The Most Spiritual Week of My Life!

This last week has been AMAZING!!!

We had mission tour and it was so awesome! Elder Paul Pieper from the Seventy came and taught us all about learning by faith, and how when we help our investigators become self-sufficient that's when we have truly done our job.  He had us read Elder Bednar's talk entitled "Seek Learning By Faith" to prepare, and if you haven't read that talk, you should, it is a great talk!

That was on Thursday, the whole day pretty much (8 am- 3:30 pm).

Then on Friday we had the baptism for Landen and Andrew Smith.  It was so amazing! Not only was it incredible that they were able to take that first step and be baptized.  But it was great for the entire family. The ward was so supportive, and they were all really including the family, and showing them that they are a part of their family! It was really good for all of them, because their family is trying to come back to church so now they each have that support that they need to stay and continue coming.  The coolest was that since Sister Smith is divorced, and their dad isn't really in the picture we needed someone to baptize them.  They felt a connection with Bro. Mosely who is the 1st counselor of the bishopric.  He did a welcome to the ward after baptizing and confirming them, and in that he told how he had come to baptize them instead of going to the funeral of his uncle and grandma.  He said that they had replaced them in his heart, that they were his new family, and that he would make the same decision any day. It was super sweet, because now they have that father figure that they will be able to turn to in their time of need. 

Saturday was another great day, we met a couple referrals and they were both pretty awesome.  The Hines are pretty into their church, but we had a good discussion with them and they are open to reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it so we'll see how that goes.

Then we met Jason Cooper, who is pretty solid.  We met him, had given him a Book of Mormon the night before and he had already finished all of 1 Nephi in one night....that's 52 pages!  And he understood it, we asked him what he understood, and it was incredible the knowledge he received.  He said he'll be baptized, but he doesn't want to set a date until he had finished the BoM.  Luckily, at this rate that will only be 10 days so I'll keep you updated on that! 

Then Sunday....Sunday was such an incredible day!

Church was amazing like always, and then we went the the worldwide leadership broadcast.  I don't know if y'all got to go to that, but it was incredible.  I feel so privileged to be out on a mission at this historic time, where "the field <truly> is white all ready to harvest"  I couldn't believe too that we're eventually, us missionaries, gonna have a facebook....what?! that's crazy, the work is changing, because it has to.  Knocking doors is not as effective as it used to be.  We will do it as long as we're asked though, because truly the most important word in missionary work is OBEDIENCE!  When we're obedient, and do our best, God is with us, and therefore we can be successful. 

To wrap the whole week up we had the final fireside as the Wa-Tac.  This week our mission splits and 30 missionaries go to the Federal Way mission....its a sad day because we'll miss them, but its a joyous day because that means that the Church is growing! 

The fireside was, as usual, amazing! I was able to sing in a special group number, there were just 7 of us.  We sang "I Feel My Savior's Love" and as I sang it I truly could feel his Love.  Then as always as we closed with Amazing Grace the tears welled up in my eyes, and I could feel the spirit so strong. 

Music is a way that I can feel the spirit so strong! I absolutely love it!

I love my Savior Jesus Christ.  And this week that love has just grown immensely! I can't believe the love I feel as I put on my tag, and go out to be his servant! You can never know until you experience the joy of spreading the gospel, and all of you can do that!! It's not just the full-time missionaries that are responsible for that, we have all been called to share the gospel!! We just have to get out and do it, or stay in and do it on line, that works too! haha

Well, I guess that sums up my week pretty good.  I'm loving it out here more and more each day!! I love you all soo much!!

Have an amazing week!!

Sister Thomas

Oh what a week!!

This week has been one heck of a week!  It has been every emotion you could imagine thrown into a week!!  I don't even know how to explain it.....

The sad news for the week is that Landon and Andrew Smiths baptism had to be put off til this Friday night.  Sister Smith is in the Army and her command changed so we hadn't been able to see them, since she had been working about 20 hours a day trying to figure everything out!! It has been crazy.  We didn't get in contact with them until Friday night, and we didn't want to rush their baptism so we pushed it back, and while it was a little sad, and satan definitley interfered with that one, their baptism on Friday will be better than it would have been on saturday.  So I guess that's kind of good news too! haha

The greatest part of this week was on Saturday at 3:00 pm at the 12th and pearl bldg in the Highland Hills Ward.  I got to go back and see Melvin Hershinger be baptized.  I don't even know how to explain the feeling I had when I saw him in the white suit.....I've never felt it before.  We walked in the church and Sister Crosby saw me and said, "Melvin, look who's walking down the hall!"  and Melvin came around the corner in his white suit, with his hair cut and his beard shaved, and said, "What? You came? Thank you sooo much!"  I almost burst into tears, the change that had come over Melvin was incredible....to have been able to see him go from an alcholic and smoker who had almost killed a man a week before we met him....to a son of God, who was willing to give up everything and follow his Savior, no matter the challenges.  This is why I've come on a mission, to help people like Melvin come unto Christ, and to change their lives for the better.  And it doesn't matter how many doors are slammed in my face, or how many times I'm told I'm wrong, because I know that I'm not.  I have seen the change that the gospel brings, it can change lives completely, and it brings such great Joy!!!

