Hello (mostly) family!
Last week we went to the zoo!!!! It was so fun! I'm including a picture of me by an elephant, and a picture of me and Sister Kober by a San Diego Zoo sign. I think we made it through the whole zoo in about 2 1/2 hours. We were booking it! We were speed walking and we even broke a sweat. I was sore the next day. Multi-purpose trip to the zoo! Haha. It was a lot of fun.
This week we had more MTE's. I went on two more exchanges and I'm going on another one tomorrow. MTE's are exhausting. I'm a little ready for them to be over. But it's okay. It's completely self-less to go into another area and help them and coach them on what we just learned. I'm learning a ton just from doing it. On Friday I was supposed to go with two sisters into their area but one of those sisters was sick, so I'm going with them tomorrow and instead brought one of the sisters in my district into my area and Sis Kober went with Sister Pond in their area. We hadn't planned anything for our area that day since we were supposed to be gone, so it was tricky finding thigns to do. But find we did! We even added one new investigator! Her name is Diana. We met her because of a referral from a former investigator. I had talked to her sons and her husband before and they never set up a time for us to come by, but Diana let us teach her and set up a time to come back on Monday night, which we did. This is the best part of my whole mission so far, I think.
So, Sister Kober and I had to do splits last night because we had an appointment at 6:30 and at 7. I went with Sister Larson from the ward to Diana and Guy's house and Sister Kober went with Sister Wash (also from the ward) to Martha's house. We met back up at the church afterwards and we both had great lessons! Let me tell you about mine. First a tiny back story....
Yesterday morning I was studying for this lesson and I was reading about how the gospel blesses families from Preach My Gospel. I also had just looked at a picture Natalie took of me and mom the day I left home. I attached it. Anyway, this picture really makes me happy. So I was thinking about how Mom is SUCH an example of a faithful disciple of Christ and I learned to love the Lord from her example. Then I studied the gospel blesses families and I was really touched knowing that although our family has difficulties, through repentance, forgiveness, and faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ, our family can be better than ever before. So....on with my story.
I taught Guy, Diana and their sons, Oscar, Guy, and Joseph that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that the message we bring blesses families. They were into it. Then I briefly explained the restoration, quoting Joseph Smith's first prayer, and Diana's eyes lit up! She was feeling the spirit, for sure, and I'm pretty sure her family was, too. We talked about how we can know families can be together forever (and all the other things I said) were true because we have the Book of Mormon. We taught them that they can ask God specific questions, and that He would answer them. Guy (the dad) was unfamiliar with that idea, but liked it. He didn't want to say the closing prayer, so I had Diana do it. (Preach My Gospel says to have the head of the household say a closing prayer at the end of the first lesson. Usually I am so good at insisting people say the prayer, but I could tell he wasn't going to budge this time, so we had his wife pray) I told her she could ask God if the missionaries (me in this case) were true messengers from Him. She said that she'd feel bad praying for that because she already believed it! It was so cool! I've never taught a family before, and there seems to be more of the spirit there. It was the neatest experience ever. I went to bed the happiest I've been my whole mission. It reminded me of the call packet, saying that more happiness than we've experienced awaits us. I believe it. Families are forever. That's why I'm on a mission.
THIS WORK IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. I love it. I love Heavenly Father. =D And I love my family. =]
-Sister Bishop
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