Can't Steer a Parked Car

Another awesome week in Oregon!

We've started really trying to make progress with the people who we do service for. We already always pray with them but this week we started inviting them to do things. And we had Bibles studies with two of those people and one said she would come to church!

We actually had a lot of people this week say that they would come to church with us, but not on mother's day because it was mother's day. I wasn't sure how that discounted going to church, but then my own parents skipped second hour to talk with me... 🙄

But I'm so glad I got the opportunity to talk with my Mom! I love her so much and I hope all of you who are reading this got the chance to tell your mom how much she means to you and how grateful you are for everything she's done for you. Moms are truly amazing. I think the closest we can come to understanding God's love for us is understanding our mothers' love for us.

We also got to have a lesson with Tabitha this week! She's the girl we put on date a month ago, but every time we try to have a lesson with her something comes up and she cancels, so we haven't met with her since then. But a member invited her over for dinner and she came! They are a super fun family. Junior high sweethearts, which I'm not sure I've ever heard before. He served his mission in Brazil, same as my dad, and they made us "authentic Portuguese food that's been americanized". It was good. We had a lesson on faith, which is something we wanted to emphasize with Tabitha. I was worried about how we could have a spiritual lesson while at the same time keeping little kids entertained, but the Spirit makes all things possible! We had one of the best lessons I've had using the classic "faith is like a seed" analogy. The kids and Tabitha all participated a lot and I hope what they learned stuck with them.

We helped this lady move stuff from her shed to her truck bed in the pouring rain. I volunteered to be the person who stood in the rain the whole time tetrising the truck bed. I love rain. I love how much it rains in Oregon, and I've heard it rains even more in the DR. 😏

Also a cool experience I had this week! We had this training meeting where someone said, "you can't steer a parked car." She talked about how God can't do anything with us if we aren't trying. But once we put forth effort, He's able to direct us. Sometimes it involves Him completely changing the direction we're going, and sometimes the way we chose turns out to be the right path.

Anyway, I was thinking about that, and I really wanted to be able to teach with the Spirit, and specifically I wanted to share a scripture from the Book of Mormon with her. That morning I studied really hard. I prepared a bunch of Book of Mormon scriptures that I thought might be relevant to what we were going to talk about. I prayed that the Spirit would bring a scripture to my mind. And then during the Bible study, it went a completely different way than I was expecting. And the Spirit brought a scripture to my mind that answered a question she had. My prepared scriptures didn't end up getting used, but because I prepared myself I was able to be receptive to the Spirit!

Have an awesome week everyone! I love you guys and don't forget to start driving! Get that spiritual momentum going and step on the gas! Then don't stubbornly insist you know the way - let Jesus take the wheel.

Hermana Cazier 

Pics

1. this Plan of Salvation diagram that makes it so easy to teach it and emphasize that the plan shows God's love for us

2. this makes it look like what I said about the rain was a lie, but it was actually pouring about fifteen minutes before we took that picture

3-4. some funny pictures we took at a member's house. The kids were making fun of us for doing the hand thing that takes the picture for you 😄

5. we rescued a goat from the fence

6. book origami is something I've never seen before but I thought this was so cool!