The rest of the week has been the typical tracting, visiting less active members, teaching the gospel, WORK!!! It's been good, great actually!

Oh strange thing that happened this week is we had really GOOD conversations with 2 different Jehovah's Witnesses.....yeah I said good conversations.....usually they rip us apart and try to tell us all the ways that they're right and we're wrong, but this week we had some good conversations with them about the differences but more importantly the similarities between us.  I've learned on my mission that you are greatful when people say they believe in Christ, you don't care which church they belong to, obviously you want them to have the fulness, but in the world today to find someone who believes in Christ is a miracle.  I've learned that the world right now is very black and white.  People are either strongly involved in a church and believe in Christ, or they hate religion and don't believe in anything....it's a scary world! It just goes to show that something big is coming, and we need to be ready. 

This next week we have our mission tour....Elder Pieper of the seventy is coming with his wife, and I'm so excited! It's going to be great!

What I'm most excited for this next week though is the broadcast on Sunday at 3, I don't know if you've all heard of that, but Pres. Monson is having the seminar for the mission presidents broadcast to the whole world......there is going to be a big announcement about missionary work, and I can't wait to hear it!!! It will be so amazing I'm sure!!

Well, I love you all, and hope all is well!! I miss you but not too much :)  I'm glad you had fun at the family reunions and I hope you said hi for me!! I love you all sooo much!! Have a great week, and pray and read your scriptures everyday, it will bless your life...I KNOW IT!!!

I LOVE YOU!!!

Love,

Sister Thomas

I'm 5 months old!

Hey Family! Hope you are all doing AWESOME!!

So yesterday was my 5 month mark! Can you believe it! I'm so old! The end of this transfer I'm going to be a third of the way done with my mission.  Like 1 out of 3, 33%, a year left, crazyness! I don't know where the time has gone, but I can already see such a change in myself, it awesome!

This week while tracting we ran into the meanest guy I've met on my mission.  We simply said hello, and he started telling us that we were teaching false doctrine, that we needed to re-evaluate our beliefs, that we were gonna go to hell, that we were possesed, that we'd been brainwashed.  And then he got right up in my baby's face and I said,

"Sir, we are simply out inviting, I know that this is true because I prayed and got an answer from God.  You obviously believe you have have as well"

 then he cut me off and said,

"I have and I know that this book is trash!"

Then he tried to grab the Book of Mormon out of Sister Downs hands to throw it on the ground, and she held it will all her strength and said,

"Don't throw this on the ground, this is a sacred book"

And we said, we have to go, and we walked away.....he started laughing creepily and we got away from there as fast as we can.  This may just sound like a normal encounter with an unbeliever, but I can't even to begin to explain how scared I should have been.  It was as if I was staring Satan in the face and he was throwing everything at us that he could.  As scary as it should have been, it wasn't.  Sister Downs and I were able to stand our ground because we knew that we had the truth.  We are representatives of Jesus Christ and nothing anyone says will change that.  I know that at the beginning of my mission I would have been terrified, but I have changed so much, it's AMAZING!!!

Another thing that I've noticed is I can teach by the spirit a lot easier.  Yesterday the gospel principles teacher didn't show up so the sunday school president was going to teach it, and then he said,

"well the sisters teach about the spirit alot, so do you guys wanna teach?"

so we did.....and I wasn't nervous!

We got up there and lets just say we didn't teach, but the spirit taught, and everyone in the class shared such amazing comments, it was incredible. 

So, miracle for this week!

In Zone Conference they told us in weekly planning to pencil in the next 10 days, or plan 10 days in advance.  Anyone who has been on a mission understands that you can't really plan that far in advance, people fall through all the time.  But, we were asked to do it, so we did.  We penciled things in and on the 15 we penciled in a baptism.  We didn't know who's but we felt like we should.  Then,Saturday night we went and visited the Smith Family.

Sister Smith is a Less Active member, she's in the Army so she's been deployed for a while.  She has 4 kids; Laurie (14), Tristan (11), Andrew (9), and Landon (8).  Laurie and Tristan are baptized, but Andrew and Landon aren't.  We talked to them and Landon wanted to be baptized so bad, Andrew was a little unsure.  We taught them The Restoration and they loved it!  We invite to baptism on the first lesson so it came time.  Sister Downs had never done it, so I decided that this was her chance.  She looked at me and I nodded and she said,

"So Landon and Andrew will you follow the example of your Lord Jesus Christ and be baptized by His Priesthood Authority?" they BOTH said yes!

