Letter dated 12/16/13

9 days until Christmas! So excited!! SO many Christmas festivities this week! We had a ward Christmas party and a stake Christmas concert--both were epic and tons of investigators and less active members came! I love the spirit of this season. It really makes people so much happier because they remember Christ and try to be more like Him. I just love being able to help people to feel the Spirit especially around this time.

Our golden investigator is still super awesome. Kelly is progressing very very fast. She has been telling tons of people (family and friends) about her baptism in January, and she has taken a lot of heat. Thursday we met with her and she told us that that morning she was talking to another teacher who had heard that she was investigating the Mormon church. The lady ripped her apart basically and told her that the Church looks really good on the outside but really does bad things. Kelly was hurt because she didn't understand why people would be so mean about something that makes her so happy. She said that she knows that the Church really is good or else her friends like Erika would not be a part of it. We talked to her about Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ and their persecutions. She has so much faith and has kept optimism despite all that; her family that lives in town is not supportive either, but luckily she has tons of friends already that are in members of the Church so they help her a lot.

Kelly is hilarious though. She is "practicing" for her baptism; she tells us that she can hold her breath for a minute. We tell her that that is unnecessary because she will only be immersed in the water for a few seconds, but she is just a goof and says that she doesn't trust Brother Cole, who is going to baptize her :P. It is very funny because she is just so enthusiastic about just about everything. Sister Askren and I have to control our excitement so that we don't give her too much all at once (milk before meat).

One other awesome thing about Kelly-- recently her fiancee was killed in a car accident where he was hit by a drunk driver and killed instantly. She was engaged to him for a year and was very depressed. It is hard to picture her being sad because she is just so happy all the time. I think that she will really love the plan of salvation. I am so excited her to feel the healing power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She already has such great faith, but the fulness of the gospel will give her so much more. 

Last thought for today is a quote that I have thought a lot about lately. I might have included it in recent letters but it is so good that I want to tell you again:

"A religion that didn't demand the sacrifice of all things wouldn't have the power to lead men to salvation." -Joseph Smith

I love you all so much! Enjoy this holiday season! Fill your life with Christmas carols/hymns, service, and family time! Spend time thinking about Christ, and do everything you can to follow Him.

Love always, 

Sister Sadie Bledsoe

400 W Apache St

Farmington, NM 87401

PS- make a booklet of Conference talks! the seminary teacher around here gave them to the missonaries and we use them all the time. You go to lds.org and to the ensign then one of the options when you print it out is to make it a booklet. You can get it bound at like Kinkos or some other copy place. It is awesome because you can use it at church and read it on-the-go. Super handy! I love it. 

Here is a picture of mine

also our awesome window of snowflakes --it is a work in progress still but it makes me happy

Golden

This week we had an awesome experience in a lesson with a new investigator named Kelly. She was a member referral who came to church. We met her when she came to Gospel Principles. We had a good lesson about the Holy Ghost and Kelly understood the Holy Ghost to be kind of like 'your conscience' and was really excited to learn more. She was really excited to be there because she has wanted to come to the Mormon church for a long time now but she couldn't while she lived with her aunt and uncle. They were Catholic and didn't allow her to go to any other church while she lived with them. However, she just moved out and wanted to go to the Mormon church. She didn't like how her Catholic church treated her and preached about the afterlife because she thought it seemed pretty harsh. She really admired her Mormon friends who valued service and families so much. Anyway, after the Gospel Principles lesson we let her keep the Gospel Principles manual and she wanted a Book of Mormon to read so we grabbed one from the car. She also loved Relief Society and wanted to keep the Lorenzo Snow book.

We had our first real lesson with Kelly this week at her friend Erika's house. It was EPIC! If there was such thing as a perfect lesson then this was it. We wanted to get to know her in this lesson and set up expectations. When we got there, she told us that she had read the ENTIRE Gospel Principles manual. She found it all really interesting especially the parts about Adam and Eve. She had questions about the War in heaven and Lucifer's plan, which was new to her because she only knew about Jesus's plan. We told her that we would answer those questions in the next few lessons. She then told us about her experiences at church and had questions about why the girls where skirts/dresses and why we fold our arms when we pray. We had a good lesson about expectations, lessons, commitments, and we even talked a little bit about prophets and priesthood. We felt impressed to give her a baptismal date at the end and she was soooo excited. She is already inviting people to it! She was super excited about being able to go to the temple and she really wants to meet the prophet--she is pretty much golden! It was a way cool experience to see someone so elect. I know that God has been preparing her to hear the gospel by placing her member friend Erika into her life. That experience strengthened my faith in member missionary work and how extremely effective it is and also that the Lord is preparing people in my area to hear the gospel and we just have to find them!

