12.12.2013

Snow & Stake Conference

IT SNOWED!
I don't even like snow, but it wasn't really feeling like Christmas. Now it does.
Hello everybody! I would like to start off by following up on what happened to Dobby (our car). We took him into Pep Boys last week and had to leave the car for a couple hours. So the majority of our Pday last week was spent roaming up and down the highway and going into random stores (Pet Smart, Staples, Kohls, 7 Eleven...). But anyway, there wasn't exactly anything wrong that they could find, but for some reason the car is running fine now. I'm convinced that there was some sort of mysterious animal living in the car and when it got discovered it scuttled away.
On Tuesday we had to drive to Philly yet again for Golden Retraining. It's a meeting where trainers and goldens (new missionaries) go for a small conference with President and the Assistants. It was really fun, and once again, we survived the drive. One thing we learned was how to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in eight minutes, and it was neat because you could really feel the Spirit very strong in the whole room. I loved it! Also, President was talking to us about "loopholes" in rules, or how some missionaries try to find exceptions, loopholes, or rationalize certain things. He asked about Christmas music and loopholes that one could find. One Elders' response? "Santa Baby." We all got a laugh out of it.
A lot of the week was spent teaching Logan to make sure that he'll be ready for baptism on the 15th. So we met with him almost every day and it was pretty awesome to see how much his testimony has grown. I'm so excited that he's chosen to follow Christ's example and that I've had the privilege of teaching him.
Saturday we went to the evening session of Stake Conference in Cherry Hill. It was announced that the new focus for all evening sessions (I think across the world, actually) was going to be "Hastening the Work." It was awesome because all the talks were on missionary work and how it's really not that hard to do.
 Elder Evans of the Seventy told a story of how he was assigned to a woman as a Home Teacher and her husband wasn't a member. He brought the missionaries with him and talked to the husband for just a little bit. For years he'd been visited by Home Teachers, so he was pretty familiar with the Church. Elder Evans just asked a couple questions about what his thoughts were and about his feelings of the Church. Elder Evans then said, "Well it sounds like to me if you knew this were true you would be a member, right?" "Yes! But I don't know how to know it's true." "Well, I know some people who are really good at helping you with that..." and he pointed to the missionaries. A couple weeks later the husband was baptized.
Missionary work is so simple. Just love and serve others. It's through our actions that the gospel is preached.
Sunday we had Stake Conference in which a new Stake Presidency was announced. President Corbitt was called to be a mission president, so our new Stake President is President Sikahema. I'm so excited because I was able to get to know the Sikahema's when I was in Moorestown and they're awesome people!
And back to the snow topic: yesterday it snowed all day, and we ended up with about eight inches. People in Jersey have no clue how to drive in snow, so it was interesting to watch.
Well! I love all of you. Be sure to remember Elder Ballard's challenge to "reach out to someone by Christmas." I know that if you take this challenge seriously and pray and look for opportunities to share the gospel, that this Christmas will be much brighter all around the world.

Love,
Sister Singleton





Snow pics

No comments: