Letter #39 -Opposition In All Things

May 1, 2017

Dear Friends and a Family,

These last few weeks have been a little rough, but I really like the transfer goal that we
haves set for ourselves this transfer. As we have been going around to the members and
talking to them about member missionary work and have sought to keep things more
focused on our purpose, we have started a list of all the members and the people they
are working with. Our transfer goal is to keep up with this list and to ask the members
periodically how things are doing with those they are working with and how we can help.
Last week we asked four or five members about the people they had mentioned. A few
came up to us to give them updates themselves. Not very many of their friends seem to
be very interested at the moment, but I believe it is helping the members think more
consistently about their efforts and that if we are consistent, our efforts will, in time, bear
fruit. We have had one of their neighbors invite them and (and later us) to their church.
The members said that they would go to his church if he went to ours. He accepted and
last week they went to his church. He should be coming to ours soon, and we may end up
going to his if it is in the area boundaries.

Love,
Sister Prue

Letter #38 - Memo

April 17, 2017

Dear Friends and Family,

Not sending too much out today, but just wanted to let you know that

I'm staying here another transfer with Sister Sellers. Easter was

great and I'm so grateful for the Savior's Atonement. Because of Him

we will all live again and have the opportunity to spend eternity with

our loved ones.

Love you all!

Letter #37 - Promptings

April 10, 2017

Dear Friends and Family,

First things first, just to make you aware, we find out about transfers a week from today, and for whatever reason, they will be on Tuesday and not Wednesday. So my address could change very soon.

On Friday, we went to try and make contact with a less active family. No one was home, but as we walked back down the driveway, I had the prompting to do some tracting. This is my least favorite and most commonly felt prompting. I follow the prompting far less often than I should. Most of the time when we do start tracting after such a prompting, nothing comes of it so far as we can tell, at least in terms of people to teach. Because of this it has become easy for me to rationalize or second guess my way out of these promptings. Fortunately Elder Rasband just gave an amazing talk on recognizing and following the promptings of the Holy Ghost in the Sunday morning session of General Conference. In particular he talked about following the first prompting to do something. In his talk he said,

"We must be confident in our first promptings. Sometimes we rationalize; we wonder if we are feeling a spiritual impression or if it is just our own thoughts. When we begin to second-guess, even third-guess, our feelings--and we all have--we are dismissing the Spirit; we are questioning divine counsel. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that if you will listen to the first promptings, you will get it right nine times out of ten."

I walked to the car, we got inside and then I looked at the door of the house we had been parked outside. I knew we had to knock on it. My companion recognized the look of dread that comes from knowing you've got to do something you don't want to do, and we got out and knocked on the door. The man who answered, was old and hard of hearing, but upon realizing who we were promptly told us that he was good and didn't need to hear from us. We knocked the next door through which a man had just walked, but he didn't answer. Then we got back into the car and drove on our merry way. We should have knocked more, but as we left I had the distinct feeling that God had prompted me to knock so that I would know that He was aware of me and where I was as well as to remind me that this is His work and I need to be listening a little more closely.

Elder Rasband taught, "First promptings are pure inspiration from heaven. When they confirm or testify to us, we need to recognize them for what they are and never let them slip past. So often, it is the Spirit inspiring us to reach out to someone in need, family and friends in particular. “Thus … the still small voice, which whispereth through and pierceth all things,” points us to opportunities to teach the gospel, to bear testimony of the Restoration and Jesus Christ, to offer support and concern, and to rescue one of God’s precious children."

He made us a few promises as well. When one of God's chosen servants makes us a promise we can be sure of it, for when led by the Spirit, they speak for God. Here are a couple of the promises I saw in his talk:

"If we let the Lord know in our morning prayers that we are ready, He will call on us to respond. If we respond, He will call on us time and time again and we will find ourselves on what President Monson calls 'the Lord’s errand.' We will become spiritual first responders bringing help from on high.

If we pay attention to the promptings that come to us, we will grow in the spirit of revelation and receive more and more Spirit-driven insight and direction. The Lord has said, 'Put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good.' "

And finally, what are promptings? Elder Rasband teaches, "The Spirit speaks words that we feel. These feelings are gentle, a nudge to act, to do something, to say something, to respond in a certain way. If we are casual or complacent in our worship, drawn off and desensitized by worldly pursuits, we find ourselves diminished in our ability to feel."

