2nd Fall of Season!

Zone Conference 

photo bombers!

Nicole's Letter: 

Second Fall of Season 

Hello Everyone!

This week there were some eventful things that happened!

1) On Wednesday there was a worldwide missionary broadcast which was really good!  One of the big things that happened is that the schedule is now different.  Apparently the news in online now so you can look at it there, but it is super good! We now plan in the morning which saved a lot of patience for me :) Planning at 9:00 at night when we are tired and if it hasn't been the best day, is not fun at all.  So that is super good now!  And we get a little extra time in the morning on p-day which is awesome as well!

2) We had Zone Conference and I saw SISTER IRELAND! It was super fun seeing her, she is the best! She is in Sandpoint! They live in like a guest house of a member and have their own gym.  Everyone who asks me where she went is like Oh man, Sandpoint is so pretty! Maybe one day I will go there, who knows! But Zone Conference was good.  We learned about repentance.  It was really neat.  The origin of repentance means turn or return in hebrew.  Then it got translated into Greek making the word mean change.  But then when the word got translated into Latin, the meaning changed to penance or punish.  Which is so interesting and explains a lot.  So many people think that repentance is negative and a terrible thing but it isn't. It is merely turning away from sin and turning to God.  It is such a joyful thing and we are so lucky that we can repent, every single day.

I also had a hard fall this week! Second one of the season.  So the roads are all ice! We were walking and I went down, went down hard! My legs went directions that they were not suppose to go. It was one of those falls that you just pray that nothing got shattered.  I just layed there for a second. I didn't even care who saw me.  My knee got smashed pretty hard.  It was funny because I was just so pumped for the day! I was like this is such a good day! It is going to be amazing! And then bam, I'm down.  The other fall was with Sister Ireland but that one was just one of those cartoon falls, my feet just went up and my butt went down.  I got up so fast with that one because we were outside the person we just taught home.  But hopefully that will be the last one of the season.

 We had two lessons with Julie this week and they were good! We did a church tour one of the days.  We invited a member, Sister Muir and she was like okay I have never done one of these, what is it like" "Yah, me either" I said.  She laughed.  The ward members are definitely seeing me grow, which means a lot of fails, but that's okay.  I honestly fall on my face everyday, I make so many mistakes but that's okay I'm learning that's for sure :)

Anyways, the church tour was good, she started to understand priesthood authority.  She has been baptized twice but she was like yah I don't know what authority the person baptizing me had.  We gave her a For Strength of Youth because her kids are starting to become teenagers and She LOVED IT! I mean she would convert because of that haha just kidding.  It was cool though, she was like yah when I read the BofM more and more I am starting to realize that just no man wrote this.  It was sweet.  We found her back in NOV. Sis Ireland apparently the transfer before walked by her house and always felt like she should knock but never did and then when I got here she was like we have to knock on this door.  And when we did, she was like Oh come back tomorrow and we did and then she just let us in!

We were teaching one of our investigators, Brianna, and repentance was brought up. At the end she was like "Oh, so repentance is joy". It was neat.  She has had a really rough past.  Her boyfriend is in jail and it has been a little rocky. She is the best though! Brianna also came to church! And she stayed all three hours which was pretty amazing. Before she came she told us that she didn't want to stay for the whole meeting but then she did.  One of our members that just moved into our ward from the other ward came to Gospel Principles, she just got full fellowship back into church and her husband isn't a member but it was neat to see her testify of things to Brianna since they have similar backgrounds.  We are kind of teaching her (Jen) husband- well he would be baptized but he is on parole so he is just waiting.  They feed us every sunday and they are so funny! He was the biggest meth dealer in this area.  And so he knew of Brianna.  OH I NEED A BANANA CREAM PIE recipe.  I somehow pinky promised him that I would make one for his birthday next thursday :/ so recipes would be nice and easy ones!

Love 

Sister Stevenson

Nicole's Letter Part 2: 

Lesson of Love

Since I have some extra time this week, here is another thing that I learned.

This mission is not about me. Yes, I know it finally clicked, after all the years of hearing "It's not about you".  But this week it took a different meaning.  This really isn't about me.  This is the Lord's work and we are to become like Him.  It also struck me that I say "God loves all of us so much" and I do believe that when I say it, there is no doubt in my mind that God loves us, I know He does.  Yet, it hit me, do I really believe that?  If I truly believed that then I would see people differently because I know that God loves them.  God created them and loves them so there is at least one thing that I can love about everyone that I meet.  It is a process developing this kind of love but when we do miracles will happen.  We will start seeing others differently and we will lose ourselves in Christ.  The greatest paradox of the Gospel "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it".  It is so true, when we lose ourselves in Christ, we will find ourselves because there is more of us to find.  Just a little lesson I learned this week.