May 5th

Hello to you ALL! :)

 

Oh what a beautiful day it is here in the Valley! The tulips are coming up and the sun is shining brighter than ever before :) needless to say, I am going to absolutely LOVE the summer here. The winter was a drag, so the member's then gave me high hopes for the summer being the best...and honestly, I BELIEVE IT!! Hopefully I won't be as pale as I am, although I never really have actually been "tan" before, have I? Haha.

 

I hope that each of you are doing well, I may not have time to write you all individually back, but I sure will try. I forgot to mention that I received a new companion when transfers occured almost 2 weeks ago. Her name is Sister Dazey! I want to be Sister Tulip ;) some of you may understand with my obsession for flowers and all. Haha but any way, hope you enjoy the email I have to share with you. I want to be more effective in sharing with you all the work that is going on and experiences that I am having.. A lot of you wonder how missionary work works here in the Salt Lake Valley! Well, here starts the email!....

 

"Nevertheless, ye are blessed, for the testimony which ye have borne is recorded in heaven for the angels to look upon; and they rejoice over you, and your sins are forgiven you." (Doctrine and Covenants 62:3)

 

 

I share this touching scripture because we just had Fast and Testimony Meeting yesterday and this scripture was one that I shared with the member's in the Granite Ward. I waited toward the end of the meeting to go up and I took Sister Smith with me (our third companion). She stood up and bore her testimony of how she came to know that the Book of Mormon was the word of God. She has such a beautiful spirit about her. For those of you who may not know, she has what's called Joebert's Syndrome and is a part-time missionary with us. So any way, usually the congregation is busy looking around the chapel zoned out, feeding food to their kids, or helping them with coloring to stay pre-occupied! But, they weren't doing those things, they were ALL completely in tune with what she had to say to them...or more importantly, what the Spirit had to say to them. After she finished, she then took my seat from behind the podium(sp?) and I took her spot and bore my testimony. I first talked about how much I love Sister Smith and am so grateful for the joy and happiness that she brings to us on the days she comes out to help us find and teach. That she is a prime example as someone who views their trials as a blessing and seeks for help and strength on how to overcome them. She is a great missionary and so many we teach are touched by her testimony, so I was glad she could share that with them. So after that, I shared with the congregation this scripture.. There's one part of it in particular that the Spirit told me to bare witness of and it was when it says, "...the tesimony which ye have borne is recorded in heaven for the angels to look upon." The testimonies that we declare happily and with all sincerity in our hearts, it is recorded in heaven in one of the books. I know that this takes place for many purposes, but the one in particular that touched me was that it's recorded to stand as a witness FOR us when we stand before The Holy One of Isreal to be judged of our works here on the Earth.  We stand for and against ourselves, but through bearing heartfelt testimonies, we can stand for ourselves of what we believed while here on the Earth. And as we stand there, bearing witness of Jesus Christ, of a loving Father in Heaven, and of how we believe it was through the Prophet Joseph Smith that Christ's church was restored again...our sins will be forgiven us. Who would of thought that through bearing testimony, the Atonement is also used. Oh the blessings of this glorious gospel! Sharing our testimonies relates to repentance, thus inviting the Spirit to come and to cleanse us! Never be afraid to share your testimony. It doesn't have to be long and with big fancy words...just from the heart. Simple as, "I believe that Jesus is the Christ and that His mission here on the Earth was to fulfill His Father's will, which was "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses1:39).

 

Sister Dazey is the new comp! She has been out for 9 months, yeah...she's a pro. I'm still a greenie compared to all my companions!! Haha it's annoying, but ok at the same time. She is from Winston Salem, North Carolina. Oldest of 6 kids, she's 25. Graduated from BYU-Idaho with a Bachelor's in Graphic Design. I am jealous of her nerdyness! We will spend an hour at some dinners and she'll talk to the member's about Comic-Con and i'm over here like..."wonder what we're having tomorrow night for dinner?" Completely don't understand any of it! Haha but it's ok, i'll get used to it! Eventually!... but she's really a great person! We get along well and she has such a big heart. It's hard getting used to another new companion and introducing another new companion to the area. Hopefully it's training me well to be a good trainer some day :) You guys would love her! Full of energy and excitement to share the gospel.. SO YEAH!

