So as a missionary I have like zero time to write in my journal my letters
to you are my letters in my journal... literally every night for my whole
mission and especially now we are working till 10:15 PM 10:25 PM then we race to
bed wakeup at 6 AM then get back at it! I love it and the the thought of this
being my last full month on my mission makes me want to give her like 10X
more!!!
So I am going to begin by giving as detailed of letter because this week
has been a blessed week of doing the Lords work. The Lords work is always
amazing, especially if we allow Him to be in control of all things as we
diligently do our best to work by the Spirit.
So my companion we just love each other, she is my age 22 will be 23 in
November, she has been out for 5 months but I feel as though she has been out as
long as me. We are 100% on the same page, and learning so much from one another.
This Sunday we are opening up transfer letters, we are hoping and praying we
will be with one another next transfer 3 weeks is not enough. I feel we will be
staying the same although I have been in the Cole Harbour ward since January,
but who knows! I love the Cole Harbour ward so much it is the best ward in the
mission, and well it just feels like my home ward. But Sister Howell and are
just hard working and loving it, we get along so well and yea what more can I
say! She has a great style we share clothes, and we will be life long friends! I
love being a STL with her.
So I am not sure if I gave you the update about Debbie last week ... Two
days before Debbie's baptism she got a call from the hospital because she has
been on a waiting list for 6 mnths to recieve this neck surgery. And BOOM TWO
DAYS before her baptism and got a call that they recieved a neck bone donar for
her surgery and that her surgery would be the Friday before her baptism.
She had the bone replaced in her neck as her evil horrible tenants from a year a
go pushed her down the stairs and broke two disks in her neck, so this surgery
was a result of that. So Debbie and us were quite sad but also happy because
this neck surgery is a blessing. It is a pre baptism gift from Heavenly Father.
So as Debbie has been healing she ended up getting blood clots in her lungs so
she has been on blood thinners for the past week, and she has been in the
hospital since July 25th so we are hoping and praying she can get out tomorrow!
She can't get her wound wet for 3-4 weeks, so her baptism is postponed till Aug
23! We all and Debbie including call herself the "dry mormon". She is great and
we have been visiting her and reading the Book of Mormon in the hospital.
This week we had a
exchange with Syndey sisters who are 5 hours away so we each met half way and
switched. I served with Sister Olsen during the day who actually came out with
me, her and I have not served around one another for our whole missions so it
was quite nice and learned alot from each other!
We just had an amazing
week let me share a few experiences we had:
So on Friday we picked
up 4 new investigators. For a big part of the day we were making our wall maps
of the areas, it was crazy first off our area is HUGE so we have like 6 maps we
had to make, now we have to put dots on them for all members, LA's,
investigators, formers, potentials crazy huge project but it is helping with
us prioritizing our efforts and making effective efficient plans. So we went to
Staples (being deprived of talking to people we talked to everyone in our
flyingsight during out time in the store) and we ended up setting up a
appointment with our cashier guy who was ringing us through, his name is Kabu!!
He is a African canadaian who is baptist, so we called Sister Brooks who use to
be baptist and is african canadian planned to have her come with us to teach
him, she was the most perfect person to come! We ended up teaching Kabu late
Friday morning after our weekly planning in the temple grounds it was amazing!!
We taught him the Restoration and it would not of been the same without Sister
Brooks there, she was able to relate to him and testify in a way we could not.
So we picked up Kabu and will be teaching him again
tomorrow!
Then afterwards we had
a lesson set up with Debbie's neighbour actually, so we went and picked up
Sister Pinsent to come with us to the lesson, and we drove 15 mins to and no
show.... we were little stumped because Carlene seemed so interested!! So we
drove back dropped Sister Pinsent off at home, then BOOM we get a call from
Carlene and she said she was running late from a doctors appointment, so we
swing on back and go and pick up Sister Pinsent again and go on right back and
teach agreat first lesson with Carlene, she will be on vacation for 2 weeks but
we will be teaching her when she is back and she looks forward to attending
church when she is back. She has a 4 year old son and 11 yr old daughter! She is
a single parent.