Heavenly Father is aware of us and he wants to bless us as well as give us the opportunity to be a blessing in the lives of others. One way we can do this is by acting on those nudges to do good. I love how he said that often promptings come to go to the aid of family and friends in particular-to those we love the most and want to be of service to the most. I have seen that in my own life and have also been touched by many of you who I am sure have responded to promptings of the Spirit to reach out in love to me.

All of these quote have come from Elder Rasband's most recent General Conference address entitled "Let The Holy Spirit Guide" which can be read here: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/04/let-the-holy-spirit-guide?lang=eng.

Love,

Sister Prue

Letter #36 - Enduring Well

April 3, 2017

Dear Friends and Family,

In my last e-mail, I mentioned that Heavenly Father has blessed me with an abundance of divine help and I would like to share some of the things I have learned and the experiences I have had. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we were blessed to be able to hear from an apostle of the Lord. In Doctrine and Covenants 1:38, we read: "38 What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same." I have received many answers to prayers through the guidance of the Lord's servants, especially from his prophet and apostles. When Elder Rasband came to speak to us, he counseled us not to complain about our areas or companions, but to ask the Lord what we should be learning from each respective area or companion. As I have gone through the weeks I have followed this pattern of asking the Lord what it is I should be learning from my experiences. Understanding things that I can learn from my trials has helped give them purpose and has at times made it easier to endure well through them. I came to realize that one hardship I am going through is so that I may better learn to control my thoughts. We are taught in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah 4:30 :

"But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not."

I have been able to practice maintaining a focus on Christ and not those things that worry or distress me. I have done this by using my free time in the morning and at night to study the blessings promised me in my patriarchal blessing and to once again memorize the document The Living Christ. Many years ago, I along with the young women in my ward, we were challenged to memorize this document. Upon completion we were given a beautiful copy of Jesus the Christ. As I reflected on this experience, I decided to once again work on memorizing this inspired document. When my thoughts wander away from the purpose to which I am called, I start reciting it in my mind, and it helps me stay focused. In his talk, "Bear Up Their Burdens With Ease", Elder Bednar teaches that the trials we go through are opportunities for spiritual growth.

"The unique burdens in each of our lives help us to rely upon the merits, mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah (see 2 Nephi 2:8). I testify and promise the Savior will help us to bear up our burdens with ease (see Mosiah 24:15). As we are yoked with Him through sacred covenants and receive the enabling power of His Atonement in our lives, we increasingly will seek to understand and live according to His will. We also will pray for the strength to learn from, change, or accept our circumstances rather than praying relentlessly for God to change our circumstances according to our will. We will become agents who act rather than objects that are acted upon (see 2 Nephi 2:14). We will be blessed with spiritual traction."

I have found this to be true in my own life.

I love you all and hope you enjoyed General Conference! The counsel from these leaders is truly inspiration from God.

Love, Sister Prue

Letter #35 - God Answers Prayers

March 27, 2017

Dear Friends and Family,

I've been going through a lot of hard stuff lately, including feelings of inadequacy as a missionary, homesickness, and lots of other generally negative feelings. And I've prayed for help - oh how I've prayed. But a lot of times, all I heard was silence. I've been studying from the Bible a lot lately, and one of the lessons I came across was what is often called The Parable of the Friend at Midnight (Luke 11:5-10). I also study with the institute manual because I've found it helps me understand what is going on better and helps give some context to Christ's teachings. For this parable, the manual includes a quote from James E. Talmage, from his book Jesus the Christ. It says, 

"The Lord’s lesson was, that if man, with all his selfishness and disinclination to give, will nevertheless grant what his neighbor with proper purpose asks and continues to ask in spite of objection and temporary refusal, with assured certainty will God grant what is persistently asked in faith and with righteous intent. No parallelism lies between man’s selfish refusal and God’s wise and beneficent waiting. There must be a consciousness of real need for prayer, and real trust in God, to make prayer effective; and in mercy the Father sometimes delays the granting that the asking may be more fervent.” 

