SISTER MELISSA RICHARDSON
SEPTEMBER 30, 2014
Hello world! Life is still good here in St. John's, Florida.
I have been learning a lot from Sister Hall as my companion! She is a
hard worker and is not satisfied with mediocrity in anything! She is
always making goals on how we can improve our teaching and finding and
member work. Having someone with a fresh view of the area and the
people is so valuable as we can more clearly see what is working and
what isn't and adjust accordingly. This area is lucky to have her!
Hopefully she'll stay for a while!
A highlight of the week was our zone conference on Tuesday where Elder
Golden of the Seventy came and spoke to us. He was doing a mission
tour. It's amazing how every general authority is so different in
personality, but they are all devoted disciples of Christ--you can
always sense that. He taught us so many different things, I could
never write them all in this letter. He let us ask questions! He
talked to us about setting goals, finding and teaching, the gift of
discernment... Here are some of my notes from the meeting:
-our expectations are low and we live far below our privileges.
-Follow that first thought that comes into your mind...that is the Holy Ghost
-he testified of Joseph Smith and told us to never be apologetic in
sharing that message
-elder Golden is a scriptorian! He has helped with revisions of the
scriptures and knows them so well. He read us scriptures in
Revelations, Moses, and the Book of Mormon that blew me away as he
explained what they meant.
-he reminded us about being reverent in the chapel!
-his wife spoke about 4 types of enduring: enduring temptation,
enduring chastening, enduring afflictions, and enduring in faith to
the end. She reminded us that the better our attitude, the better our
mission will be.
We did a lot of pounding the pavement finding this week with tracting
and talking to everyone. We were able to teach several first lessons
and get some new investigators! We found some new places to go, since
I am going a little crazy in the 4 subdivisions that makes up the bulk
of our area. There are lots of people out there in the world that are
prepared to hear this gospel message! The field is definitely white.
The harvest can be a tricky and stressful process, but is always worth
it in the end.
I loved seeing the Spirit change Brother Horton this week. He came to
church for the first time this last Sunday in probably 20-30 years. We
went to his house a few days later for a lesson and he was changed. I
saw a genuine smile from him for he first time since I've known him.
He even laughed and was joking around with us! He opened up and said
church had brought back a lot of memories of him blessing the
sacrament and baptizing his children. It was so great! It was a
beautiful reminder that it is the spirit and the gospel of Jesus
Christ that changes and converts people, not their relationship with
us.
A fun blessing this week was going on a 3 hour power trade off with
Sister Hutchins who was my trainer back in Georgia for my first
transfer! Wow! It was cool to reflect back and see how much we had
each changed in the past year! We laughed at our naïveté and timidity
back in those early mission days. She asked me something that I'd
learned in the past year. There were too many things to name, but I
told her that one of things I've learned is that this work is not
us...we are privileged to be a part of the Lords work and to
facilitate and set the stage for the spirit and our Savior and
Heavenly Father to convert and love people. I also told her that as
I've served my Savior and learned more about the gospel, I have
realized even more how much more I have to learn and also how forever
indebted we are to the Savior! I am even more in debt after having
this experience of a mission. Of having this opportunity to be
painfully molded into a better disciple of Christ. And I still have a
long way and a lot of molding left to go!
The women's broadcast this Saturday night was fabulous! All of the
talks and video presentations were great. My favorite talk was
definitely President Uchtdorf's at the end. We had an investigator and
the Luna's there!
On Sunday, Sister Luna got sustained and set apart for her calling! Wooo!
Today it was raining when we were going to wash our car, so we just
put in our rain jackets and soap bucket and just washed it in the rain
:)
Find, teach, and baptize! :) Have a lovely week!
Sister Richardson
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