Email from September 22nd, 2014
Hey family, are you ready for a lengthy email? Good thing you love me! My area update: This week turned out to be a bit of a turning point for us in Crosspoint ward. Nothing was really happening... We were teaching a spare few less actives, but we had no investigators to teach in our ward. Finally on Friday during my studies I started to feel like it was in our hands to set a goal and to actually believe in it! Then we would find someone to teach. So Friday during nightly planning we both felt challenged by the prospect, but excited to set a goal of finding 3 new investigators on Saturday. Up untill this point, we had not found a single investigator in Crosspoint ward, but on Saturday evening we set out to contact the last former investigators on our list. We ended up finding 3 new people that have agreed to meet with us, two of which are very promising potentials. It's funny how we KNOW faith is the first principle of the gospel and that miracles are wrought by faith.... But why is it that we must be reminded of that over and over again? I know I have forgotten to fully apply the principle of faith so often on my mission, but whenever I have, I have always seen Gods hand shown forth! 37 Behold I say unto you, Nay; for it is by faith that miracles are wrought; and it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men; wherefore, if these things have ceased wo be unto the children of men, for it is because of unbelief, and all is vain. Moroni 7:37 We are struggling to help a inactive, yet angelic woman in our ward. She grew up in a dysfunctional family in the church, and has had a very rough life. She has adopted her grandchildren that are unbaptized teenagers, and All of her children are members of other churches in the valley that teach anti mormon classes. She says she will be a Mormon till she dies, and believes Joseph smith is a true prophet. But she also believes the Pope is a true prophet as well and that there are many true churches. ( this causes me to ask myself-- what is the definition of truth?) We have a good relationship with her and have been extremely bold with her (most people would have been offended by what I said, but I felt the spirit directing me to be unapologetically bold with her). The saying that reminds me of her is "don't be so open minded that your brain falls out". The authority of God can be found in only one church on the Earth at a time, and it is Christ's church -- the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! It's a bold claim we make, I know! But everyone has the ability to find out the truth of it for themselves. We have seen miracles this week! I'm excited to see what The Lord has in store for this ward ;) Update on all the other exciting events of this past week! We had the "stories of Jesus" story time hour this week at the visitors center! We advertised it as being an event for preschool age children and their parents. We had probably around 35 children, 10 babies, and about 30 moms in attendance. It was so much fun, and since it is my last event in the visitors center on my mission, I was able to conduct the program. We had lots of fun songs with posters and props like "the wise man and the foolish man", "head shoulders knees and toes", "popcorn popping", "hello song", and "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam" scattered throughout the program. The first story we told was of Jesus calming the seas. It was so much fun for the kids as they got to make lots of sounds and hold up a boat and imitate the story seas with a blue sheet. The second story was of the 10 lepers, where only one that was healed by Jesus went back to thank him -- to make it fun they wrapped ten kids in toilet paper and covered them with red round stickers that fell off when they were healed! The third story (told by Mwah) was of the Shepard (with 100 sheep) and the lost sheep. We had a poster board of 99 sheep that all had names, and when it came time for me to find the lost sheep (sister Kohler), they all helped me to find the sheep that was desperately "baaing" at the back of the room. After I carried the sheep to the front of the room again, the kids surrounded me as I talked about how much I loved the sheep, and how much God loves each one of them. They all pet the sheep roughly, as any toddlers would, so the cotton balls were falling, and a little boy looks up at me and just says loudly for everyone to hear "I LOVE him!" Which started a chorus of "I love you's" to the lamby. It was pretty darn cute, and made me think of my two favorite preschool girls at home ;). It sounds like they are going to be doing story time every week during the slower times of the year starting now! The next morning, we had a conference with the Mesa mission and the Scottsdale missions combined to hear from elder Russel m Nelson of the quorum of the 12! We arrived two hours early to get good seats. We were in the second row in the middle! As elder Nelson entered the room, he BOUNCED in! He just had his 90th birthday and he is still bouncing and grinning wherever he goes. He not only is an apostle of The Lord, but he's also the cutest old man I have ever met! He walked straight in and down to shake our hands. All 550 of us in attendance lined up to shake his hand, along with elder Hansen and elder Foster of the seventy. His smile never left his face as he greeted each missionary individually. That was my first time ever shaking a apostles hand-- he was just a human being, but he emulated love and happiness that filled the chapel! I don't know of any better way to convey some of what was spoken of in our meeting other than to list out the points and quotes. Here goes: -- "as I have been visiting here I have to admit that I couldn't imagine a better place for the church. The church is well respected yet we are still in the minority. If I were to write a prescription for the perfect place to do missionary work, this valley couldn't be beat." --"halibut is the ugliest fish I've ever seen!" --"there are 3 quorums represented in the 3 HOMBRES you shook hands with" and he further went on to explain that the difference between the quorums 1-3 of the seventy and 4-8 are their duration of service. --"For some of us, once we are called, we are in it for life. Release is a good thing when it is timely, but for some of us we have to die for it! Be grateful you can be honorably released without having to die for it" ;) --"we judge mission presidents not by their number of convert baptisms, but by how many of their missionaries' grandchildren are sealed in the temple" --"sisters, let's speak about marriage for a minute-- when the time comes that Prince Charming is on one knee and says "will you be mine?" .... Say NO! Well...say no until you are satisfied that he puts the Lord first. Ask him if "if you had to make the choice, would you choose Me or God?" When they put The Lord first, they will have an increased capacity to love you. " --when speaking about the quorum of the 12, how different they each are, and how they make decisions purely by the spirit-" the only time the 12 are ever united is through the spirit. Otherwise, we can't even agree on the right way to shave!" -- "God likes to use the unlikely to accomplish the impossible." -- we are to use family history more in teaching. The spirit of Elijah is real, and we as missionaries need to have it and feel it, so it can spread to those we teach. -- He identified Apathy as one of the greatest enemies to building the kingdom at this time --we have the ability on earth to have complete control over our appetites. It is the test of our mortal bodies. The tidbits I shared don't do the meeting justice whatsoever, but I just wanted to share those with you. I felt so much love from elder Nelson as he spoke, and I am so sure that he is well aware of the struggles we face, and knows what we needed to hear. He really is a prophet, seer, and revelator, and I am so grateful to have been blessed enough to hear from him this week! In his closing remarks, he invoked an apostolic blessing upon us, and the only part that I still remember and that peirced me was when he blessed us that our families would be taken care of and those that are not part of the fold at this time will be blessed for our faithful service. As he said this, our eyes were locked for over 10 seconds and I felt it was a blessing directly given to me from my Heavenly Father through this messenger. On the way to the vc from that meeting, we saw Ironman chilling on the side of the road. We stopped and took pictures. Meeting two superheroes in one day! What a great day. I'm so grateful to be a missionary, and I don't think I can even begin to describe how grateful I am that we have messengers here on the Earth with God's authority to guide and direct us on our path back home. I love you all!
