Tuesday, April 23, 2013

February 25, 2013

February 25

Hello Family, 

I am so glad that to have gotten an email from you. I also enjoy reading what is happening back at home. Mom, I am glad that parent teacher conferences went well for you. You will do an awesome job with your lesson next week. I am excited to hear all about it. You are awesome and I know that you will be able to tie everything in that you are suppose too. Being convert to me is having a change of heart. It isn't just to have faith, but acting in your faith. You can't just become converted to the gospel, who have to be living it and to be willing to have a change of heart. I love this topic a lot because as missionaries we have to ask ourselves if we are truly converted. If we are not then we can't expect our investigators to be fully converted too. Sometimes have a change of heart has us to hard things, but if we put our trust in the Lord he will bless us and we will see the miracles in our lives. I feel like I have been truly converted. I am following the example of Jesus Christ and I have placed all of my trust in the Lord to lead and guide me to do what I am suppose to be doing. I have had a change of heart and I have acted on it. This is what being truly converted means to me. I hope this helps you out mom. I am glad that you asked for my input. I wish you luck and will be praying for you. You will do awesome.

My new companion is Sister Allan. She is from Illinois. She comes from a family of 7 and is number 2 of 5 kids. She has an older sister who served in the Mesa, Arizona Mission. Something cool is that Sister Allan and her 18 year old brother is serving at the same time. Sister Allan's brother is actually serving in the next mission to us. He is serving in the Riverside mission. Isn't that cool? Sister Allan is one of the first groups to do the two weeks in the MTC. She said that it was a little bit crazy and that is was cool to watch how they were going to transition everything. Sister Allan is great and is doing so well. I like training it is fun. Sometimes it can be a challenge, but I am keeping a positive attitude about it all. She is kind of struggling right now and thinks that she needs to know everything right now. She is being to hard on herself and that is making her a little frustrated and kind of miserable. I keep telling her not to get too stressed out. Everything will come and that she can't know everything at once. I also keep telling her only take it one day at a time and that EVERYTHING WILL WORK OUT. We just need to keep moving forward and keep have faith. She is doing so well other than that. I know how she feels because I was once there as well. We are getting a long great and are helping each other out. She is a hard worker and is doing whatever it takes. I like that and I am so glad that she wants to work as hard as me. We have seen some great things from the Lord. Here is just a few:

On Wednesday we were out contacting people and we went to stop by one of our investigators houses. They weren't there and so we got into the car to leave. As we were driving a long, Sister Allan had this thought that we needed to go back and knock on the door across from the Ereckenbrack's. We followed that prompting. We knocked on the door and no one answered. We didn't give up and thought that there was a reason why we felt to come back. I then felt prompted to knocked on another door. This lady named Yasaman answered the door. She was so kind and very sweet to us. We talked to her about religion and she said that she doesn't belong to a religion, but does have a faith. We were able to talk to her in a smooth and natural way and was able to teach her the Restoration at the door step. She really enjoyed it and thought it was very interesting. We offered a church tour as well and she said that she would love to do that. We have called her and she was busy so we could never set something up, but we are going to try to have one this week with her. I hope that she will remember that spirit we were able to bring at the door step and that she will want to come on the church tour. That was an amazing experience.

Another cool thing that happened was went went and visited a less active that our bishop wanted us to see. Well we got there and he wasn't all that interested and shewed us away. We saw this lady out in her yard and asked if we could help her. She said no, but was really nice and we were able to talk with her a little bit as well. She knows a lot of mormon's and loves the religion, but is happy where she is. As we were talking to her I had this thought come to my mind to the lady that Sister Allan is knew and needs some practice on the lessons. I said that I know you aren't interested, but would you be willing to have us practice on you. She said no. I knew that that was the spirit because I would have not done that. So we leave and then Sister Allan has a feeling that we have to go back to Brother Monson's house and tell him that God loves him  and wants him to come back to church. She was scared to death to do that, but was brave and went up to him and said that. It was so cool. I wish you would have been able to see it. The spirit was so powerful when she said those words. I hope that he was touched and that he will realized that his Heavenly Father really does love him. 

I am finding myself becoming more and more comfortable talking to people. I am finally coming out of my comfort zone. I am not perfect yet, but I do think that training has helped me to open up more and to do more hard things because I have someone that is counting on my and is watching my example. We have done a lot of walking and talking to people and have had a really fun time doing that. I am working Sister Allan hard and she does come home really tired. Coming home tired is always good. It means that we had a good day and worked really hard. I love being out talking to people and finding those that are prepared. We did a cool finding activity the other day with the other Sisters that are in our area with us. In Montrose there was a fair going on and so we decided to side walk chalk the Plan of Salvation. Two of  us drew and talked to people as they walked by and two of us went out talking to people and having them come look at the drawings. That was a neat experience and was a lot of fun. We had a lot of people ask us what we were drawing and we were able to talk about the Plan of Salvation with them. It was neat. 

This is about all of the great highlights of the week. I look forward to new miracles this week and to keep finding those lost sheep. I have a firm testimony on faith. Without faith finding people is impossible. I have really understood what faith is and that we need to stay strong in our trials. We get put through trials for a reason and that it is to help strengthen our faith. I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I put my whole trust in the Lord, He will bless me and give me strength to overcome those great challenges that get tossed into my path. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and knows what kind of person I am. I know that He has trusted me with one of His precious daughters and is allowing me to train her in the work. I can see that strength from Heavenly Father that I need everyday to help Sister Allan feel loved and to have fun doing missionary work. I hope that I will continue to be a great example to her.

I love you all so much and hope that you have a wonderful week. Thanks for everything. 

Love Sister Ackley

Pictures: Sister Davidson and me. Dropping her off at the mission office. :( Sisters Harker, me and Turner on our hike this morning. and then Sisters fogavai, me, Allan, Turner




Sister Davidson and me being silly

My last transfer district

 Zone Picture from our hike. I am at the top

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