This week we also had exchanges with two of our Sister Training Leaders- Sister Egginton and Tukuafu. They have both served in my area before so it was cool to have them there. They gave us great advice and it was an awesome experience to work with other missionaries. My area is on the outskirts of the mission so we don't really ever get to see other sisters until exchanges once a transfer. We are also the only sisters in our zone. But we had a really good time this week. We did a lot of tracting to try to find new people to teach since our teaching pool has gotten pretty low lately.

Also I LOVE CHRISTMAS! We watched the Christmas devotional which was awesome! We also have been singing Christmas hymns a lot which has brought the Spirit into our companionship so much.

We also went to a Zone Training where we talked about the power of the Book of Mormon in conversion. We practiced teaching the first discussion by reading 1 Nephi with investigators. You can teach God is our loving heavenly father and the gospel blesses families by reading verse 1 and talking about Nephi's family and even though he has seen many afflictions, he has been favored of the Lord (Loving Heavenly Father). Then we talked about prophets (verse 4) and the role that they have to cry repentance or warn the people. We talked about prayer with verse 5 when Lehi prays on behalf of his people. Verse 6 is a cool parallel to Joseph Smith's first vision (pillar of light/pillar of fire that lehi sees); it shows us that the way that God calls prophets is the same in the Book of Mormon and now with Joseph Smith. We talked about the difference between God and Jesus Christ with verses 8 and 9 because two Persons are described (one sitting on a throne and One descending from heaven). We talked about the Godhead. Then we taught Christ's earthly ministry with verse 10 (12 others that descend/follow Christ). We then talk about Christ giving Lehi a book (verse 11) and ask the investigator if Christ has given us a book today (the Book of Mormon). Then we talked about blessings of reading the book of mormon (verse 12)- being filled with the Spirit of the Lord. Then we talked about apostacy/people killing prophets with verse 20. Then we talk about the Restoration but I haven't found a scripture to talk about that. Then we read verse 20 and talk about the promise of tender mercies and that God will help us to overcome anything if we have faith.

That lesson plan has been awesome because people can really feel the power of the Book of Mormon and it also helps them to become comfortable with the language when we read with them and interpret it with them. It is also really casual and it doesn't really feel like we are teaching formally because we just read scripture, ask questions, and apply it. It has helped me to gain a greater appreciation for the converting power of the book of mormon.

Anyway, missionary work is awesome. I love it! 

Merry Christmas!

Love, love, love!

Sister Bledsoe ;)

 My Christmas Tree

Happy Holidays

Hope you all had a happy thanksgiving!

 

For our thanksgiving here, we went to the Duces house for lunch which was awesome then we went to the Knights house for leftovers at night. We love both of those families and they want to have us over for Christmas meals too!

 

My companion Sister Askren was sick this week, so I had to find members to go out on splits with me. It was hard because it was around Thanksgiving so people were really busy. I ended up getting an RM from another ward to go out with me which was really fun. She just got back from her mission in Queens, NY.

 

Also this week on p-day we went on a hike with a member Hanna to a place called Horseshoe bend. It was way fun to hike around especially because this place is beautiful!

 

One awesome lesson this week was with a less-active member whose husband is an investigator. We need to help them to get to church, so we met with her to see how we can help. We had a great lesson about obedience even when we are asked to do hard things that push us out of our comfort zone. We talked about 1 Nephi 4 where Nephi has to slay Laban. It is in the first 10 pages of the Book of Mormon for a reason. Nephi had to learn to follow the promptings of the Spirit and to do the will of the Father in all things. Like Nephi, sometimes we are asked to do hard things that don't make sense to us, but we are blessed for our obedience and the results of obedience are huge (because Nephi killed Laban and got the plates, we have the Book of Mormon now which has converted millions to the church).

 

Also I just love this quote by Joseph Smith: "A religion that didn't demand the sacrifice of all things wouldn't have the power to lead men to salvation."

 

I love you all! Happy Holidays!