*This email was from last week. Sorry we are behind in posting it. This weeks email will follow shortly.
Family!!!!
Hey how are all of you doing?! Ahhh what a day yesterday!! I have to admit, I was sort of dreading Mother’s Day this year. Anytime I thought about it my stomach would drop and I felt sick. I guess everything is still a little too fresh. Its funny how I cry or tear up EVERY single time I get to testify on families! (every day) and so everyone around me can feel the love I do have for my families even just after meeting me. I say funny…. But I actually mean ANNOYING! Why do y'all have to make me love you so much?! Stop being amazing!!!
So that skype conversation was interesting! Next time I hope we don’t have that huge delay between the audio and video! I have skyped hundreds of times and that has NEVER happened to me before!! I can't believe I started crying at the very beginning either and continued all the way through! (Daddy, why did you have to give me these genes?!) The blessing of my amazing family is why I am doing all of this…. But its also what makes this painful at times. You were all asking me if I was always this homesick and emotional and the answer is: HECK NO!!! I seriously just tear up every now and then. I hadn’t legit cried since the day before I left for the MTC! I really have been blessed with the ability to concentrate on the work most of the time here, and I know the Lord has strengthened me significantly over the past few months. Sometimes I feel like I’m not even the same Becca! I came right in with people being amazed at my confidence and everyone I meet thinks I am near the end of my mission, rather than a greenie. (sorry Jacob! Guess that only happens in English missionary work!! J) Whats odd about this is… at first I wasn’t confident even in the slightest! But I really have felt myself becoming more and more confident as I have become more attune to the spirit. Its amazing what surety you can experience as you learn to rely on the spirit’s guidance rather than on the thoughts of your head alone.
I know I say this about every week… but this past week was a crazy busy one!! Sister Brown and I had an awesome Zone training meeting where we met with the other 30 or so people in our zone and did quite a few training activities. Our main focus of the meeting was on how to build strong relationships with the members in the area. This was such an inspired and important thing to focus on, especially in this Mesa mission! I might have mentioned this before in emails, but the Mesa mission is a tracting-free mission. We rely wholly on referrals and the only way to really fulfill our purpose as missionaries here is to start with gaining the trust of the members around here so that they know that they can trust their friends and neighbors in our hands. A few days before the meeting we had done our weekly planning where we make goals for the next week. Our goal or focus for the next week was to be on FINDING PEOPLE TO TEACH! The meeting went hand in hand perfectly! I also was working on having “faith to find” this past week as my main focus individually. I often times would just start turning away as soon as I saw that a person we were talking to was about to reject us and squirmed a bit as sister Brown kept talking to them. I realized though that by being like that, I was not fulfilling my purpose as a missionary and allowing them accept or deny what I had to say. This week I think I for sure gained confidence as I knocked on doors. I knew oftentimes by their faces or by the fact that they wouldn’t open their storm door (why does everyone in mesa have one of these huge metal doors?! So annoying! They talk to you through it and wont open it. They can see you, but you can't see them! We end up talking to a door and looking all sorts of directions hoping we will get close to their eyes at some point in the conversation!) I felt such [power within me as I testified of things I know to be true each time. Almost every time, they already had their answer ready and the words on their lips, but I testified anyways and as I did so I felt the spirit testify to me of the truth of what I was saying and as a result my testimony grew each and every time. I know that this won't be the highest baptizing mission by any means. Every house on the streets that are not LDS have already had their answer ready for years now and have gotten to practice it a time or two, or fifty. But we WILL find [people that the Lord has prepared, and in the meantime I can stand guiltless as I fulfill my purpose as we struggle to “find”.
I am so pleased to tell you that we have an investigator that has set a baptismal date! Her name is Faye Felts. She is originally from Arkansas and she has the CUTEST accent… and honestly she is just the cutest lady I have ever met! She has been married to a man that has been inactive most of his life. Missionaries have come by in the past over and over, and for years at a time at some points. She has never been willing to commit and never willing to admit what she does know to be true. She admitted in our last lesson that she KNOWS the book of Mormon is true and is the word of God. As her husband tried to make excuses for them and why she hasn’t been baptized then, she ended up stopping him as he came up with his tenth excuse and she said “Well Ed, truth be told, none of that is actually why. To be honest I just haven’t prayed enough about it.” This came from a small quiet woman who is honestly quite submissive to her talkative husband. That got things on a really honest and “excuse-free” note right there. During the next visit after that one, she had some concerns. While I wanted to just talk my way around those concerns and convince her what I know…. Something made me stop.