then we go and do some
finding then we have a DA with a member that day, we drive past the church and
we see a young fellow walking through the church parking lot, and we just are
like "dang! we don't have time to stop and talk to him!!" So we continue to
drive to our apt, had a great member visit. Then we end up going back to the
church after knocking that area, as we felt prompted to so we did... and we pull
up and Sis H and I see that young man again and we both just look at one another
and I am just like"OK go Sis H!! Run out I will park the car and follow!!" haha
so we whip in the church parking lot i slam on the breaks she hops out I put the
car in break and run following her haha it was great!! So we go introduce
ourselves to this boy and friend that is a girl, we talk to them his name is
Twyron and her's is Mckenzie, he is 18 and she is 17. So we invite them to come
in the church after having a good convo with them, and we end up giving one of
the most powerful church tours!! The Spirit was so strong, we could tell Twyron
is raised in tough circumstances, and we knew we were exactly where the Lord
needed us to be. So we end up getting to the end of the church tour where we
described all the paintings pretty well give a good understanding of the gospel
and the blessings of it through teaching through the art in the church, and we
get to the point where we are about to go into the chapel, we explained it all
and we invited them to sit down where ever they wanted and to pray and ponder in
the chapel in silence, to reflect on the spirit. So we all go in quietly all
take our seats and Twyron just is praying so fervently, he bows his head and for
about 10 minutes we are all just silently sitting in the chapel. The Spirit was
sooooo strong!! It was a profound powerful moment, I just felt so at peace, I
truly felt as though angels were around us, (as weird as that sounds) it is
true. My heart just felt so still, I just was praying in gratitude and asking
Heavenly Father to help me to never forget this transcendent moment. I know this
gospel is true, and I know that their is a great spirit in the chapel, I feel it
is so easy for me to forget the magnitude of the chapel the importance of it, we
have a sacred ordinance each week that takes place in the chapel the sacrament,
what a blessing it is to have these miraculous truths and blessings in our lives
that just is so normal to us that we tend to forget the importance of it. So
afterwards we all quietly walk out and go sit in the Relief Society room we ask
Twyron how he feels. He said " I felt as though Christs hand was on my shoulder,
I felt impressed that everything is going to be alright one day and that things
will get better" at this moment Sister Howell and I truly experienced the spirit
literally burning our bosoms, my heart was so full and so warm. It was amazing,
we commited Twyron to be baptized for Aug 30th and he accepted, just as we were
coming to a close of the lesson, the YM's president and the elders quorm
president randomly showed up at the chapel and we were able to introduce Twyron
to them both.
Saturday we went to the hospital with Sister Kidd to see Debbie, the Cole
Harbour ward is so great they already have visiting teachers assigned for Debbie
even though she isn't even a member yet!! Like that is fellowship right there!!
I know and have faith the Lord will be preparing many wonderful people for us to
teach with the ward like this!
Sunday was absolutely
amazing so it was fast and testimony meeting, and with all the
amazing experiences the members in the ward has been having in coming out and
serving Gods children with us through street contacting, knocking and
prayerfully picking LA's for us as member and missionaries to go reach out to
Sister Howell and I have been asking the members that have been coming out with
us to bear their testimonies about their missionary experiences, so couple
members did. It has been amazing because Sister Patti Devlin who served a
mission 20+ years ago is pretty shy and has been struggling with the lose of her
mother this past year was one of these members. Last ward council we mentioned
to the ward that she has been prayerfully selecting LA's to come out with us and
the ward was shocked because she has been LA in the past, we had an great
expierence where she came out with us to go reach out to these LAs she was
tearful about it so we invited her to bear her testimony and she said yes and I
excitendly said "OK I will bear my testimony with you!!" This was a couple weeks
ago. So with 10 minutes left she gets up and bears her testimony, then infront
of the whole congregation as she closed her testimony before she walks away she
points her finger and says " sister Pizzey your turn!" hahaha. So I got up after
came up to the podium and said: "Well I felt ... prompted? to come up today "
haha everyone had a good chuckle from that ;). So I bore my testimony but it was
just amazing looking out to this ward that I love so much, and have had such
amazing spiritual experiences with one another as we have done missionary work
together it has influenced and impacted both of all our lives so much! I
normally don't get tearful like dad does when I bear my testimony but I did, I
just got choked up when bearing my testimony of member missioanry work, I could
just feel so much love in that fast and testimony meeting.
