New Start :)

Hello everyone!

So to start out, today is transfer day, and this transfer is going to be a new start for me.  Sister Benjamin, after serving here for 6 months is being transferred to Bastrup, Louisiana.  It's not that far away, but she has left.  The cool thing with that is she is now companions with one of the four sister that was in my MTC district!  They are going to be awesome together and I'm so excited for the both of them!

The rest of the news is that I get the exciting and humbling privilege of training a new missionary.  I haven't met her yet, because she has to make her way out here on the transfer van from Clinton, Mississippi, but her name is Sister Boehula (boy-hula).  She is from an island near Tahiti, and President McDonough said that she is quiet, but has a strong testimony.  That's about all I know about her right now.  :)  We will pick her up later today around 4:30, so next week I'll give more details and send a picture!

I really am excited, especially as I have gone back through all of my notes and journal entries from the MTC, and the 12-week training program that we will be working through together.  I have felt that this will be a time of training for me from the Lord, and a time that will really bless me.  I know that the Lord is in this work and our daily lives, and I feel that this next transfer or two are going to bring about great things.

So that being said, this last week was crazy, stressful, fun, rewarding, and chaotic all at once.  Sister Benjamin and I had one of our lowest moments on the mission as we felt so burdened.  And honestly I think a lot of it was simply because of challenges that have come as we have prayed for and strived to make changes in ourselves to become better.  There wasn't a specific lesson or investigator that went wrong, or a day of all our appointments falling through.  It was just a build up of little things and trying to be diligent through it all.  There was an experience of a missionary that our Sister Training Leaders gave each of us sisters, that talked about purifying ourselves.  An Elder was in a teaching appointment for an investigator with a member present.  He bore his testimony of the Book of Mormon and it didn't seem to really phase the investigator.  Then the member shared his - not really saying anything different, and the spirit filled the room and really touched the investigator.  The Elder wondered what had made the difference.  Why had the spirit come when the member spoke and not them?  At a devotional for the missionaries a few days later, the Elder asked the speaker afterwards about how he could get that same spirit of power.  The man looked in his eyes for a minute, and then asked him some questions:  What do you think of when a girl walks past you on the street?  Do you get up on time and go to bed on time?  Do you obey all of the  mission rules?  Do you speak sarcastically or negatively to your companion?....Those things drive away the spirit and you need the spirit.  He then went on to issue the Elder a challenge.  Fast and pray for a day, and then make a list of the things that poke at your spirit.  Then do a 40 day fast of those things.  Promise to the Lord that you won't do those things for 40 days.  Each morning pray for the strength to resist doing those things, and each night give an accounting to Him and ask for His help where you fell short.

That is the challenge that Sister Benjamin and I took on.  It is hard and trying, but I know that through purifying ourselves, we will have the spirit with us more powerfully and clearly.  The Elder talked about how one thing that he felt he needed to put on his list was golf.  At first he tried to rationalize how golf wasn't bad and he only played it on p-day.  But after a few minutes he wrote it down because he realized that throughout the rest of the week he thought about how he could play better.  In a talk called "In The Strength of the Lord" Elder Bednar said that through the atonement we can go not only from bad to good, but from good to better.  We were not meant to just be good people.  We are meant to be perfect - the best we can be.  I know that as we pray for strength to adapt to, face, and bear our burdens, we will be able to become strong (Ether 12:27).  I also know that as we trust in the Lord and seek His guidance to know what is poking at our spirit, we will be able to be purified through the sacrifice of our Savior.  I know that this gospel is true.  As Sister Dibb said, "I know it.  I live it.  I love it."

I love you all and pray that you will find the strength to pray to your Father for help and do His will!  May you have a strengthening week!