Sister Rebecca Younce
EMAIL FROM SEPTEMBER 15, 2014
Well my last transfer of my mission has officially begun. It's a bitter sweet thing! More bitter at this point, but I'm sure when I make it back into the arms of my family at the airport, the sweet portion will kick in ;) At transfer meeting on Wednesday, president Jenkins spoke about not only helping people spiritually with the gospel of Jesus Christ, but also helping them physically. Often people aren't ready to receive the gospel if their physical needs aren't being met... Kind of like if a missionary approached a door and a tired and hungry single mom answered the door. The message of the gospel might not help her so much at that point, but rather maybe a few groceries and a bed for each child would ease her mind and prepare her better for being able to recognize the blessing of the gospel later on. We left the meeting excited to find people to serve here in Mesa. About an hour after we left the meeting, we got a call for us to come and help to serve the flooding victims. For those of you who don't know... On Monday it rained more in 24 hours than it had in the history of Arizona. I had been wholly unaware of just how bad the flooding had effected so many people because I am in a nice/middle class area of Mesa that was saved from the damage. Once we got to the site of the flooding we were shocked! The water had all receded at that point, but it had been 6-30 inches of "sitting water" for 2 days, which was plenty of time to ruin quite a few homes. We walked around and simply walked into each house to ask the what we could do to help. Missionaries were all around doing anything from ripping out carpet, using equipment to break tile and sand the floors, remove trims, sweep inches of water out of houses through the front door, etc. It was a humbling experience as we helped take almost every single furniture item from some of the houses to the dumpsters, and see that there was nothing left for these people in the homes that they could use. All of the badly effected families were staying in motels, or often even on the floors of local family members houses. I wonder why the flooding had to hit the worst in the poorest neighborhoods, where no one had flood insurance, and they were already struggling to figuratively "keep their heads above water" financially. We don't have all of those answers, but I did get to witness some of the blessings that have already come, and I'm sure we will continue to realize more and more. The flood victims were angry about their misfortunes for the first 1-2 days, but as soon as the missionaries and Mesa city trucks started to swoop in, their despair turned to hope and gratitude. There was one couple that was pretty memorable for sister Kohler and I to help out with. They live in a very small, humble home, and they welcomed our assistance. We helped them remove items from soaked boxes that had been in garage storage, and put the soaked items out to dry and then into new dry boxes. It was heart wrenching to watch the wife find her memory book with all of her wedding pictures and young children's pictures at the bottom of a soaked box. Every page was ruined, but she just held the book to her chest for an hour or so as she watched us continue to work. Their house had been hit hard, and their carpet would have to be removed completely, and their walls would need to be repaired and the trim removed. Before we left to go help another family, we had a golden little nugget of a conversation with the very non-talkative husband. He let us know that he had "never cared much for Mormons." And that he had had 2 different Mormon bosses that had each been very dishonest and bad bosses. But that since this flood has happened, his view of Mormons has changed. He told us "well you Mormons must not be all that bad. In fact, you at least raise your kids to be good Christian people." That warmed my heart to hear. We weren't there to proselyte, but we were there purely to assist those in need. But it became very apparent this past week that we were there repairing more than just homes. To finish off the week, entire mission met on Saturday at 7 am with the mayor of Mesa, and got to work! We had to leave early to go help a struggling visitors center that had been bombarded with hundreds of people with only one elderly couple on shift there, but we hear most missionaries stayed for more than 12 hours. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and I'm so grateful to have been able to assist in the clean up efforts for 3 days this week! It's been a fun, gloomy, happy, sad, long, tiring, and amazing week towards the close of the greatest 18 months of my entire life thus far. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to serve in this capacity. I wouldn't trade it for the world! Getting to represent Jesus Christ for 18 months in Mesa Arizona will define my entire life. I love you all! Sister Becca Younce
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