Then was the time for the specific date, Sister Downs looked at me and I nodded again, and she said,

"We are holding a baptism service next Saturday, will you prepare to be baptized by then?"

and they said YES!!!

So we have a baptism this saturday! And they are sooo excited.  We are visiting them pretty much everyday this week, and they are just the cutest little things.  They are so smart about the gospel, and it doesn't seem like their listening, but we'll ask them to explain at the end and they do it perfectly it's soo cool.

So we planned a baptism for saturday without knowing if it would happen, and now we have a baptism planned and on its way!  It's amazing when your plans line up with Heavenly Fathers plan.  Now we are just praying that everything will work out for it to happen this week.

Well, that was my week.  It has had its ups and its downs for sure, but all of it has made me stronger and has made my testimony grow leaps and bounds. 

Read and pray everyday!!! It brings so many blessings, and it aligns your will and Gods will, which makes you happier than you can ever imagine. 

I love you all, and hope all is well! I'm sad I'm missing the reunion this week, let them know I love them all, and golf badly just in memory of me haha!!

I love you sooooo much!!

Sister Thomas

Trust In God!!

This week has been a GREAT week!  I have learned so many things, but the greatest thing I learned is that I need to trust in God, and he will bless me with things I can't even imagine.  I thought that training would be hard, that it would be this big task that I wasn't up for, I thought it was a mistake I was called to train, but never doubt God and his revelations.  Being a trainer is the greatest thing that ever could have happened to me.  It has made me realize how much I have been able to grow and change in the last 5 months....yeah, 5 months guys.....not exactly, but as of the 9th it will be! CRAZY!  Anyway, I have grown as a person more than I ever could have imagined!

The last transfers I have really held myself back.  I knew that my companions knew as much if not more than me so I had that ablility to do that, but having a brand new missionary I can't hold myself back, and I don't want to anymore!  I have to be an example to her and help her grow into a great representive of God, and that's very important.  I was lucky to get an amazing baby girl though. 

Her name is Sister Rebecca Downs.  She is 20 and from Glen Rock, Wyoming.  She is a visa waiter, which means she'll be in the Tacoma mission until she gets her Visa, and then she is off to Brazil!  Since she has to learn Portegues...I don't know how you spell that, we don't leave the house until noon!! Its crazy, we have

8-9: Personal Study

9-10: Companion Study

10-11: 12-Week Program (training program for the first 12 weeks)

11-12: Language Study (aka more personal study for me)

I think its a real blessing from God, because it gives me a little time to rest while I'm still getting over being sick and being in pain.  It's a little blessing that I know will help me be able to complete the full 18 months of my mission!

So the Parkland ward is incredible! They are so excited to have sister missionaries, and we sent around our food calendar one sunday, and the month is almost completely FULL! Which is both a blessing and a curse, blessing because we need food, but a curse because I've already somehow gained 20 lbs......I gotta change that! :)

The big miracle for this week is that we were able to get a referal from the Bishop.  It's a LA family named the Smith's.  She is in the military and a single mother, and she wants to come back to church now that she isn't being deployed all the time, she has a year off because of surgery.  She has 4 kids who are 14, 11, 9, and 8.  The 8 and 9 year old aren't baptized and they want to learn and be baptized, especially the 8 year old, so we get to go over and teach them!  We're excited!  They are so cute, and they all just want to come back to church soooo bad.  I know they will be a great addition to the ward. 

I love being in wards where I'm able to not only go out to find new people to teach and baptize, but also being able to teach those that have already been baptized that have lost their path and are searching to come back, but they just don't know how they are going to.  I love working with the less actives, and helping them remember the happiness and joy that comes from reading the Book of Mormon and praying, and coming to church to renew those promises we made at baptism, where we're able to have a fresh start each week. 

I challenge you all, if your not already to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.  You WILL feel peace, and you WILL know that it is the word of God. I can promise you that, but you must do it sincerely, with an open heart. 

I want you all to know just how much I love this gospel!  I wouldn't be here today if I didn't have my Savior Jesus Christ, and if he didn't support me in all my hard times.  I was lost, I was in a dark abyss, and through the example of my family and my Savior Jesus Christ, I was able to come up out of the dark and into the light.  I don't ever want to leave the light again.  I feel so much peace and comfort in my life knowing that God is always with me, that I have picked the winning team, and with God, I can come off conquerer of Satan.

I love you all so much!! I hope you all have a great week! I pray for you daily and want you to know truly how much I love you! Be Safe, Be Happy, and Have FUN!

I love you!

Sister Brittany Thomas