Hey everyone! It's been an awesome week. I feel a lot more settled in to being a missionary, and a lot more effective in my area. Now I actually know who people are in the ward and I've met some inactives and people we do service for.
Probably the highlight of my week was teaching this guy named Thomas! He was found on facebook. It's always encouraging to hear that someone was found on facebook because facebook finding seems to be mostly fruitless. There is a set of missionaries in each zone who are ONLY social media missionaries; they don't get to do any service or member lessons or anything, and they have access to instagram and other stuff so they can reach more people. Those sisters were the ones who found Thomas, but since he is in our area they passed him off to us! We did a zoom lesson with them, a member in our ward, us, and Thomas, and it went really well! We taught him the Plan of Salvation, which was my first time teaching a specific lesson out of Preach My Gospel, the manual we have for teaching the basic principles of the gospel. Thomas was really receptive and agreed to read a chapter of the Book of Mormon! Since he didn't have one, we got to drive to his house after the lesson and meet him in person when we dropped off the Book of Mormon.
Also it was fast and testimony meeting in church on Sunday! I love the fist Sunday of the month cuz I get to fast and I get to listen to other members' testimonies! One sister shared her testimony about an Old Testament story that I haven't heard before. Three holy men came to visit Abraham first, then Lot. When they came to visit Abraham, as soon as he saw them coming he ran out to meet them and fell down at their feet. He washed their feet and when they came into his house he had the best calf killed for a feast for them. And he invited them to stay the night.
Then it tells the story of Lot receiving the holy men. When he saw them coming, he stood at the gate and bowed respectfully when they arrived. He had a feast for them too, but he did not invite them to stay.
What I thought was so cool about this is that both Abraham and Lot accepted the holy men. They came in to both of their houses, but the holy men only stayed with Abraham. The light of Christ is in all of us and we all have the ability to feel the Spirit. But do we make our hearts a place where the Spirit can stay? Abraham went out of his way to make sure the holy men felt welcome, and he sacrificed his best calf for them. In the same way, it takes a constant effort from us to make our hearts open to the Spirit coming and staying. And it can mean sacrificing some of your time or maybe some of the things you do that don't bring light into your life. But when you make the Spirit welcome in your life, it makes a huge difference in how you feel and the things you are able to accomplish.
It also reminded me of one of my favorite talks ever from general conference. It's called Good, Better, Best, by Dallin H. Oaks. In it he talks about doing the best things. Lot invited the holy men in, and that was a good thing. But he could have done better by inviting them to stay. If you want to read the talk, here it is!
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2007/10/good-better-best?lang=eng
One more experience from the week. I got to do a video call yesterday with a guy who lives in Mexico. I found him through facebook. He doesn't speak English, so we had a conversation over voice message on messenger and I got to practice my listening abilities in Spanish. Then when we video called, he told us some crazy stories he had about experiences where he listened to what the Spirit was telling him and was able to do crazy stuff. I translated everything for my companions. It was really encouraging to me because I understood almost everything! It was hard to remember it all to repeat it back to my companions though, cuz he would talk for a long time before giving me a break to translate.
I love all of you guys! Have a great week and do something this week to invite the Spirit to stay with you a little more than you did last week, whether that's studying, praying, serving, or anything else you feel with bring you closer to Christ!
Les amo!
Hermana Cazier
pics
1. I love bananas and my comps do too so we buy a lot of them
2. part of my conversation with that Spanish speaking guy
3. I cooked stuff this week!
4. we went to the library
5. I bought a pair of sweats... as my sister Ivory knows, the mens section has all the best clothes :)
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