Aug 13, 2012

July 30, 2012 Letter

Hello all!

This week has gone by quick! It seems like this whole mission is going by just as quickly! It is very strange for me to think that I will be hitting my year mark at the beginning of next transfer. Super weird.

It sounds like Grandpa Fran's funeral went well. I got to see the program - the picture on the front definitely made me smile. I'm glad most everyone got to be there to spend time together. I definitely miss Grandpa Fran, but I know without a doubt in my mind that everything will be okay and that everything happens for a reason.

This last week we have been placing a lot of emphasis on finding investigators. As we have had members coming with us to appointments, the other two will go and street contact people around the area or start knocking doors. We are getting a lot of potentials and hopefully we will start to see some progress as we continue following up with these people. It will be interesting to see what comes of it all.

We had a cool training experience last Wednesday. President Packard has been doing trainings/interview with each zone individually throughout the mission. Wednesday was our turn - so he was doing trainings/interviews in rotations with each district specifically. It was really neat to get his very personal and inspired take on the new vision that he has for the mission. He's such an inspired man and has felt very strongly impressed to make our mission a "Book of Mormon mission". This phrase has meaning to us as missionaries because usually we are constantly striving to be "Preach My Gospel Missionaries." While Preach My Gospel is still super important to know and be familiar with (it's the manual we use to know how to do all of our work), he feels very strongly about the power of the Book of Mormon. It really is the chosen tool to gather Israel in these latter days and he expects us to use it as such. It has gotten our companionship very excited about the Book of Mormon and I have found that as I have placed even a greater emphasis on learning the language of the Book of Mormon and familiarizing myself with important sections/verses, that I have grown spiritually and helped other people to draw on the that same spiritual power that comes from such an inspired book.

This week I have been super blessed to be able to witness the blessings that come from being faithful. Gaby, the newest member of our branch, has dealt with lots of trials over the last couple of months having to do with her living situation. To add to that, she lost her job this week because of having excessive time off to come to church. She faced it with a lot of faith, fasting and praying. She mentioned that she lost her job when she went to institute on Friday and on Saturday, one of the members called us with information to give her about a job! It worked out! She has already started! She's working at a restaurant that is within biking distance and the pay isn't too bad. She's started out just doing dishes and cleaning, but has the possibility to move to cook (which is what she did at her old job). The woman who hired her is super happy with her and she likes the people she works with! Yay!

As if that wasn't all, she was able to go to the temple on Saturday to do Baptisms for the Dead with the branch! Woot! We even got permission to go and be with her. It was super awesome! The spirit was strong! Her testimony is growing she is becoming so much more sensitive to the spirit. What's more, as I was sitting in the temple I was suddenly overcome with such a happy feeling - I really couldn't describe it if I tried - but I felt like my understanding of how blessed I am became a more firm knowledge than what I have ever known before. I felt so blessed to be worthy to be in the temple and to have partaken of the ordinances of salvation for myself and to witness these saving ordinances being done for others who now will have those same blessings if they so choose. I'm so blessed!

Thank you for all your prayers on my behalf. I love you all so much! Until next Monday :)

All my love,
Sister Palmer


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