Week 50, 9/20/2021

September 20, 2021

Week 50, 9/20/2021

Family reunion!!!!

Here's where I'm at - GATOR NATION!

Today the cutest thing ever happened. After our YSA sacrament meeting we had a little "get to know you" activity where we all stood up and said one thing on our bucket list. Everyone was saying all these crazy cool things they want to do and places they want to go in their lifetime. Then our senior couple gets up and brother Fluckiger says, "after having done a lot of the things that have been said I've learned that it's not so much about where you are but who you're with. So my bucket list item would be to have a family reunion anywhere as soon as possible" it was the most wholesome thing I've ever heard. ❤ Shout-out to my amazing family back home!

MLC with my Sistas

Yummy dinner out is always good for morale 🍰

Anyway I had a mission family reunion this week because I saw most of my old companions! That's right you guessed it: we had another MLC! (Mission Leadership counsel) turns out being an STL pretty much means having a lot more meetings to go to 😬🤗 but I loved it! I'm so grateful for everyone I've met on my mission and all the friendships I've been able to develop. It's crazy to think where I would be if I hadn't chosen to serve. God has truly blessed me for going on a mission! At MLC we talked a lot about "raising our Ebenezers" which means remembering those spiritual moments that your testimony is built on. Even being on a mission and having spiritual experiences frequently, I've learned that my testimony is something that I always have to be working on. A testimony isn't something built on knowledge and facts, it's built on confirmation from the spirit that what you known is true. I invite all of y'all to write down spiritual experiences you've had that have strengthened your testimony or refer back to times you've already written them down! Sadly our memory isn't perfect and if we don't reflect on those experiences often then they'll be lost :(

So go do that!!

Ok now for the rest of the week!

I went on another tradeoff with Sister Young this time, man I love her so much! We had so much fun and also had the BEST sushi of my life. (Having good food on the tradeoff is the most important part right??)

We met some very promising people at our campus booth finding event. I had the opportunity to teach a summed up version of all three of the main lessons to our new friends Jackson and Georgia! They were both super excited about the Book of Mormon and we're going to start teaching them soon! When we first started doing the campus booths, it was super nerve racking to talk to a whole bunch of random college students that were trying desperately to avoid you. But now it's a lot more natural! Still not easy but we're getting there. MIRACLES

The Gators lost to Alabama on Saturday and the whole town was in major depression mode.

Traffic was horrible

I feel like a real missionary now because we use our bikes a lot and we look like big dorks and get honked at a lot (hopefully it's in a good way)

Its just not normal to see women in long dresses and bike helmets

That being said, I'm ok looking like a dork 90% of the time because I know that it's for a good cause. I know this is Jesus Christ's church restored on the earth today through living prophets. Joseph Smith was the first prophet of his restored church and now Russel M Nelson is his current prophet. Prophets are how he leads and guides us here on earth, it's always worked like that, all the way back to Moses, Noah, and Adam! I know that when we listen and follow the prophet, we are following Christ. I know that the Book of Mormon is an actual record of Christ's people in a different part of the world, and there's so much we can learn from it about Christ's gospel.

I came to know these things not because my parents told me and I was raised in the church, no I have studied the scriptures relentlessly and prayed to know what's true. We may not have all the answers about how the church started or how the BoM was translated but the more I come to understand the gospel, the more I realize that those small questions don't matter. The questions that you really have to answer are: is this Christ's church, was Joseph Smith a prophet, and is the Book of Mormon true? Not, were the Mayans and Aztecs in the America's before or after Nephi's family? (Yes I got that question this week) because once we answer those big questions, the little questions fall into place.