Monday, August 18, 2014

Letter 42 - I'm in Canada!



Hello everyone!!

Sounds like you all had a great week. First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!!!! I thought about you in my personal study and wrote Happy Birthday to you in my study journal :) I hope you had an AMAZING DAY!!
Also, welcome to Utah Grandmommy! I'm so excited and happy to hear that you are going to be staying at our home! Make sure to keep the fam in line will ya :) I love you SO MUCH.
Taryn you're pregnant!!!

This week was a great one. God has been blessing us so much it's been amazing. We have found a bunch of new wonderful awesome amazing people to teach!!! I'll share my favorite experience :)
We were walking home last night in a quiet neighborhood at about 8:45. It was already getting dark and Sister Bodine always gets a little extra cautious and paranoid in the dark haha. A little earlier on the road we passed a young couple hugging. After a couple minutes we hear something running, getting closer and closer to us - I turn around and see a person running towards us and what do I do? Jump and scream at the top of my lungs!!! Hahaha it ended up being the girl we saw a little earlier. She had seen our name tags - and she'd seen us on the bus before - and she was curious about what made us different from other churches. She is 14 years old, and has currently been meeting with the Jehovah's Witness because her math teacher was JW and it caught her interest. We didn't have a whole lot of time, but we answered some on her questions and gave her a Book of Mormon and she was so excited to read it. We're meeting with her on Tuesday. Haha she scared me so bad but it ended up being such a cool experience!!! I absolutely LOVE teaching teenagers. Probably more than anything else.

I recognized a lot this week how much an impact we make as members simply by the way we dress and act. We were in the mall waiting for someone to meet us, and I started talking to this Italian woman. She marvelled at how modest Sister Von and I were dressed and expressed how much she wished her own daughters dressed like that as well. She actually took a picture of us to send to her daughters haha. Another time, I was making eye contact with this woman on the other side of the bus. She kept looking over with a smile on her face - I got up and went over to sit by her and she said something along the lines of "I just love how happy you look. You just smile so much!" After talking to her, I found out that she was from Afghanistan, she converted to Christianity from Islam although her family disowned her, and she moved to Canada. We are meeting with her this week!

Sister Von and I were blessed to go visit John and Nyema Turner! My family! They live about 4 blocks away from the church which was pretty cool when we found that out. Haha they are right across the street from the Elder's apartment building - I wonder how many times missionaries have knocked on their door. But it was a great visit! They are the cutest couple ever. Nyema is very educated and very talkative. She has such a cute personality and has so many great stories! It's kind of like the mom and dad relationship where mom tells the story and dad kind of sits there and laughs and smiles while she talks - adding in things here and there. John is a sweetheart. They fed us DELICIOUS gelato and drove us home which was like a five minute drive away. Very comfortable conversation.  It was really fun.

Here are some quotes from Youth in our ward that really touched me in Sacrament Meeting yesterday:
"The best way to come unto Christ is to invite others to come with you. Every journey is better when you have a companion to enjoy it with you."
"We must do our best to make it back to the Celestial Kingdom because it is our DUTY to give our Heavenly Father a hug for everything He has given us."

Family, I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I love it so much. It answers any question and resolves any concern. It brings peace and comfort. It gives you a reason to smile, cry, cheer, laugh, serve - it is AMAZING. As is every other peace to God's beautiful plan :) I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!

Sister Bodine

2 comments:

  1. the second last paragraph stood out to me so much - it is exactly what we talked about a lot at YLC last week. I have notes in my journal that are basically the same. and as for the second quote, there was a workshop about that. the speaker didn't add the question "why the Celestial kingdom" until the first morning of ylc, when someone said that in general assembly in a talk. he said he really felt he should include that in his workshop. at the end is when he said "so we can give Him a hug and thank Him, and then do the same with our elder brother" and it was so moving and hit everyone so so hard, and it was so inspired. I hope that made sense.
    love, Katie Jenkinson

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  2. he also said that it was our duty, and that we need to fight for it

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