 

We are teaching 2 nonmembers, Rose-Marie and Hilary. And we have a handful of about 4 people who are potential investigators! Rose is not progressing, partially because we can only meet with her when her husband isn't home and he is, well, always home. She said she would pray and read about the Book of Mormon, but only after we read Moroni's promise with her (Moroni 10:3-5) and explained it. The Spirit definitely bore witness to her that she will receive an answer if she read it and prayed to her Father in Heaven to know if it's true. We haven't been able to meet with her since. We called the other morning at 9:30am and she said we woke her up and then said, "I'm going back to bed." -she hung-up on us- Ergh! She'll come around, we WILL meet with her this week. Hilary, we taught her last tuesday and have an appt with her tomorrow night. She's a former investigator that we dropped a while back and just picked her up again. We asked her if she read the Book of Mormon since the last time we met 4 months ago and she said yes. But that she hasn't gotten very far because she is reading all of the footnotes and wants to make the BOM make sense with the Bible. She's of little faith and humbly admitted to it. Also said she has a problem with believing in a God that would cause so much heartache and trials in life. I then replied, "Hilary, Heavenly Father presents us with trials, some are self-inflicted, and some are from Satan...but regardless, they all give us the opportunity to exersize our agency or otherwise, our ability to choose. They can either make us stronger, thus allowing us to Depend on the Savior, or they can turn us away from God and lead us into misery and deeper sadness. We invited her to read from Alma 14 and ask Heavenly Father her questions, sincerely. We testified that He will answer her prayers if she listens to Him :)

 

We have that pool of Less-Active Member's that we work with and had 5 lessons with them this week. Reed is one of them and he made it to church again yesterdy!! And he is meeting with the Bishop this Tuesday :) it's so exciting to see him taking these steps to get back on the right track with Heavenly Father. Literally, the mission gives you a front-row-seat to watching the Atonement change people's lives. Ah! And the others, well we are trying hard to help them progress and really praying for what we can say and teach to better help in their progression. We had a lesson with a Gary, his wife is active and comes to church, goes to the temple, etc. It's been hard on her to not have a companion that does the same and she'll express that in our lessons. But over the past 5 months i've been in the area teaching him, he's made more progress than ever before. We have taught sunday school sometimes and he will come to that. This past weeks lesson we all wrote our testimonies down (from the previous lessons assignment) and shared them with one another. [Missionaries: it's a great way to know where your investigator/LA stands with the Gospel] He didn't write his down, but he shared it from the heart. He said he doesn't have a testimony of the things that his wife had regarding the Book of Mormon, the Prophet Joseph Smith (Restoration), Temples, etc...but he said, I know that when I pray my Father will answer my prayers and He listens. Also, that I know Christ led a life that I need to follow. What joy filled my soul hearing that. Afterwards, I told him, "Gary, You DO have a testimony. You have a testimony of Jesus Christ, the one who the ENTIRE gospel is centered around." What joy overcame him hearing that and when he said the closing prayer... oh how beautiful it was! He said, "Father, let your will become my will and my desires become your desires."

 

The Gospel is true! The Church of Jesus Christ has been restored back on the Earth again and I know that Christ is the head of our church. He guides and directs not only the members of it, but the world, through our President, Thomas S. Monson. How grateful am I to have found the truth once again restored and my joy and exceedingly full.

 

I hope each of you that read this have learned something new and can feel more deeply your conviction of Your Father's Love For You.

 

May your week be full of love, peace, joy, and happiness!!!

 

With love always and forever,

 

Sister Garretson

 

PS: Attached is a pretty pic of a flower i found :)  and the other is of Toby the black lab trying to lick me! He's huge and the cutest ever! Background of the pic is Kirsten, my first baptism and the greatest person EVER and her fiance Ryan! Adorbs.