Dear Loved Ones,
I'm gonna start out by saying that I love you all so much. What a birthday it was! It was weird thinking back to all the "anniversaries" of this last week. Opening my mission call last year, going to Thorpe Park with Luke, all the celebrations! Going to Italy again and again and again haha. I love celebrating my birthday and just thinking about how 20 years ago that day I said goodbye to my Heavenly Father and probably had some last words of advice and a long hug and if spirits can cry then I know I would've cried to leave His presence. There's so many times in my life when I feel like I just don't belong here. Not that I don’t WANT to be here, but just that we came from somewhere much better and we are going somewhere much better. I guess the best way to describe it is a homesickness for our Heavenly home. Anyway my birthday was good! It felt surreal. I got sung to about 9 times haha. I woke up and we went out in the morning and there were cute notes stuck to my door, and at Zone Conference they lined up all of us who had birthdays in the last month and sung to us and gave us a treat. I took a Snickers bar and thought of you Dad :) #likefatherlikedaughter #daddysgirl #onlymaninmylife
Zone Conference was incredible. President Center is probably my favourite Mission President. When else do we get the chance to sit at the feet of spiritual giants and learn for six hours? Great way to spend a birthday. I was nervous though because the Assistants asked myself and Sister Rizzo to talk about how we make a "hard" area successful. We only found out the night before 10 minutes before bedtime. It was the worst because our phone was on silent in our bag and then I got it out to put the alarm on for the morning and there were 11 missed calls from the Assistants and the Zone Leaders and a voice message that just said “Sisters, I don’t know if you've lost service but call us back as soon as possible." So of course the only rational thought was that everyone I loved was dead or I was being sent home for something haha. We called back ASAP and they just asked us if we would present for 10 minutes. PHEW! It was a great meeting. Then I was in the VC after that and there was a delivery for me of a balloon that said “I love you" with some chocolates and it was the highlight of the VC Sisters day because none of us had any idea who it was from! Then when I got home I found the note attached and it was from my babygirl Sam! The note made me laugh so much! Thank you! And then there was a "mystery" phone call that another Sister took and told me about and another "mystery" delivery of the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen. I deduced that it was Eric! Everyone spoiled me way too much! Thank you EVERYONE for all the cards and notes and presents. I'll be writing thank you cards very soon :) I felt like a princess and stuff.
Now onto spiritual things. I had one of the most spiritual sacred experiences in the VC this week. I was standing at the front and this scary looking man walked in. He was heavily tattooed with a shaved head. He looked like a completely broken man though, with absolutely nothing but a suspect brown paper bag in his arm. He barely looked me in the eyes and asked if we had a phone he could use. I told him of course and dialled the number for him and couldn’t help but overhear the conversation. He was pleading with someone to pick him up, but it was not successful. He said he would start walking to Mesquite and I just felt overwhelming love and desire to help this stranger. I told him to stop and helped him call the Transient Bishop, and Dixie Care and Share, but there was no help anyone could give him. He had nowhere to stay and no money and I just couldn’t let him walk out. I asked him how much he knew about the Church and he said “Nothing ma'am" because he is from Texas so he had a Southern accent and everything ended in ma'am. I took him to the theatre and put the Restoration on for him, inviting him to pay attention to how he feels when he watches it. I promsied him I'd do my best to find some help. As I walked away I said a silent pleading in my heart for this man and went back to the front. The other Sisters were like “There’s nothing we can do for him, why did you tell him you'd help him? Who are you going to call?" and honestly I just wished that you guys lived here in St George because I knew that you would take him in or give him a ride. I prayed in my heart to be led and then this couple walked in the VC and I greeted them. After talking for a few minutes they said that they were on their way back to Las Vegas but wanted to go on a walk around the Temple. I looked at the Senior Sister that was on shift and she went and spoke to them about the situation and said she wasn't pressuring them and it was their choice but there was a young man in desperate need of a ride to Mesquite. They agreed to talk with him. When the movie ended, I went into the room and bore testimony of Joseph's divine call to be a Prophet. I asked him his thoughts on what he had just watched and he said that he believes everything he watched is true, and that he felt calm and good when he watched it. He said that he wants to learn more about this Church because he agrees with everything he saw, and he actually asked me for a Book of Mormon! I asked him “What would it mean to you to find out these things are true?" and he looked at me right in the eyes, so sincerely, and said “More than you know, ma'am" and I told him that there is help and happiness ahead as he embraces this gospel. He said that he feels like he was prepared to come in here today and I said that I know that Heavenly Father has prepared you to come in here today because after you started watching the movie a couple on their way to Las Vegas walked in and have agreed to talk with you about a ride. The relief on his face was beautiful and it was sooooo priceless to see the perfect timing and miracles of Heavenly Father. He knows us perfectly, and no matter what we've done or where we're going, He wants to bless us. Before he left, he gave me his home address and phone number and I will continue to teach him by phone and the local missionaries will visit him. It was a beautiful moment.
We spent some time with a Relief Society President this week baking cookies and putting them in cute little packages with a quote about forever families on them. We made enough for each less active and non member in that ward - all 9 of them. HAHAH. Welcome to Zion. We are going to hand them out this week so we'll let you know how that goes. We had a great lesson with A this week. She is doing SO great! She has recognized how she was prepared for this and she knows how much lies ahead of her. We are helping her progress towards baptism but need her husband to come into town before the end of June so she can be baptized before July! He is planning on coming in July but we want a miracle June baptism and she is so ready, she just wants him there, which is understandable. SO we're praying that he will be brought here sooner. We had a great restoration lesson with the Philipino family we picked up last week. They are really cute. We feel blessed to know them, I love teaching the restoration to families - it's the best feeling. We had a less than awesome lesson with R and M these two SUPER CUTE old people. They were baptized into a different denomination when they were younger and just CANNOT understand why they would need to be baptized again. They have a lot of false concepts about the Priesthood and we are just trying to see where the true concern lies. It's hard to teach them but they love our visits and feel the Spirit for sure. We just need to get them to make the connection between the Spirit testifying of truth so thus this must be true so thus you need to be baptized haha.
I'm outta time but I wish I had more so I could tell you everything! One day I'll come home and tell you all the little stories I never got time to include!
I love you all so much
Sister Nicholls
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