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
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.
ReplyDeletelove, Katie Jenkinson
he also said that it was our duty, and that we need to fight for it
ReplyDelete