Dear Family and Friends,
It has been a crazy week! It has definitely come with unique challenges and blessings. I got transferred to the Harbour Pointe Ward. My area covers parts of Mukilteo, Edmonds and Lynnwood (you will have to look it up on the map). So, now I am almost as far south as you can go in the mission. The good news is that we are only about 15 minutes away from the mission office! My new companion is Sister Smith from Odgen, Utah. We are basically starting from scratch here in the Harbour Pointe ward. The bishop expressed that there has not been a baptism in the ward for about two years and that they have had a rough go of it with Elders being sick or being dumb. So we have our work cut out for us. We are going to have to do a lot of work to find investigators because there are none. We have had the opportunity to meet with a few members of the Ward Council and are trying to get in with more. I am so grateful, because already, some of the ward leaders have given us referrals! We are also splitting our ward with a set of Elders, which is really nice because then we can get into more doors and be working with ward members in every situation. The Elders are Elder Wells and Elder Schiess. Elder Schiess was Elder Bloomfield's trainer, so that is kinda cool. Both of the Elders are really hard workers and very motivated, so I am thankful. The Assistants told me at transfers that they were sending, quote, "fireball" missionaries to the area to get the work going and to help the members to trust the missionaries again. So, I guess that makes me feel good about myself, too :)
Because the mission opened 11 new areas (one of which is mine...) there are not enough apartments for the missionaries. So, Sister Smith and I are sleeping on mats on the floor of the apartment of the other Sisters in our District. There is only one bedroom and the mats barely fit between the two beds. And we are living out of our suitcases because there is no closet space, so that is a joy. But at least we have somewhere to sleep and we are not camping out at the mission home (the housing missionaries halfway joked about us having to do that...). We hope to be able to move into another apartment sometime around the fifteenth. It will be nice to actually feel settled and able to concentrate fully on the work.
I have learned so much in my personal study this week! I have continued in Alma and also started reading the New Testament. I have been meaning to read it for a long time and when President Bonham mentioned it at New Missionary Training, I decided that it was time to just do it. One thing that I loved in Alma chapter 23 was that it talked about lasting conversion. Verse 6 states that the lasting conversion came on the part of the missionaries because the preached "according to the spirit of revelation and prophecy" and the part of "God working miracles in them." I love that the two go hand in hand. We have to do our part and the Lord will do His part. But I got to thinking about how I can receive those gifts of the Spirit, revelation and prophecy, and I turned to Doctrine and Covenants 46. In that chapter, I gathered that the following are some of the most important things that we must do to receive those gifts of the Spirit: love the Lord, keep the commandments, ask for those gifts, seek (or study out) those gifts, give thanks and (verse 33) "practise virtue and holiness before me continually." So, those are on my "To Do" list this week (and forever, in reality...), so that we find and teach those who will be truly converted.
Love you all!
Sister Turley
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