Christmas Season is Here!

The Christmas season is officially here!!! Since my companions are Americans... i was not allowed to be stoked about Christmas until after american thanks giving, which actually ended up being a bigger deal than Canadian thanks giving in the St.Johns branch. This is because pretty much half of the branch are engineers for Exon oil and so they are all from Texas and other places in the states... so for Canadian Thanksgiving I had mexican food...and this time I had two Thanksgiving dinners!! One on Thanksgiving with a member and the next day because all the oil families got together and had a big thanksgiving meal at the church (we werent actually invited, we showed up to cook our dinner at the church (canned soup...) cause its faster and found them there, and they felt bad so they let us eat with them haha)   

So something im working on this week and for the rest of my mission is being better at waking up in the morning... I will admit that I am not much of a morning person but I read a quote this last week from Elder Holland that said "You tell me how those first few hours of a missionary's day go, and I'll tell you how the rest of their day will go. Ill tell you how their week will go, how their month will go, how their year will go, and ultimately how their life will go." And so I realized that I didnt like how my mornings reflected my attitude. So now, instead of laying in bed for 4 minutes wishing I could sleep longer, I get up within like 5 seconds, say my prayers, make my bed, and start my 5BX workout. And as I've done that, I have noticed a huge difference in my day. Who knew how much that 4 minutes laying in bed affected my attitude!! lesson learned. 

We had our interviews with President Leavitt this week, and by interviews I mean him talking to the 3 of us for over an hour about our facebook usage and then talking to each of us for 5 minutes making sure all is well haha  In our mission they have really started encouraging us to use facebook and email way more. And its weird to do because I feel like I am not really doing missionary work when i am using facebook but I am!! I talk to way more people and effectively teach about the gospel more in 30 minutes on facebook then I do in 2 hours walking around downtown St.Johns. And its an amazing way to get in contact with less actives! The point that President made is that missionary work has been the same for the last 100 years, knocking on doors, talking to people in the streets, and getting ditched for appointments. If we are going to continue doing the same thing we can only expect the same results, but we need to be hastening the work which means we need to change the way we do things. The internet can be an amazing tool when used correctly! And people arent as open to allowing missionaries into their home anymore, or talking to us on the streets and giving us there info so we can contact them again, but people are more likely to be comfortable giving us there facebook name so we can send them a mormon message. Its great! 

I read a talk this week called "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ" by Elder Gene Cook (great talk, everyone should read it) and it really helped me recognize the role faith has in my work as a missionary. And i know this probably sounds like a "duh" moment to everyone else but it just really hit me this week. We need to be always willing to give everything to the Lord at the very moment he asks it of us. If you have any doubts in your mind. any fear, or any distractions, then you will not have the power you are capable of having. When you FULLY trust in the Lord you will have "sufficient faith that the people cannot disbelieve their words" what an amazing blessing we have been promised! Having faith does not just change our attitude but it is something that others will recognize and desire to know more about. There are so many blessings promised to us in the scriptures, all we need to do is work to be worthy of those blessings!! 

The church has put out a new video called He is the Gift and i will ask all of you to watch and share that video with the hashtag #sharethegift, its an amazing video and deserves to be shared be everyone!!! It is something we have been asked to use as our main focus in our missionary work this next month, we have pass along cards and we are asking everyone we meet to watch the video, lets show how we can use social networking to  bring Christ into the lives of everyone!!! 

I love you all, I wish I had pictures of the snow here but I dont yet, I will work on that! miss you, and hope everyone is staying warm!!

October 27th Changing my Heart

In my personal study I was reading the fourth missionary talk and pondering a lot about what I need to do to improve my missionary work and my attitude towards the work. I even talked about it in my farewell talk a bit, about changing the intents of your heart and giving your desires to the Lord. I seemed to have an idea that you can do it like a flip of a switch, easy. Just give yourself to the Lord. no problem. 

Changing the intents of your heart is hard, it can be a real challenge. And its a process, it really does take a lot of change. But what is the purpose of our time here on earth? to change!! Saying that its in your nature or its just the way you are, is never an excuse. The atonement and the plan of salvation is tilting everything in our favor, with help from the Lord and sincere prayer, we can be like our savior, and be able to live up to our divine potential that we each have received in the pre existence. Nothing we can create ourselves will be better than what the Lord has created for us. 

A barrier I've always had is that I never had good grades, I never thought about myself as a smart person and that has limited my ability to progress, I was constantly limiting myself. But I am a daughter of God, I was born in this gospel to progress, and help others to progress.I am a daughter of a King and therefore I have no limits to what I can become. If I want to be loving, caring, affectionate, AND smart. than I am going to work to become that. I never got good grades in school because I didnt allow myself to.  This is a life of no limits. This is a time where we can learn to become like God. 

My challenge to everyone this week is to think about the barriers you each have and about how you can overcome them, and what steps you need to take to become the person you want to become. Because most of the barriers in life are mental

ones that we have created ourselves. 

Thanksgiving

In the season of thanks, i would just like to give a quick spiritual thought on recognizing our blessings. The other day we were street contacting in down town St. Johns, which we do at least 3 or 4 times a week, and i was having just a downer of a day. Nobody was talking to us and i was (still am) having troubles talking to people, and we were walking back to the car and i was just thinking about how many things i need to work on and how ineffective i was until i perfected those aspects, and really just bringing myself down, i was tired and just wanted to go crawl into my bed even though it was only the morning. Then i just had a voice come into my head that said "think about how blessed you are" I turned around at the top of the hill we had just walked up to see a beautiful scene of St. Johns. How blessed am I. I am serving my mission in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. I have a companion i get a long with, I have a name tag with the name of Jesus Christ on it. He has chosen me to represent Him. How blessed am I. I was raised with an amazing family who is strong in the gospel. I have a knowledge of our Heavenly Father who loves me and will bless me even though im not a perfect teacher. I get to spend the next 17 months of my life, not having to worry about rent and money, or any worldly thing, i get the opportunity to share my knowledge and my blessings with everyone i meet. And how blessed am I to have the Holy Ghost with me to remind me of these blessings when im feeling down.