Sister Bradley

Sister Bradley

Monday, January 29, 2018

I lost my mind - Email from Jenny

Hello! This week was a crazy one...and kinda interesting...

We taught Carla this week and we originally planned to teach her about how we can continue to learn through our membership in the church, but we also felt inspired to review the Gospel of Jesus Christ before the lesson and lo and behold, the Gospel of Jesus Christ was the lesson that needed to be taught. I think now with more exposure to the things we are teaching, the gospel is starting to sink in more. We were able to review the key principles and ordinances that are foundational to us enduring to the end. She related to us a story of how she understood the Holy Ghost. She described that in her dreams there would be a Thunderbird (representing the Holy Ghost) that would come and pick her up and bring her above her troubles and opposition in her dreams. She said that when the Thunderbird didn't come and lift her up, she knew she was "in trouble," meaning that she didn't have the Holy Spirit with her. The Spirit really does speak to us all through our own language and experiences, in the words of Thomas Monson, “There is one language … that is common to each missionary—the language of the Spirit. It is not learned from textbooks written by men of letters, nor is it acquired through reading and memorization. The language of the Spirit comes to him who seeks with all his heart to know God and keep His divine commandments. Proficiency in this language permits one to breach barriers, overcome obstacles, and touch the human heart.”(Preach my Gospel)

We taught Bella and she brought her friend over! An unplanned opportunity to teach someone new! Her friend really helped her stay focused and was a great blessing to the lesson! :)

We tried contacting a potential named Nicole, we stopped by her house and met her mom who was getting out of the car, she told us Nicole wasn't home. So we start walking back to the car and then her husband opens the door and yells to us, "how do you know Nicole?!" Yikes. That always makes us nervous haha but we told him who we were and he told us to try back the next day. So flash forward, we go back and for some reason we were feeling hesitant to see her. We prayed to receive a confirmation that it was the right time to talk to her and I saw the words, "Go and Do" come into my mind. We went and her husband ended up being nicer than her, and she looked appalled that her husband let us in her house, lol, so she wasn't interested, BUT now we know at least and we can spend our time elsewhere!

On an exchange we were given an envelope by this man who appeared nice but hated organized religion. He was like, "You're Mormon and believe in Jesus Christ right?" So seemingly friendly, we took the envelop and looked at it later and there was a letter bashing another religion, not even ours! It was pretty sad, and then a CD with some preachers angrily speaking. I am grateful for the love that I have for people of other religions! We are all brothers and sisters after all :)

So after we exchanged back and got home, we discovered that the other sisters had taken our phone....this is pretty unfortunate when you only have one phone...so we asked if we could borrow our neighbors phone and got ahold of them so we could get our phone back. At that time we said, "Maybe we should just go back to bed and start over..." so THEN flash forward to the evening, we made an appointment to teach a member family before dinner with our ward mission leader. We get in the car and go to dinner and then after dinner, I looked in my purse for my planner...and it wasn't there...so we looked in the car and texted our Ward mission leader to see if I left it at his house, and they couldn't find it. We tried by a potential and I kept looking and then I started to slightly freak out haha our planners have a LOT of information, names and addresses and phone numbers and would not be good if someone got ahold of it. I was praying in my mind that we could find it. We tried by the home we saw before dinner and didn't find it, and then went back to our WML's house and asked if he could look again and still nothing! We got back in the car that we had turned upside down and Sister Gotay suggested we say a prayer, I told her I had said many in my head and she responded "out loud" haha so we prayed. I remembered seeing something in the street on the way to the WML's house and suggested we turn around and see what it was. IT. WAS. MY. PLANNER. No joke. Lying in the street open, about 5 houses down from his house. The weirdest part is we still cannot figure out how it got there! We didn't walk there and I didn't leave it on top of the car either...anyway, moral of the story, spoken prayers are POWERFUL and God is so so mindful of us!!!

Brothers and Sisters, God loves us. He really does. I found this gem in General Conference and invite you to ponder on it,
 "To accept and love others does not mean we must embrace their ideas. Obviously, truth mandates our highest allegiance, though it should never be a barrier to kindness. Truly loving others requires the ongoing practice of accepting the best efforts of people whose life experiences and limitations we may never fully know. Looking beyond what we can see requires conscious focus on the Savior." (Zwick Oct 2017)

Serving with a Smile,
Sister Bradley

Pictures!
1. Found my planner!

 2. Exchange with Westfield! Left to Right: Branch, Lay, me Gotay

3. Battle wounds...

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