fun pday walking around shops and churches in Austin.
one of the many churches here
trick or treat!
the wentworth family (:
Sophiapatra (: I helped do her Egyptian makeup
this coat would be awesome for winter...
elder Carlson zone conference
Happy Halloween from your freaky missionary friends
haha
Happy November!!
Wow, it's already November... the cold
is starting to set in!
We had a really great week this week! We had a
great Halloween, we made thank you treat bags and dropped them off to
members houses, had an AMAZING lesson with one of our African
investigators who ended our lesson with "let me tell you how I know your
church is true" and went on to explain that even though he agreed to come
to church once and then tell us that he has his own church to go to, we still
came, and he saw that we didn't just want him to join our church,
we really do love to teach about God, he also said that we always ask
him to keep the commandments and last week we asked him to stop drinking and he
did and he said if we hadn't asked him, he wouldn't have. Then to top it off he
said that he doesn't know why but his English is always better when he talks
with us and then when he tries to speak English to others its very difficult
for him. It was so cool to hear that he is recognizing the blessings he is
receiving. He opened up a lot more and asked some very deep questions, and now
we are very excited for him.
In an effort to help out our investigators who
speak French, we have begun to learn French ourselves with one of our
members... French is hard. haha but its been so fun! Right now we are just
learning the basics, the ABC's, how to pronounce words (the hardest part) and
how to pray in French. We hope that soon we will be able to communicate a
little better with our friends from Benine.
We had Elder Carlson from the area 70 come and
visit our mission and man, the more I am around these Apostles, the more I see
that they are what I want to become. They are great examples of living
Christ-like lives, and still they are just average ordinary people! Elder
Carlson taught many different things, but one of the things he talked about I
want to share with you. He taught us to "Stay on the line".
He was explaining to us about good
planning. He was talking about the daily mission life and how to plan well, but
I feel like this is going to apply very well with life outside of the mission
as well.
He told us that when we plan effectively and
specifically is when the Lord can bless us effectively and specifically. A
lot of time as a missionary is put into planning, he asked us why we
devote so much time to planning?
He said, it's because planning is important to
the Lord. Our God is a God of order, there is nothing left undone, nothing
left unplanned with Him. So if we are to be like our Heavenly Father, we
should learn how to plan.
He went on to explain, that, when we plan out
our days very specifically, and then we "follow the line", when we
make a plan and follow it, that is how the Lord places people in our path to
bless. The Lord prepares others when we prepare ourselves, and when he trusts
us in what we say we will do, that is when he opens the flood gates of the blessings
he has in store for us.
Yes, He does prepare and plan blessings for
each and everyone of us, and one of the ways we can receive those blessings is
through planning out a course in our lives and following that line.
So, make a plan: daily, weekly, monthly,
yearly, etc. And don't stop there! Don't be discouraged if your plans
fall through, the Lord can make all things possible if you make dun duh
dun dun!!! backup plans! if plan A doesn't work out, let the Lord
know what you plan to do if your plans take a different turn than you
thought. Make a plan A, plan B, plan C... Just make plans! Find out
what is most important to you, set your milestones, put plans in motion and
stick with it! The Lord can do no miracle if we are not following our OWN
plan to happiness.
Everything the Lord asks us to do requires
acting. We need to set ourselves in motion and then the Lord can set everything
else in our lives in motion.
It's been so cool this week to see the reality
of this promised blessing of following the line!
Sister Pierce and I decided to do that, to try
it out, see if it will actually work. So, we did the leg work of planning well
the night before, and the next morning we would wake up to see what it would
bring. Let me tell you it was better than we thought! We followed our line to a
T! well, more like an I, that line is straighter (; it was so cool! We met
everyone that we needed to meet and more! we ran into 3 people who came
into our path that knew about Mormons and thought that they were great people
and wanted to learn more about the church! I'm telling you these are
rare people to find in Minnesota that have some connection with the
church, and we had 3 of them we found in 1 day! And what did we do?
We followed the line.
There were many times where Satan tried to
distract us from the pathway that we had set before us, and many temptations,
doubts, thoughts, you name it, he tried. It really made us realize Satans small
tools to get us off of the pathway to eternal happiness. Small things really
that we might not even realize, but they slowly take us off track of the
blessings we will receive if we follow the line.
We have been doing this for three days now,
and the last 3 days have been extremely successful. Even if we follow the path
and what we were supposed to do originally didn't work out, we found someone
who needed us at that very point in time, and
perhaps even, circumstances that were unseen to us were unfolding for
our good. I think perhaps, even when we don't see any immediate
blessings take part in our lives even when we are following the line does
not mean that the Lord is not setting in motion opportunities and
blessings for you and others. I strongly believe that there are many unseen,
unacknowledged, unnoticed blessings that work in ways that perhaps you will
never know of until the day you die, but none the less they are there. I
believe at times that is where our trial of faith comes in. Will we trust
that the Lord will keep His promises?
It's just been a very cool week of further
understanding the mind and mysteries of God.
The Lord tries the faith of his people. So, I
believe He is asking you to try him!
Read Alma 32.
Make a plan, and follow the line, He wants you
to see where He can take you, and enjoy the fruits of your labor!
Love you all! I hope you had a very Happy
Halloween!
Love Sister Ficklin
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