7/28/14

HELLO MHA FAM BAM!! 

oh, how I love thee!!  

first things first #happybirthdayeric  #4monthsandcounting #bittersweet

second:   the rumors are true! I AM GOING TO NAUVOO!! WOOT!! I could not be more excited and honored and just blessed! It has been 4 years since I have been to that beautiful place, and I am so excited to go back, and to attend the temple! I remember when I went there for EFY the temple president at the time was very kind in allowing us to walk up the spiral stair case when we had finished in the baptistery and I remember looking up those stairs and having the overwhelming desire to go up. and to be a part of whatever was going on. I just love that temple. It has such a wonderful place in my heart.  I feel so close to the prophet Joseph Smith as I have served out here and I just feel so blessed to be going there next week! So we may not have as much time to email next week, but I will do my best to send a lil somthin your way! :)

I hope your week(s) have been beautiful and you have learned lots!

Well this weekend - coming up- will be the beginning of the best three weeks of my mission! I am not kidding you! I will be at the church every Saturday.. filling the FONT!! YES!! This is like the dream month of all months for a missionary, and I just feel so blessed and privileged that the lord has blessed me with these people to teach and help in their journey home to Him.   This work is so true!

This week has been a stretching week, and I feel that I will continue to be stretched for the next few weeks. transfers and new companions are always an adjustment. This week I have truly felt the lord stretch me and increase my capacities as I have worked out and organized things this week.  I just feel such importance has been placed on all things, and I am so grateful to be here in this area, and to be working with these great people. We have had so many wonderful spiritual lessons, and uplifting moments. I just feel so happy to be here, and undistracted. It is a great blessing at this time. :)

Sister Henderson and I are doing great! she is so sweet and kind, and soft spoken. she has many struggles - like any of us. and so I feel that we are going to work great together, and help one another. I hope she can work through some trials she is facing as we are together.  I have felt prepared and a comfort from the lord as we have begun this transfer together. It will all be ok in the end! :)  I love being a missionary.

some funnies:  I don't know if I have told you or not, but there are a TON of  black people in Peoria. they are just about my favorite people. anyways, Sister Sheila King is in our ward and she has a couple of grandkids that are always with her (she is raising them) the other day Kenzie,  a little boy, who just turned 7 and is black, was talking to us at the church while we were there to do our online proselyting. I was asking him questions like "how old are you?" what is your favorite color etc etc.  and then I asked " what do you want to be when you grow up?" and he just said "black"  hahahaha sister Henderson and I just started laughing SO hard!! hahaha - that dream wont be hard for him to accomplish. haha he is the best. 

We taught Janea and Jamal Brown this week, they are sister Lakita's grandkids, they were in town for just one week, and they wanted to start the lessons so we taught them. They are 10 year old twins, and we asked them why they wanted to be members of the church and their answers were so tender: Janea said " I want to go to the temple to do the work for my mom" and Jamal said "  I want to be a missionary. because they have a curfew and that would be good for me" It was so awesome! :)

Patricia is AMAZING!! Family, I hope you have the opportunity to meet her someday. she is about as golden as an investigator could come. This week she shared with us that she has been facing some opposition from Satan.  In her mind she would get the thoughts that she doesn't need to be baptized and if she became a part of the Mormons others would think she is weird,  that she doesn't need the "label" and the label would hurt her more than help her.  She said she pondered this for a while, she always says "the lord came to me", but the spirit prompted her that she should not give up, and  she said "the lord put into my mind one word: covenant"  she said she remembered when we had talked about it but she didn't know much about it and then as she was doing homework later, she was typing something and the word "covenant" came up on her computer again. Then she said as she sat in sacrament meeting her prayers and questions were answered. the youth speaker on Sunday talked about covenants.  It was a very simple and profound talk that just helped me to understand them better, and answered her questions.  Patricia, then bore her testimony that she knows this is what God needs her to do, to make these covenants with him by someone who holds the authority and not to worry about the label "Mormon."  it was so powerful and such a blessing to be there.  I had the opportunity to sit next to her on Sunday and all during that talk she kept looking over at me and smiling and nodding her head. I knew the spirit was there and was teaching her, just as it did me. I love Patricia! She is the best! She is so prepared and I just feel so blessed, privileged and honored to have been entrusted with her. I have come to learn so much from her, and about the way our Heavenly Father feels towards all his children- at least in a brighter light. I just have felt very grateful for the things we have been taught at our recent conferences and meetings, because I have really strength from the lord as we have applied these things. I have also felt a greater amount of my trust that I have placed in The Lord, and the blessings that have come from that.  I love this work. I love having these growing- stretching experiences and would not want to trade them for anything.  Patricia has so much faith and just does what she knows is right, with out hesitation. I remember in one of our first lessons she was kind of hesitant and kept saying "I just need to know this is what I am supposed to do."  and I just kindly, and boldly said to her " I am going to be bold here, I think you know this is what you are supposed to do."  Ever since then she has been non-stop faithful and true.  She is going to a strong member of The Lords church. I can feel it.

Linda is preparing for baptism this Saturday! WOOT!! pray for her that she is strengthened from the attacks of the adversary. we are hoping she can come with us on Monday to go to the temple, and work in the baptistery for the hours we are upstairs. I think it would be a wonderful experience for her. And I hope we will work it out so that she can come. It would be the weekend of all weekends for her; baptism sat. confirmed sun temple mon.!woot!! sounds good to me!!

 

Remind me when I get home to show you the coolest way to teach about the restoration!! I just learned it on Saturday! it is so cool! I cant really explain it to you, so you will just have to remind me!  it has to do with one piece of paper and a story of some missionaries on an island. - maybe you have heard about it. but if you haven't.. be prepared to have your mind blown! like mine was...soo cool!

well time to go! love you all!

read those scriptures. say those prayers and get to church. then Satan cant throw as big of monkey wrenches in your programs. :)

Enjoy Colorado for me- mom and dad. - hug all the little ones.

love you!

Sister O'Neil