Instead I testified of how I know that as she gets her answer, then everything will make sense to her. Her testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon through the Holy Ghost will allow to her know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. Then since J.S. was a prophet of God, then he had the authority to receive revelation from God. That revelation, which in this case is the Word of Wisdom, is then in conclusion FROM GOD.
I let her know that she shouldn’t stress about that right now. She needs to concentrate on praying to God and that the rest will come as her faith grows.
This was certainly not all I said, but that was the general idea. During that I felt the spirit so strong within me. I kept having the word “baptism” pop into my head over and over again. I lightly nudged Sister Brown and we looked at each other in agreement and realized we had both felt the same prompting.
Keep in mind, asking Faye to be baptized was a bit of a far step. She had been asked that question perhaps 20 times before by her previous missionaries and every other time it had been a flat out no (as our area book records say), and we did not want to pressure Faye for fear that she would back off and not let us come back. Thankfully though we were both so prompted by the spirit and felt a powerful confidence within us to just ask the question. SHE SAID YES!!!!!!!!!! Of course she is still going to be praying about this to make sure this is what God wants her to do, but for some reason Sister Brown and I were so blessed to be able to be used as instruments in the Lord’s hands! I don’t know why we were the companions lucky enough to see this finally happen, but I know we didn’t do a thing – it was the spirit. I’m just glad that we have been following the rules with exact obedience and being faithful enough to keep the spirit with us as our third companion. While Ed Felts has not been active since he was 16 years old, through the past two visits he has come to realize his testimony and now they both want to get to the Temple to be sealed! When we talked about them going through to get sealed together for all time and eternity I just lost it! My eye makeup was smearing, but I was just too happy and in such a state of Euphoria that I just didn’t care! While there is still a long road ahead for Faye, I know with a surety that she will be baptized – if not on the set date in late june, then at some later date for sure.
Last night we had the grand idea to bring pink roses and cards by all of our “potential investigators” houses where a woman was present. We had so much fun going from house to house and wishing each mother a happy day. We have set up two appointments so far from those 8 or so houses we went to, and each woman seemed really pleased to get the rose. Although that doesn’t seem like a good statistic… that is far better than usual when we go “potential investigators” houses!!! It not only gave us a good feeling as we went to each woman, but it also served as a good distraction from having seen the family a few hours before on skype.
I want you all to know that I did love seeing you!! I SO appreciate the love I get from all of you, and I feel like the luckiest girl to have so many amazing people standing behind me. Brooklyn and Lily were even cuter than ever!!!! Lily – have one of the Belle’s be Becca!!!! Thanks for recognizing me and showing so much excitement, cutie!!! Brooklyn – Way to go with those full sentences! You amaze me as usual! Glad you know now that I’m not in Utah anymore! Thank you both for the I love you’s!!! I LOVE YOU MOSTEST!!!!!!!!
Ahh I love you so much!!!! I can’t believe it is going to be a full 7.5 months till I can talk to you again! Ahhh before I know it though, I will be heading home! For now, thankfully I know that I am where I am supposed to be. God really is there – he is not just a figment of our overactive imaginations. I feel his power daily, and every single day as I repent and improve myself, I feel the immense power and Love from Christ. Christ lives, and what an amazing reminder I have of that each day as I stand in front of the beautiful Christus! This church is true. We are SO lucky that we can come to know that for ourselves straight from God. I have felt that confirmation from him time and time again, and it makes me so happy to get to witness others coming to feel that for themselves as well.
I love you all so much! BE MISSIONARIES EVERYDAY!!! (remember that you promised to do so in your baptismal covenant! ) We can all do more.
Mwah!
Sister Younce
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