An eventful week

Mi querida familia,

Are you at peace? I like that Dad always says it like that (taken from Dain and Scott, right?). My companion and I were talking about receiving peace from the Holy Ghost this morning. I can't remember the scripture reference, but it's in the Bible: my peace I leave with you, not the peace of the world give I unto you but that of my Father which is in heaven. That was really bad paraphrasing. Anyway, the peace of our Heavenly Father is so different from the "peace" the world has to offer. When we say that we want world peace, it's more wishing that there was no contention but rather toleration. But the peace of God is knowing and feeling His love; knowing that we have purpose and that there's hope and light when we search for it. So yes, I am at peace. :) And I had a sort of breakthrough this week. At times it feels like you're just trudging through quicksand on the mission, just knowing you have so much time left, not really seeing any success or finding anyone who's interested, wondering if you're making any kind of difference. But this week things seemed different and I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father for filling me with peace and with light. Light--that's another thing that's been on my mind a lot lately. And I love that Jesus Christ is the light of the world, the Prince of Peace.

On Wednesday I believe (or maybe it was Tuesday), my ward mission leader called and said that he worked it out with the bishop to have every second Sunday of the month dedicated to missionary work in sacrament meeting. He then proceeded to ask me if I would kick it off and speak on Sunday about member missionary work. I'd actually been thinking a bit lately about how we can be better member missionaries and loved being able to speak in sacrament meeting about it. I'm glad they asked me to speak in Stockton and now here in Manteca! So I spoke about how the purpose of everything we do is based on the fact that we have a Savior. Without a Savior, there would be no point to this life; there would be no reason to have faith, repent and strive to become better. And we learn more about the Savior by trying to live like Him, by sharing the good news with everyone. President Howard W. Hunter said that our conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ is measured by our desire to share it with others. Not to say that everyone has to go on a mission if they have a testimony, but I'm grateful that my conversion to the gospel impelled me to take this step and have this experience in my life.

Elder L. Tom Perry visited our mission this week! Well, we actually left the mission and joined up with Roseville to see him. It was great! And Elder Maynes of the Presidency of the Seventy spoke too about how we need to spend our time finding those who are "searchers" rather than using a lot of time trying to convince people that the gospel is true. We noticed that we've been spending a little time with a few people trying to convince them and have resolved to find those who are searching. We knocked on the door of a woman this week who seems to be a searcher. It was a miracle. We chose a few streets a few weeks ago to tract and hadn't been in the area or able to knock doors there. On Saturday we went to one of the streets for about an hour and found a guy who speaks English that seemed really solid. We tried the next street and knocked on one door and found El who had just been talking to her friend about God. Those two women need a lot of love, especially El, and she was excited to have the Book of Mormon. She went to hand it back to me after we read from Alma 7:11-12 about the atonement of Jesus Christ and I said, "No, you can keep it. It's yours." She said really? Because I kept reading it and wanted to read more. It was amazing. We invited her to the Relief Society Anniversary dinner this Saturday at the church and she said she'd be there!

The almond blossoms are amazing in Manteca! Did I mention that Manteca is like a farm town? It's a little town with cows and fields and grapevines and almond trees and lots of orchards. It's beautiful and the sunsets are amazing and I don't want to leave this area! After I spoke on Sunday Hermana J (her husband is Raul) said that after missionaries speak in church they leave soon after--we both frowned and I said that she can't say that because it's not going to happen. I love the members here, I love the investigators, I love everything about Manteca and am sad just thinking about leaving. :( I have a guaranteed 3 weeks!

We "heart attacked" the door of an investigator Saturday night--she's taking her citizenship test today and we wanted to wish her luck. We got all the hearts cut out and put tape on the back and taped it to our skirt as we waddled our way up to the door to attack it. They opened the door as we were standing there so we took off running. We went around the block and returned to see if we could retrieve some hearts that flew away but they came outside. Embarrassing. That was an epic fail. She called us because she knew it was us and she was worried they didn't hear us knock on the door before we ran, yes, ran away. So much for that surprise!

Love you all,

(Oh this is part of President's weekly email.)

What a great week we have had!  It was such a blessing to sit at the feet of Elder L. Tom Perry, member of the Quorum of the Twelve and Elder Richard J. Maynes, member of the Presidency of the Seventy.  They taught us to focus our time on finding those searching for truth, the importance of working closely with the ward council and having a good relationship with the High Counselor assigned to train the ward council.  Elder Perry explained that the Church is lead by the Lord through a living prophet.  He told us that this is a very fortunate time to share the gospel because the Church is in the spotlight.  We are all blessed at this time to be in full-time service as disciples of Jesus Christ and to be called to declare His word among His people that they might have everlasting life.  Zone Leaders will be following-up with you in training this week to discuss how we can apply what we were taught on Thursday.

 “In a world ever more dangerous…the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ has the nourishing power to heal starving spirits of the world.” ( President Boyd K. Packer quoted in PMG page 108)

Okay love you,

kates