I was able to better understand that the silence came, not because He didn't care or because I was doing something wrong, but because He wanted to see if I really wanted His help. He allowed me time to humble myself before Him so that I would be prepared to act on the answers he would give me. As the weeks have gone on, I have been blessed with an abundance of divine help. It has not made my situations any different, but it has provided me with comfort, an awareness that my Heavenly Father knows and loves me, and strength to continue on. At times it can even be said of me as it was said of Alma and the people in Helam, that my burdens have been made light, and that "the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord" (Mosiah 24:15). I know that this strength comes through relying on the Atonement of Christ. I always love what Elder Bednar has taught about this strengthening aspect of the atonement. 

"Not only does the Atonement of Jesus Christ overcome the effects of the Fall of Adam and make possible the remission of our individual sins and transgressions, but His Atonement also enables us to do good and become better in ways that stretch far beyond our mortal capacities. Most of us know that when we do things wrong and need help to overcome the effects of sin in our lives, the Savior has made it possible for us to become clean through His redeeming power. But do we also understand that the Atonement is for faithful men and women who are obedient, worthy, and conscientious and who are striving to become better and serve more faithfully? I wonder if we fail to fully acknowledge this strengthening aspect of the Atonement in our lives and mistakenly believe we must carry our load all alone--through sheer grit, willpower, and discipline and with our obviously limited capacities.

We are not and never need be alone. We can press forward in our daily lives with heavenly help. Through the Savior’s Atonement we can receive capacity and “strength beyond [our] own” (“Lord, I Would Follow Thee,” Hymns, no. 220). As the Lord declared, “Therefore, continue your journey and let your hearts rejoice; for behold, and lo, I am with you even unto the end” (D&C  100:12)." (Bear Up Their Burdens With Ease, April 2014)

I know this is true. I know that God answers prayers in his own timing. I know that He loves us and is aware of us.

And I love all of you! 

Sister Prue 

Letter #34 - 8 Months Today

March 20, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,

This week we had the incredible opportunity to hear from an apostle of
the Lord, Elder Rasband. We also were able to hear from Elder
Hallstrom and Bishop Causse (I know I butchered the spelling on that
one) of the presiding Bishopric. Beforehand we were asked to read a
talk he gave in general conference in 2010. In it he shared his
experience of observing how missionaries are assigned to their
missions and bore testimony of the divinity of our call. During our
conference, he shared his experience this week of assigning calls to
missionaries, as that is now his privilege to do as an apostle. He
said he even assigned some to this mission :) He told us not to
complain about our areas or companions or missions because doing so is
to mock God. He promised us that if we would keep journals during our
missions, that the spiritual experiences we record will be able to
bolster our testimonies later in life at times when our faith may
become weak. He talked about how missions are times where we find
ourselves and God's elect. Missions are very inward and very outward.
He told us to ask God what He wants us to learn from each companion
and each area. All the speakers were amazing and I took notes full of
counsel. The thing I think that sticks out most from these visits from
leaders of the church is the great love that they have for us. The
Spirit is so strong when they come and it seems like all is right in
the world, or at least that it will be.

Something that I've made a habit of doing recently is reading from my
patriarchal blessing each day. It is uplifting to see the many
blessings the Lord has in store for me and the love that He has for
me. I've also started re-reading the talks from last General
Conference in order to prepare for General Conference coming up.

Some of you may not know that as of a week and a half ago, I got a new
companion, Sister Sellers. She is from Clearfield, UT. She is very
organized and awesome at directing dinner conversation towards
missionary work and other gospel topics. I'm learning a lot from her
already.

Also, I'm sitting here in the cleanest laundromat in the world washing
my SWEATERS. But the last few days it has been in the 90s. I think
they broke the weather here.

As always, I love hearing from each and every one of you. I love you all :)



Love, Sister Prue

Letter #33 - Spring Forward

March 13, 2017

Friends and Family,

Sorry for the lack of updates. Things have been crazy these past
couple of weeks. This Saturday the mission will get to hear from Elder
Rasband, so stay tuned for that next week! And to answer one person's
question, we did lose an hour of sleep this weekend. No rest for the
righteous! Hope things are well with everyone! Thanks always for the
support!

Love, Sister Prue