Last night after trying a million members homes to use the
bathroom we finally found a part member family we've been working with at home.
While Sister Hopkins was in the bathroom Sister Hassinger was asking me how I
felt about going home, asking if I was feeling anxious. I told her that it
comes in waves where I think about it and panic for a few minutes and then it
passes. Jason, her husband missed that we were talking about going home and
thought I was talking about using the bathroom instead. We all got a good laugh
when he realized I wasn't talking about my bowel movements...hahaha
I had my last exchange this week. Weird. It was with
Sister Christiansen our STL leader. We've had four exchanges together now and
it was interesting to talk about our different experiences on our missions. She
goes home next week with me as well. There are a lot of Sisters going home next
week actually. Fourteen. Six of them I've been companions with and four of them
I've done exchanges with. Lots of memories. It'll be an emotional day I think.
Anyways, our exchange went really well. We taught a lot of
lessons that day and it was good to learn more from Sister Christiansen. She's
doing a Book of Mormon study on chosen Israel and she was telling me a lot
about it since President Slaughter talked to us about it this last zone
conference. I've decided it'll be a future study of mine. The Gospel never
get's old. There is always more to learn.
On our exchange we were finally able to meet with an
investigator that the elders before us had been working with but we had never
met. His name is Paul. And he is homeless. It was really sad to meet with him
and his friend at McDonalds, there was only so much we could do. He loves the
Book of Mormon, and is pretty far into reading it, but he has some habits that
are preventing him from getting baptized. He's looking for work now, and losing
faith that he's going to get a job and be able to pick things back up. He's
headed up to Dallas today...walking. He called himself a traveler.
I feel like I've taught quite a few people on my mission
who's lives are just falling apart. Awful things and experiences, and what we
offer to them is the key. it doesn't necessarily take away the hard and the
trials, but it gives us the ability to overcome them.
We taught a women, Janet on Friday. We've taught her
many times, she's an active non-member. I'm sure I've written to you
about her before. We talked about how baptism is the only way to access the
full power of the Atonement. She stated to us that she believed that she would
go to heaven in the end whether or not she was baptized into the Mormon church.
All we could do was sit there. Nothing we could say would convince her
otherwise. She had lived a "good" life and that was good enough.
Since we were on exchanges, I was telling Sister Hopkins about it later and she
said something that really struck me. She said "Christ did not suffer so
that we could do it our own way." Because he suffered the Atonement, there
is only one way. Without baptism, we cannot enter the kingdom of God. Elder
Brad Wilcox stated "Scriptures make it clear that no unclean thing can dwell with God
(see Alma 40:26), but, brothers and sisters, no unchanged thing will even want
to." Without baptism, we can't become clean through Christ and
return to our Father's kingdom. Without having a change of heart and desiring
to be baptized, we won't want to be in the kingdom of God, and our desires will
be expressed more through our actions than our words. Bare with me,
I'm not sure if that all made sense. I spent all morning studying it out
because we're teaching Janet again tonight.
I found another name for the Plan of Salvation this week as
well, one I'd never thought of before, can't say I'd never read because I have,
it just stood out to me this time.
Alma 41:2-" I say unto thee, my son, that the plan of
restoration is requisite with the justice of God.."
The plan of Restoration. Meaning...
"2 ...for it is requisite that all things should be
restored to their proper order. Behold, it is requisite and just, according to
the power and resurrection of Christ, that the soul of man should be restored
to its body, and that every part of the body should be restored to itself.
3 And it is requisite with the justice of God that men
should be judged according to their works; and if their works were good in this
life, and the desires of their hearts were good, that they should also, at the
last day, be restored unto that which is good.
4 And if their works are evil they shall be restored
unto them for evil. Therefore, all things shall be restored to their proper
order, every thing to its natural frame—mortality raised to immortality,
corruption to incorruption—raised to endless happiness to inherit the kingdom
of God, or to endless misery to inherit the kingdom of the devil, the one on
one hand, the other on the other—
5 The one raised to happiness according to his desires
of happiness, or good according to his desires of good; and the other to evil
according to his desires of evil; for as he has desired to do evil all the day
long even so shall he have his reward of evil when the night cometh.
6 And so it is on the other hand. If he hath repented
of his sins, and desired righteousness until the end of his days, even so he
shall be rewarded unto righteousness."
We get out what we put in. Simple rule. We will be restored
to what we have done with our lives.
This will be a future study as well. Names of the Plan of
Salvation.
So anyways, that's about all for this week. It was good to
hear about the reunion. I'm glad it went well :)
Love Hermana Montgomery
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