Week 58-April 26th

The sisters specialized training on Wednesday was incredible! President Connolly (member of the mission presidency) gave a training on women and the priesthood that completely change my perspective. To summarize, the priesthood allows men to develop the qualities that are innately given to women. We got Cafe Rio for lunch! And then the afternoon session was about taking care of our bodies. We did a workout and zumba! Or mostly we just danced around because none of us actually knew what we were doing.

On Tuesday we found this lady named Maricia. She's a single mom when an autistic four year old son. She recently moved here and is looking for a church to attend. We left her with a Restoration pamphlet and a return appointment for Thursday. When we went back she had read the pamphlet and had several questions. It was a pretty quick lessons but we introduced the Book of Mormon and left her with a copy. I have VERY high hopes for her. We'll be seeing her again this week. We also taught Hongtao again. We said the opening prayer and then her immediately said the Book of Mormon couldn't be true because he had watched a video on it. We taught him the Restoration lesson and then committed him to read at the end of it. If he progresses, it will be very slow. This week has had more teaching opportunities then I've experience in a very very long time. I loved every minute of it. I've been able to study the Restoration a lot which has been such a blessing.

Saturday morning we helped the ward clean the building in preparation for stake conference. Then we went and go Mary Kay facials haha. We met this lady last week who invited us over to talk about Jesus and do facials. We asked President for permission and said "if you get a free facial, go for it!". She also invited us back to talk more about the church. We explained to her a lot about mission life and she was pretty impressed.

The Saturday night session of stake conference was a very revelatory experience. One of my favorite quotes:

"When we see our true potential we rise to greater heights." President Ellis

Bishop Dean A. Davies came for conference. He told the story behind acquiring the land for the Vancouver temple. He said that not every temple has a unique story, but that some do and you can't help but realize the hand of the Lord is in it. Afterwards, I went up and told Bishop Davies that I appreciated the story because that temple is my temple. He is one of the kindest people ever. He used to be a mission president in Puerto Rico and one of his sisters is now in this stake. He had her come up and bear her testimony. She said something that really struck me; missionary work causes feelings that you wouldn't experience otherwise. It's true both in the positive and negative sense. I've never experienced more frustration and sorrow then I have this last year and I've never experience greater joy. I recognize that these feelings are helping me to become the person that I need to be.

Easter was wonderful, much better than last year. For lunch we went to a member's house with like 20 people. It felt like going to a family reunion. We went to another family's house for dinner. This family has changed me more in the last few weeks then any other family. They have a daughter who is nine years old who was diagnosed with a brain tumor three years ago. She had to learn everything over again and still has many challenges. I have never seen a family act in such a patient and loving way. The Spirit is so strong in their home because they know what family means. They asked us about all of our investigators and opened up their home for us to teach them there. They are excited to help the missionaries in any way. We had made cookies to deliver to members of the ward since tracting on a holiday isn't really productive. However, we weren't able to deliver many of them because we got caught up chatting with people.

What I learned this week: I have the tendency to prevent the Atonement from working in my life. I'm not relying on Christ to make my weaknesses become strengths. Rather, I just make excuses and say that's the way I am. Which is exactly what Satan wants us to think. So instead I've set the goal and determination to become the best me I can be and recognize that I have the infinite ability to change :)

Sister Mayberry 

Easter Sunday

Long day of missionary work!