Sister Robison so much!!!!! I love the Abbotsford zone!!!!! It's my home!

  I got to help out at the BC food drive this Saturday with the Brookswood and Willoughby ward! Guess what?? Exactly a year ago I was also helping with the BC food drive in the Brookswood and Willoughby ward!!!!! It made me SO HAPPY to be back! The food drive is one of my favorite memories from last year so I was just overflowing with happiness to be back! I got to see some more of the ward members again too! Ah I am just so happy to be in this area!!!! Crossing my fingers I get to stay in this area until I die so I can say I served in Langley for a year!!! Haha! Really though, I will go wherever God sends me because I love serving a mission so much and every area He sends me to is amazing! I love BC! I love how God knows where we need to go more than we do! He really has the best plan :)

 But yep, President Nelson and Elder Eyring came this last Sunday!!!! All the missionaries from the Vancouver, Abbotsford, and Surrey zone got to go see the devotional in person!!! It was so cool to be in the same room as the prophet!!! I am so blessed to be here! His message was amazing! As I was spiritually preparing I just made the decision that I would do whatever it was he instructed us to do! I'm so excited to apply his counsel! It was all about making sure our children know the principles of the gospel. I feel like so much of what I'm learning is just training for my lifelong service in the church and my family! President Eyring's message especially hit me! It was about how keeping covenants enable us to keep more covenants and help us to be better ministers. I was also blown away by Sister Nelson. She is an incredible woman! 

  Wow, this week has been such a good week!!!!!! While I was studying about the restoration this week I was thinking about the pattern that God always follows. Throughout history He has called prophets to reveal His gospel to us. And throughout history people choose to listen to the message of the prophets, but they also chose to reject the prophets message. When the people reject the gospel that results in apostasy. That just means that the gospel is not longer on the earth in its entirety. The gospel was restored through Joseph Smith after a long period of apostasy. We have been promised that this dispensation of the gospel is the last time it will be restored because it will never be taken away from us again! I thought about how that pattern is similar to the pattern of our life! There are times where we listen to God and accept His guidance in our life and times where we reject Him and are slow to live the principles of the gospel. However, each of us can commit today to make their lives be their own personal "final dispensation." We can chose now to serve God for the rest of our lives, to never turn away, to never fall into personal apostasy. This moment can be your final dispensation. One thing my mission has instilled in me, is the importance of committing to always live the gospel. I have made the decision that this is my final dispensation. 

  Sorry if this makes no sense I typed it in like 10 minutes! My email time was interrupted by trying to help a random lady in the library. Anyways, have an amazing week!

Sister Bloomfield 

Rainy Days {week 62}

Hello Everyone!

This has been such a good week!

This week we had MLC which was awesome! We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon! I was able to realign my focus and think about how the Book of Mormon testifies of Christ, that's why it's so important! We don't worship a book, we worship Christ and read a book that testifies of Him!

We were also able to teach a lot of lessons this week! I love this area so much! We taught one lesson to a girl getting baptized in October and skyped in our branch president! It was my first time skyping in a member and it was so much fun! And the branch president loved it! It really showed me that Heavenly Father will always provide a way for us to participate in His work! No matter how busy we are!

I love being a missionary so much! I don't have too much time but just know that we spent a lot of time teaching, driving, talking to people, laughing, and sharing the gospel! Also a lot of time walking around in the pouring rain! I love this weather!!!! I'm so excited for winter!!!!!!!!!!

I love being a missionary so much! It's so fun to tell people about the gospel!

Have a good week and don't forget to read the Book of Mormon!

Sister Bloomfield

Walk By Faith {week 61}

Hello everyone!

This has been a great week! I've been learning so much and growing so much as well! I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be on my mission. There's a quote from a church video that says "it's one thing to survive, it's another to find joy in surviving." (the video is principles of peace: faith... highly recommended;)). Every moment on this earth is a blessing! I don't want to waste a single second by wishing for something else. God has given me anything and everything I could ever want or need to be happy. As long as I have the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life, I can be happy. 

This week we found an amazing girl to teach! I'll call her Sage. It was kind of an interesting situation because we were sitting on a university campus talking to this one girl named Rabia when Sage walked up. Apparently she is part of a mentoring program (some type of life coach thing or something). She is only 18 years old and was trying to recruit us to join her mentoring thing. Apparently what they do is meet up with people and coach them on their life. Which is basically what we do except we just teach people about the gospel. We agreed to meet with her but were both kind of nervous because we felt that we wouldn't be able to teach her the gospel and she would just be trying to recruit us for her program the whole time. However, we were both proven wrong and ended up having a really powerful lesson on the plan of salvation. The spirit was so strong. It was unlike any other teaching situation I've been in because it was apparent that she did indeed just want to recruit us for her program. However I watched the spirit soften her heart right before my eyes. She listened earnestly to us and shared some of the difficult things that were happening in her life. It was just so clear to how much she needs this in her life. I honestly can't express is in words but one thing I do know is that the spirit really is there. I know that this work is true and that Christ directs it. Sage agreed to meet with us again and seemed really excited about it. However we were both quite sad when she texted us and said she just didn't have enough time at the moment to continue meeting. It was heartbreaking. 

I feel that a lot of the miracles on my mission have ended with people getting too busy or chosing to discontinue meeting with us. That does make me pretty sad, but one thing I've grown to know is that God's plan is much bigger than my own. I can only see one step ahead, meanwhile God can see the whole picture. I used to think I could plan out my life but I've realized that while I can make plans, I actually have no idea what's coming next. But I'm grateful that God knows. I'm grateful that He knows, because His plans are bigger than the plans I have for myself. I'm so grateful we walk by faith in this life rather than by sight because I think if we walked by sight, we would stop short everytime. Because we wouldn't realize how much we truly are capable of. We are blinded during our time here on earth so God can help us to reach our full potential. Because that's much grander than anything we could ever imagine. It's as if our journey here on earth was one giant hike with a ton of false summits. It we could see everything, maybe we would be content with the view at the first false summit. But God doesn't want us to stop there. He wants us to reach the top of the mountain, even though it's impossibly hard. Even though we might think we can't do it, He knows we can. 

We are also teaching this amazing girl from India. I'll call her Jasvinder. She comes from a Sikh background and recognizes that when she was a child, the gods in her Sikh religion were able to comfort her. Now however, her problems have changed and her way of handling them needs to change. We taught her about the atonement and it made me so happy because I know that the atonement is the one thing that can heal all broken things.

This week we had the miracle of having a random person in the phone text us and want to meet up! It turns out it was someone who had been learning in the past but then went to India in the summer! And it's someone I remember the STLs working with when I was in Brookswood last year! She has just come back from India and really wanted to start learning again! It made me so happy! 

We had zone conference this week and it was so good! We talked a lot about being happy! There is really so much in this life to be happy about! 

I hope you all have an amazing week!

Sister Bloomfield 

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