this whole week was full of so many tender mercies and miracles!!
to start the week off we had exchanges Monday-Tuesday! exchanges are where one of us goes up to our STL's (sister training leaders) area and goes around with one of them, and the other STL comes down here with the other companion and they go around this area, if that made any sense hahah. so since I'm junior comp I went up to our STL's area. and that was seriously one of the highlights of my whole mission because they cover the two Tongan wards in our mission!!! It was seriously so fun getting to teach some lessons to some Tongan families and feel like I was back in tonga. Plus for dinner we ate authentic Tongan food and my favorite Tongan drink so that was seriously one of my favorite dinners I've had. also the family that we ate with are big time football fans and they have some older boys that played football and currently play for Utah University. so I started talking the most football talk that I could with them, thankfully I grew up with older brothers and a dad who loves watching football. anyways we got on the subject of the Texas football teams like Texas A&M and Texas tech and I had mentioned that my uncle coaches at Texas tech and used to at A&M, well long story short he knew my aunt and uncle! Like good friends with them, it was fun being able to talk about family with random people I had just met who happened to know them hahah.
this week a girl in the young women's named emma wanted to go out tracting with us, so Thursday morning we knocked doors with her for a couple hours and we actually got a few return appointments out of it! Later that night we had a lesson with some people we're teaching, and I have never had a lesson go the way that this one did the whole time I've been out. we went into this lesson planning on teaching the plan of salvation. These people are brother and sister and their names are Kobe and Sarah, 18/20 year olds. so when we go over for this lesson, kobes friend is over and his name is Terry. So he sits in and joins us for this lesson. We start teaching the plan of salvation and we get through the whole thing and Kobe and Sarah are just totally understanding, it all makes sense, a few questions but nothing really major that they're concerned about... Well Terry on the other hand is nailing us with questions. Like every question that you can think of was asked to us. (LGBT, blacks and the priesthood, plural marriage) all of it. Clearly he's done his research or somewhere learned about the church. Well what ended up happening was we taught the entire first 3 lessons, IN DETAIL. the restoration, plan of salvation, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. I honestly don't know how we did that or why we did it. It definitely wasn't intentional, but with all his questions and concerns we just went through all the lessons. It really was just kinda weird because now as I'm thinking about it, it was so spirit led. We just kept going and discussing these topics and principles. At one point it did feel like he was just trying to prove us wrong, so my companion called him out (in the nicest way) and straight up asked him if he was just trying to prove us wrong, because for I second it did kinda feel like it. But by the end he really was just interested and wanted to learn more. We're gonna go back tomorrow and have another lesson so I'll let y'all know how it goes.
Friday we went out to dinner with our friend from a place we do service at, her names Karen and she's from Germany :) we've gone out with her a couple times this month, once to a really cute diner, and then Friday we went to this Mediterranean place called Olives. It was pretty good but definitely not worth the amount of money that was spent on it haha but we took a picture there so I'll send that.
We are running superrrrr low on miles this month. So the past two days we have driven a total of 5 miles. So we have done a ton of walking and tracting this weekend. Which honestly has been kinda nice. I really like walking and being out on the streets where people are able to see us and we can actually wave to people and say hi to them.
We've also been working with a less active family, just reading scriptures with them and working towards one of the sons baptism as well. They are from Africa, and they are the sweetest family. The little boys were doing tricks for us the whole time we were there, even the 2 year old tried doing some it was really cute haha
The past few days I've really been trying to study more about the Holy Ghost and what his role is and how he is able to be with me and so many billions of other people all at the same time. So I found this talk/article from the June 1989 ensign in the gospel library app called "What is the difference between the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Christ, and the Light of Christ?"
And a couple things that really helped me understand the role and who the Holy Ghost is were these couple paragraphs,
"The body of the Holy Ghost is like the spirit body of the Lord, which the Lord showed unto the brother of Jared before His mortal birth. Such a body resembles that of a man, but consists of spirit matter, a substance finer and purer than temporal matter."
"Unlike the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Ghost does not fill the universe and cannot be personally present everywhere at the same time; however, his power and influence, through the Light of Christ, can be manifest at the same time throughout all the immensity of space."
So yeah I just wanted to share that quick thought with you guys, and if you have questions about the Holy Ghost or the light of Christ and who/what that is then I would recommend reading that from the 1989 June ensign!
Me and sister Perry are still just having the best time together. I am so so so grateful for her and this area. I can't believe this transfer is almost over. It went by way too quick, but hopefully we will get to stay together another one. :)
I hope you are all doing well!! Love you all
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Love sis Thorpe<3