Pioneer Faith

Hello to all! I have had such a fun week!

Last Tuesday, Sister Y and I spent some of our Preparation Day making some chocolate chip cookies and watching Meet the Mormons from the Gospel Library app. We also did some tracting (knocking on doors) in a trailer park, and met D.

Wednesday, Sister Y started reading the Ricciardi Letter. All I know from it is that it has lasting impact from reading it, so I'm really excited! We also had dinner at Boston Pizza with one of the Sisters from the Ward so that was fun–Sister Y and I shared a chocolate cake dessert and it was so good! The highlight of the day however, was when we attempted to walk to a street on the other side of the town. We met a couple of people that were interested so that was great. My favourite part was as we kept walking we walked by a graveyard. We came to a stop along the sidewalk outside of it and took a moment to reflect on those that had passed on. Sister Y said that she could feel their presence, and so could I. We talked about those that have passed on but didn't have the gospel of Jesus Christ in their lives. How we felt that some of them in this graveyard had accepted the gospel in the Spirit World, and were waiting to have their work done by those on who are on Earth. We were interrupted by someone shouting at us–we turned around to find D (the one from Tuesday) pulled over in his car. We were able to talk to him more about the Gospel, and found out that he was actually a less-active member! So we are hopefully meeting with him this week when he doesn't have work. We didn't make it to that street at all but we knew that we were being led in the right direction at the right time.

Thursday, as Sister Y called it, was a "Gong Show" day! Things happened, but not when we had planned them... We rushed out the door for District Meeting. Later, we arrived to an appointment to fined T not home... so we walked down the street talked to a couple of people. On our way back to the car we found T and her friend V, whom we also had been trying to contact, on the porch. So we were able to have a lesson with both of them on the importance of Scripture reading, prayer, and Church attendance. We then had to dash to our next appointment 20 minutes away. Even with arriving 5 minutes late, it didn't matter because F wasn't there... So that changed our plans again. Later, since she dropped her daughter off at the chapel for Young Women's, we were able to ask her if we could have a lesson with her, which she agreed to. We were able to teach her the Restoration. We had to dash home after that because we took more time then 30 minutes for the lesson.

Friday, we did planning indoors when it was raining. We happened to have sunny weather as we went knocking on doors.

Saturday, was PIONEER DAY!!!!!!!! It was a blast!! So Pioneer Day is a celebration that basically Utah, and Cherry Grove have. I'm not sure how many other areas around the world celebrate it. It is in remembrance of the members in the early years of the church, and the hard things they had to go through to find a place where they were not persecuted. Cherry Grove  was a Latter-day Saint settlement in the mid 1800s. Most of the families here are descendants of the Pioneers that settled in this valley. So it was a fun day of activities, there was a family history booth, and we even were able to set up a booth. There was food all day long... We are feeling a little bad with the amount of sweets we have had within the week..

Sunday in Sacrament Meeting the theme was Pioneers. I'm grateful for the example they set for all of us so long ago. There was this quote I really liked: "Pioneer faith is needed as much in the world today as in any period of time" (The Strength in Our Heritage–Elder L. Tom Perry). It has made me think of what is "Pioneer Faith"? As I've referenced, I've thought of those times during the week that haven't been planned or when we don't really understand why exactly we are doing or going a certain way. Some of those times make sense, others, it will be much later in life, or even the next life, that things will make sense, but we press on because we have faith that things will all work out as they should.

Monday, we were able to meet with W. We had a great lesson with the help of Brother V. Following that, since a couple of our afternoon plans changed, I prayed for guidance of where we should go. I felt that we needed to go to 24 (whether St. or Ave i wasn't sure) between 3-4pm. So I looked at a map and the closest thing to 24 was Township Road 624. So after sharing this with Sister Y we drove out to a subdivision just off that road that we had planned to tract the other day but had not been able to. As we got there, we prayed again to know if we needed to be here or on Township Road 624 instead. After praying we both agreed that we needed to be on 624. So we walked, and walked, and walked, and walked from house to house–all of them were really far apart. I don't know why we were there or whom we influenced–maybe the lady who asked if we were Mormons and asked us to get off her property, and to take her home off of our map. It was a great opportunity to apply Pioneer Faith.

Dinner was delivered to us by a member so we were able to watch the Studio C Face to Face from the Gospel Library app. We then had a great Book of Mormon read with F and her daughter, J. In regards to the introduction, F made a great comment that God's not going to do His part if you don't do yours.

Hope you all have a great week!!

Lots of love!