15 months!!

15 months!!

Hey Family!

This week was another really good week:)

We had a zone training meeting on Tuesday and it was really good! It was really focused on having the faith to find people that are prepared, and using time wisely.

Elder Zwick said something really neat when he was here, and president Cusick reminded us of it at the training. He said, "The law of sacrifice for missionaries is perfect use of the Lord's time."

That really stuck with me! When Christ called his disciples, He asked them to forsake things, to give them up. And even today we are asked to sacrifice for the Lord. But we do that through sacrificing our time. Well, and not even our time, its the Lord's time.

So our entire focus lately, as a mission, is planning and making sure we are using the Lord's time perfectly. So we walk and bike, so that even travel time is finding time. We stay out until 9:30 every night. Our P-days are an hour shorter. Honestly, its exhausting. I've never been so tired in my life! And at first I had kind of a Laman and Lemuel attitude about it. I felt like there was too much being asked of us. But I have seen miracles just because we are TRYING to use the Lord's time perfectly. I don't think there has been a day where I can actually say we used it perfectly, but the Lord sees our efforts and is blessing us immensely!

Let's see, a few miracles from this week.

Noses??

We set a baptism date with someone that we tracted into! That's unheard of, at least around here. We have been knocking doors for awhile now and I haven't seen anything come of it yet. But on Friday we had literally all day open and so we started knocking! And only about 11 doors into it, this cute little boy answered the door! We asked for his mom and she came and was so open to everything we were saying. The next day we went back and taught the restoration and she felt the spirit so strong and knew that it was true! Her four year old son has been looking at all the pictures in the pamphlets so much that they are falling apart! He loves them. They are such a cute family and we are so excited for them!

Another lady who is getting baptized in a few weeks, is getting a lot of trouble from her boyfriend. She called us this week and explained what has been going on and she told us that she has been praying for so long that God would lead her to His church and if this is where He is leading her then she will break up with her boyfriend. She said that no one is going to stop her!

We had an investigator come with us to church yesterday and she loved it! She cried in sacrament meeting, loved the hymns, and told the relief society president she would definitely be back next week!

Also, our recent convert passed the sacrament for the first time!!

And this cute less-active family we have been working with came to church. They looked so happy and so cute in their white shirts and ties:)

OH MY GOODNESS! Crazy miracle! So the same day that we tracted into that cute mom and son we were walking to our next appointment which was like really far away... As we were walking we were kind of praying in our hearts to know which doors we should knock on because we didn't  have time to knock on every one. And we both felt like we should stop and knock on this one house, even though it didn't look like anyone was home. So we did! And this kid who looked about our age answered, we offered to show a little video with them and he is like. "I'm Mormon, I used to go to your church." The looks on our faces had to have been so priceless. We didn't know what to say, and all that came out was "who are you?" (yeah we are REAL smooth...) But he shared with us why he hadn't been to church in awhile and stuff. But here are the crazy parts of this story:

Parking lot picnic

1. he didn't even live at that house, he was just stopping by a friends house and happened to be closest to the door so he answered it.

2. a friend at work had mentioned that he met the "Mormon girls" a few weeks earlier and he knew that he was referring to the sister missionaries.

3. just the day before his grandma had mentioned us to him as well

Then we knocked on the door that he was visiting at! I think a loving Heavenly Father is trying to get his son back, don't you?

I know that miracles happen when we are obedient. We don't have to be perfect but we have to do our very best. Heavenly Father knows our hearts, and He sees every effort. I know that the Lord's time is precious, and if we truly love Him, we will use it very wisely.

I was reading a CES devotional talk this morning while running on the treadmill. It was really good! Its called Living with Purpose: the importance of real intent.

One thing that he talked about that really stuck out to me is to think about why we do things. He said that we need to always be doing a self-check and ask ourselves:

Why are we doing this? For example:  Why am I reading my scriptures right now?

He said that quite often we do the right things for the wrong reasons. If we are reading our scriptures because we want to get a good grade in seminary, then a good grade is all we are going to get. But if we read our scriptures because we want to gain a testimony of those things, or because we want to improve ourselves, then we will.

Along with doing the right things for the wrong reasons, sometimes we spend too much time doing pointless things- wasting the precious time we have been given. We need to frequently ask ourselves why we are doing what we are doing. If it is not bringing us closer to God and helping us fulfill our purpose here on earth, then maybe we need to rethink the amount of time we are putting into it.

Remember, there is much more than this life. And if we spend all of our time focused on the things of this life, our life is going to be pretty empty. I know that life is eternal, and if we do those things that will influence eternity, we will be happy. No matter what!

I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week:)

Door Knocking

Love always, Sister Rowland