Life According to Em: Week 42: Connecting to Heaven

Monday, September 19, 2016

Well, another wonderful week has come and gone! I'm excited to tell you all about it!

Tuesday we were calling people and I called a PMF (part member family) and talked to the husband. His daughter was baptized about two years ago and the wife is less active. He said, “ I know I said I would get back to you, but between, sports, school, work, homework, life is just really busy right now. You'll just have to take my word that when life settles down in a few months we will reach out."

That caught my attention. It was clearly an excuse so I told him we understood and we look forward to hearing from him. But does life ever get less busy? No! We are always busy, our lives rarely go on pause and we have endless amounts of free time (maybe for those who are retired or sick) but if we do not make things a priority and make time for them, they simply do not happen. If we continually push things off until "tomorrow" then we will have an endless list of things to do! Let's start crossing them off TODAY! There is no time to waste!

Wednesday we had a great District meeting followed by lots of practice teaching with Sister D. and I! I asked her to teach me the Restoration so she could practice teaching it all. The hardest part is getting it out of your mouth, but once you do, each time gets a lot easier. You also learn to be led by the Spirit more. She did a wonderful job and I could tell that night when we taught Justin, she was a lot more comfortable.

Thursday we road tripped to Gridley for the trainer/trainee meeting! That's when all the trainers and their greenies get together with the mission presidency and we discuss how things are going, what needs to be improved and how we can help each other. We went up a little early so that we could eat lunch with Sister Watson and her companion Sister T! Sister W. trained me and it was crazy that just about 10 months ago, we attended that meeting! It was so fun to see her! She definitely is one of my favorite Sisters! #gottalovemama.

The meeting was so good and much needed! As I have probably mentioned before, I have been very stressed lately. My mind is constantly go go GO! Training is fun, but it’s always very hard. President was quite bold during this meeting. It made sense because there were 24 companionship in that meeting, that's a lot of missionaries and the last thing he wants is a pattern of disobedience and laziness to settle in. He talked about settling it in our hearts to leave our old self, our worldly self, behind and become who God wants us to be as Disciples of Christ. You may or may not remember when I talked about my struggle with finding the balance between Emily and Sister Gore. It was a hard balance to find, but as I have decided myself to becoming who God wants me to be, I can say that I am Sister Emily Gore! I can be myself and represent my Savior at the same time. After all, we are each called to a perfect place for us at the perfect time, because people in the California Roseville Mission need me and my testimony.

He continued to talk about how it is impossible to do the Lords work without Him. If we want to connect others to Heaven, we need to be connected ourselves. He asked us to all repent and to be better, He and Lord have confidence that with diligence and dedication we can all be better.

The trainers then had a meeting with Sister Marston while the new missionaries stayed with President Marston. In our meeting we talked about how to handle stress and we shared experiences of struggles we've had. Even though I already knew it, it was nice to hear that I am not the only one struggling. We talked about Perspective and seeing ourselves and others as God sees us and them, Not as they are, filled with imperfections, but who we can become. We also discussed the importance of loving our companions. Sometimes this is very hard to do (not with Sister Dee though, I love her!) I have found the best way my love grows for my companions is by serving them. Simple things, like making breakfast or helping with something or giving a sincere compliment.

We all met together again to practice teach the baptism question and wrap up the meeting! Oh plus I got to see friends! Sister C. was there and it was so good to see her!

Sister Gore & Sister C.

Friday was the car fast day so we didn't plan too much. We weekly planned as usual and ate dinner with the bishop’s family! They were so kind to give us a ride to their home and then to a lesson we had set up with a member. We taught the M. family, well really Sister M. and her 2 year old daughter. She is one of Sister N’s trainees! She served a mission so she was pretty familiar with practice teaching. So we asked her to pretend to be an investigator because President asked us to extend the baptism invitation at least one time per day for the next 7 days! It was a great lesson! Apparently I just shouldn't recite the first vision because no matter how hard I try, I cry every.single.time. It’s ridiculous. She began to cry as well and the Spirit was so strong. She gave us feedback which was super helpful.

Saturday we spent the whole in Colfax doing a zone blitz for their ward. We started off by bring a pile of wood up a hill, so we assembly lined, we got pretty dirty but it was fun! The ward fed us lunch and then we were given names of people to see. Most of the people on our list were not interested or were not home. We finished the list and still had about an hour or so before dinner. So we called up the Elders and they gave us a list of potentials and former's. We tried a couple with no luck. We went looking for a former named Brett but we could not find his house for the life of us. We ended up the drive way of a nice yellow house, we thought what the heck, we might as well knock on it. Well I am so glad we did because two very nice men answered the door and were happy to see us. We got to know them a bit and they let us share the video "A shower of Heavenly blessings" with them. They LOVED it and completely agreed with everything that President Uchtdorf talks about. (if you aren't familiar with the video you can look it up on LDS.org). They bore their testimonies and even prayed with us! They said they would love to have the Elders come by and share more messages with them! We were so grateful that we were led their and that we followed the prompting to try their house! We finished off the night at a members home who fed us dinner while we discussed the events of the day. Many miracles were seen in Colfax!

That night we also got round one of transfer emails! Which wasn't a big deal for us because we already knew that Sister Dee and I would stay together!

Sunday was great! We had to run to Branch Council because for some reason Saturday night we didn't think it was the third Sunday. Well I woke up and felt prompted to look at my calendar just to double check and I am so glad I did, because it was the third Sunday and that's when Foresthill Branch Council meets! So we had to run run run to get ready to leave by 7 because it starts at 7:30 - we made it just in the nick of time!! It was a very productive meeting so I'm glad we made it! We tried to make a few visits before heading back down the hill to eat with the N. family! Dinner was great! We got to know them better and Sister N. even invited us to come to their home to teach their non-member son in law! We are so excited about that and I will let you know how that goes!!

I want ya'll to know how much I love being a missionary! I just cannot say it enough!

Love y'all!