week 21: #Findingthebalance

 

Oh my goodness this week was amazing! Monday we got to go to the
Sacramento Temple as a whole mission!! It was so wonderful!! It was
amazing to be in the House of Lord with His servants, His
missionaries. President and Sister Marston were able to be in every
session and the Spirit changed when they came in. I just wanted to
stay there forever. I love the Temple, I love the Spirit there. I was
to invite each of you to prepare to go to the Temple. Go often, there
is strength and power in regular Temple Attendance. I hadn't gone in 4
1/2 months and I felt it, I needed the Temple.
I also got to see Nicole on Monday! We went to Chick-fil-A with her
mom and Bryan and it was sooo much fun!! Then we did the drive back
and dropped off the sisters and headed to our lesson with the A family.
I was sooooo exhausted after driving for 6 hours that day, plus
spiritually exhausted from the Temple, but it was still a great
lesson.

Tuesday was sooo good!! We had Zone meeting and President and Sister
Marston were there, which was a little nerve racking but amazing. I
love when he teaches us he is so wise and so in tune with the Spirit.
We had interviews after the meeting and oh my gosh he is so amazing. I
am so grateful for his council to me. I have a tendency to be hard on
myself, I compare myself to other people and that isn't good. He
advised me to be more compassionate with myself. So that's what I am
working on.
Thursday was amazing! We went to visit a potential named G., but
she wasn't available because she was doing inventory on her food
storage! (Like what!?!! How is she not Mormon already?!) So we talked
with N. for a while and kind of talked about everything. We showed
him the Hallelujah video and talked to him about how because  of
Christ  we can all find new life, each day is a clean slate, we can
choose to follow Him. We talked about agency for a while and he even
geared up a bit. He's super open to us coming back and sharing more!
So we are super excited!

We also found a less active named C. while tracting! We introduced
ourselves and he says oh yeah I'm half Mormon! (It was funny because
one arm was filled with tattoos and the other arm wasn't so we joked
that he really was half more on the right side) He lived in Utah for a
bit and has Mormon family. He unfortunately doesn't live at that
house, but said he has home teachers where he does live so we invited
him to meet with them! He was just a super cool guy!

Friday was so much fun! Our dinner took us to the 4th Ward Boy Scout
fundraiser Luau and oh my goodness the food was sooooo good!! Let me
give you some background. Like 2 years ago, 5th ward split and is now
4th Ward, but there all still really good friends, so when you go to
either wards activities, there will most likely be people from the
other Ward. So a good group of 5th ward was there so it was nice to
know people.

Afterwards we called some potentials and talked to this girl named
C. It was super hilarious. We asked if she wanted to meet with us
and she just kept saying "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know."
We asked her if she wanted to pray about it and again "I don't know, I
don't know, I don't know. Oh my gosh I'm super awkward I'm so sorry!
I'm so awkward." Sister Taylor kept talking to her because I could not
stop laughing. Maybe you just had to be there.
This week Sister Taylor has been talking a lot about finding the
balance between obedience and having fun. Especially in Redding it can
be tough because we are so far away from everyone. But this week we
have seen the blessings of being diligent and obedient. "Selective
obedience brings selective blessings." And we don't want that.
Obedience brings about miracles.
 Oh and Sunday we gave talks in the YSA about families and how they
fit into Gods plan. It was kind of hard because it made me a little trunky

 but don't worry I've bounced back haha.
I know this church is true, I know God loves us even if we don't feel
like it, He is always there. I've loved going back and reading this
past General Conference talks. My favorite right now is A Pattern for
Peace by Bishop W. Christopher Waddell, I would highly recommend it.
He talked about how we can have peace in this life despite our trials!

I love being a missionary! Excited to see what the Lord has in store
this next transfer!
Sister Gore🙌🏻