So that was probably
the most amazing testimony meeting on my mission! I just love this ward! So
later that evening, we stopped by at an investigators home who just got back
from vacation. Adrianne, she actually is friends with members here we met her at
dinner at a members home they invited her over, and she went to Whales to visit
her friend there so she just got back and we were able to start teaching her
again!! We set a goal of getting one new investigator that evening and we had 2
hours to find, and we just were like we have hope against hope and all faith
that the Lord will provide a way!! So we went and began knocking the first
street we had picked from our new handy dandy wall maps, and turns out there is
like 6 houses on the street haha, then we go to the next Lane we chose called
"Monster Lane" haha it was pretty desolate so we were like hmmmm... so we drove
down the Lane and I kidd you not there was 2 houses on it.... we drove down to
the end didn't have a good vibe about the back further house. So we turned
around began driving to the end of the Lane to the main road and we just were
like this is a waist of time lets go somewhere else. Just before we were about
to leave, I just thought in my mind "wait a second we planned this last night
for a reason lets just knock this last house before we leave" So I pull over and
said Sister Howell lets just give this house a try, so we do and BOOM!! That is
where we picked up Jerry our new investigator who is
amazing!!
Jerry is just nicest
jollyest little man, and we had a great convo with him he expressed all these
questions he has had about the catholic church, that he could never get
answered. We said " well Jerry what questions do you have?" So he came out we
all took a seat on his deck we started with a prayer and we ended up teaching
prayer, asking alot of basic questions he had about prayer, as soon as we met
him I just felt so much love for him in my heart, Sister Howell and I just
pictured him as a member and could see the great member that he would
be!!
We were able to reach
many of the goals we had this week, all not on our own strength but because "the
Lord does not call the qualified he qualify's the called." I have come to see
for anyone that "I know in the strength of the Lord thou canst do all things"
Alma 20:4.
In Relief Society our
lesson was based on sisterhood, I love everything I have learnt on my mission. I
just have come to love the sisters, I love serving the sisters, I am so grateful
for the opportunity I have to serve, grow and learn from the wonderful sisters
that I am a Sister Training Leader for. We are all different and unique and not
the same but we all need one another. Being a STL I have learnt so much about
Christlike service and charity. When we have Charity we never fail!! I feel my
calling as a STL is something that was always in store for me to help me to
learn and understand the necessary lessons of forgetting your insecurities, and
yourself and losing yourself in the service by serving your God! I just love
sisterhood, and how blessed are we to be apart of this all!! The world is just
missing out on so much!
Last night as Sis H and
I were "pillow-talking" haha. I was explaining to her the difference I feel from
within my heart, from with in my soul!! From living my life with and with out
the gospel! I just want to bear my testimony that I know this is Christ's
gospel, I know this because the Holy Ghost is so prevalent in my life. The Holy
Ghost brings all things to our remembrance, the Holy Ghost guides us to truth
and light, the Holy Ghost is only present when truth is spoken about. I know
that these experiences I am having on my mission would not happen if this
gospel weren't true. I know that these miracles happen because we are on the
Lords side, we are in a spiritual army fighting to save the souls of our
spiritual brother and sisters. I love it so much, and I am so grateful. This is
the greatest amount of joy I have ever experienced and I know this is just a
piece of what it will feel like in the eternities if I continue to endure to the
end.
In my personal reading this AM I came across Alma 30:60 "we see that the
devil will not support his children at the last day, but doth speedily drag them
to hell" now this sounds quite intense but satan is so suddle to have the grass
appear greener on the other side, to have evil appear good and good appear evil,
he does not tempt us for our good, the devil is the father of all feelings of
despair, Heavenly Father is the father of light.
Yhis week we will be having Sisters from New Glasgow visit our area for a
day, as we can train them and help them a bit more, as well we will be having to
mini exchanges with a companonship with a struggling sister, where we can all
take part to strenghten her,
We will be having mission leadership training during the day on Wednesday
which I am excited for! It is crazy it just seems like aweek ago was the last
one. Time is going too quick!
I love you all, and you said you wanted details so I gave you DETAILS
;)
Love,
Sister Pizzey
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