Let's see if I can focus long enough to write out this email. It was a great week, and this P-Day has been all over the place! We get to go over to a member's home a make a craft with them. It's a vinyl cut out of the temple on a galaxy background, so I'm excited to make that. Other than that, we've gone shopping and there was a really nice man, Brother Penrod, that paid for our groceries.
But that's not what the email is for. I'm supposed to be telling you about last week. We had Halloween. We spent the evening in the temple, and that was so nice. If I have to miss the festivities of my favorite holiday, the temple is the place I'd want to be. I love being so close to the temple.
I also went on exchanges with Sister Jacobson. She was trained by Sister Sorenson, and she acts a lot like Sister Sorenson too, which was fun. Pictures below.
Sister King and I had the greatest time talking to someone on the street. His name was Brayden. He is a teenager, and I feel like talking to teenagers can either be really fun or really uncomfortable. Good new, Brayden was fun to talk to. We had just started talking to him when we hear someone yell from his phone, "Dude! Who are you talking to??" to which Brayden says, "Mormons! Like you!"
"No way! Turn the camera around!" says friend.
*we awkwardly wave until Brayden flips the camera back to selfie mode*
Then Brayden's friend yelled, "Bro! You should come to church!" Brayden said he doesn't like church, but it was so funny and absolutely hilarious! Youth are so cool.
This week was an awesome week with our friends! We started teaching the commandments to Laura and her kids. We had a really good lesson, but poor Anthonee was scarred for life (we taught the Law of Chastity this week). Afterwards, the kids asked if they could show Sister King the hand signs for the Ten Commandments. The eighth commandment is "thou shalt not kill". We have the kids hold up four fingers on each hand (so everything except their thumb), and (this is how Anthonee explains it) talk about how, "Back in the day, if you stole, they'd cut your thumbs off". Well, they got to that one, and by that point, I guess the sugar Aalyra had been eating before was starting to kick in because suddenly, she tells Anthonee, "I'm going to cut off your fingers!" to which Anthonee, absolutely horrified cries, "It's not back in the day yet!" I died. I love teaching their family.
We also taught Linda again this week! She texted us out of the blue and asked, "If it's not too late, can we do another lesson?" and we were like, "Of course!" We got to teach her to Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is my favorite lesson. Linda didn't grow up with a Christian background, and I like to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ using lots of Bible stories, so it was fun to teach her. And it felt so good to testify. I love testifying of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Charles came to church! We had a regional broadcast (I'm not sure if that reached all the way up to American Fork or not), and it was so good! We got to hear from two members of the Seventy (including Elder J. Devn Cornish, which was fun because I've met him before), the General Young Women's President, and Elder D. Todd Christofferson. It was a broadcast from Salt Lake, so we got to be like, "Charles, this is one of the Apostles". He seemed to like it a lot. The best part was seeing the members of the stake just bring him in and welcome him. I seriously love this area. The members are AMAZING. Charles got to meet our Bishop, the Ward Mission Leader, a few other members of the ward, and then a member from a completely different ward invited him over for dinner. It was so good.
I think my letters are getting less flow-y and just me jumping where I please, so now I'm going to tell you the spiritual thing I learned this week. It was actually really good. Earlier this week, we had a training on the difference between building other's faith and tearing down other's faith. I, unfortunately, got to experience the difference between the two this week as I saw someone I love share post after post about "everything that is wrong with Mormonism". Guys. It really hurts my feelings to see things like that because this is truly the most important part of my life--it's the thing that makes me happiest. It makes me sad to see it twisted into something it's not, and I am left feeling dark and lonely. It really gets to me is what I'm trying to say.
The next day for studies, I was just praying because I still felt sad to have seen that, and then, fortunately, I got to experience the difference faith being torn down and faith being built. While I was studying, God helped me remember something that taught me exactly the principle I needed. I remembered Harry Potter, particularly the dementors. I thought about how after having them near you it feels as though you'll never be happy again. I realized that is how I was feeling, so I started thinking about what could combat those feelings. That's when I remembered the spell "Expecto Patronum". It's the spell that means "I await a guardian", which guardian comes from the memories that make us happiest. It is the memory of those things that make someone happy that protects a person from the effects of a dementor. It requires the witch or wizard to recall the happy memory, but those ultimately defeat the dementor. I realized that it takes an act of faith (or our testimonies) to call upon the protection that comes through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and He is our guardian. As I finished this train of thought, it reminded me of a scripture, "For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding." That's what God did for me.
I am so grateful for the additional testimony of Jesus Christ that comes through the Book of Mormon. I continued to think on this topic throughout the day and came upon a quote by Elder Hales. He said, "We show forth His love, which is the only power that can subdue the adversary and answer our accusers without accusing them in return. That is not weakness. That is Christian courage." I know Heavenly Father was aware of me in those moments. He was there to remind me that even though my beliefs will continue to be "examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart", that I get to continue to stand "shoulder to shoulder with the best life this world has ever known--the only pure and perfect missionary, [Jesus Christ]". I get to know that I "have every reason to stand tall". This is the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. It will bless each person who learns of it because it truly brings me closer to Jesus Christ. I love you!
Sister Emily
1001 N Burk Street
Gilbert, AZ
85234
Exchanges with Sister Jacobson
House of Refuge Service
This is from when we carved pumpkins as a zone
Brother Penrod was so nice an bought all of our groceries
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