count your many blessings

Thursday I was feeling trunky, so Sister Bowman started counting our blessings. It started out silly with things like "We have hot pockets in our freezer waiting for us at home!" but by the end of the night, and especially later that week, we were screaming "BLESSING NUMBER THIRTEEN!" as little miracles kept happening.

To give a little background, Sister Bowman and I had a great talk last Friday night after mission conference. We were just talking about some of our weaknesses as people/missionaries, etc. We came to the conclusion we really needed to humble ourselves and just put our heads down and work. The next day we both fasted, and since that has happened, things have been improving. This week was probably the best in my mission yet. Here are the top ten blessings that happened (in no particular order):

#1- One of our investigators was baptized!!! Ah. It was so wonderful and beautiful and joyful. She was just beaming all day and we were beaming and by golly the church is true. The spirit was so strong at the meeting, and everything went smoothly. Sister Bowman and I sang "The Lord is My Shepherd" (we practiced solely in the car as we listened to The Lower Lights), the talks were wonderful and perfect, and our investigator family came! We asked the 15-year-old son to play the closing hymn on the piano and he rocked it.  Also there was lots of yummy food after and a lesson with that family. Sister Bowman and I are still finishing off some soggy sandwiches from those refreshments (blessing #1.5 - free food).

#2- Thursday we had an appointment with a less-active, but he cancelled. We were pretty bummed but then the cancellation turned into a blessing! There had been an activity planned for that night at the chapel, but it got changed because there was a memorial service for a long-time member of the ward who recently passed away. Our investigator family didn't get word of the change, so we got a call from them and they were at the chapel with homemade spring rolls. We felt bad, but it was such a blessing because they live out of our area and we have SUCH a hard time scheduling things with their busy schedules. We drove over to the chapel real quick and ate all the delicious food in the kitchen, and it was an excellent time to really bond with them. We feel like we hadn't had the proper time to just get to know them and build some trust and let them know we're humans and not, you know, missionary robots or something. It was perfect. We were laughing and bonding and life was good.

#3- Our investigator played the piano at the baptism. I mentioned this before, but really it was such a blessing. We had people to do it if not, but we knew this would be a great way to include them in the program, make sure they came, and show him we had trust in him. It was a little rough, but it was his first time accompanying a congregation and he was stellar!!

#4- One of the investigators from the family said she really felt the Spirit when the baptism happened. For weeks now she's been saying she wants to be touched by the Holy Ghost and at the baptism she gained that witness she was looking for. Amazing things happen when people are in an environment where the Spirit can dwell.

#5- Thursday night we dropped by the house of a less active who basically went inactive two weeks after she was baptized years ago. In the past she's told the missionaries not to bother coming by anymore, but we had called her and she asked to speak to her old home teacher, a member of the ward. Well, that turned out to be the man I mentioned before who just passed away, so we let her know. But we were having trouble reaching each other, so we finally just dropped by. And she let us in her house, which is big. We talked for a little bit and invited her to the memorial that night. She said she might come, but wouldn't confirm. Later when we dropped by the chapel, she was there! It was perfect, a place for her to mingle with members and feel the Spirit.

#6- Friday night we dropped by the home of another less active that we've tried to reach so many times. We've only seen her once, and though she agreed to let us practice our teaching on her, she wasn't too warm. But this night she was! We were able to really talk with her some more and bond a bit, and we made an appointment, which was wonderful.

#7- The Smith* family has resisted contact from the church since they were offended and left 4 years ago. They're marked as a "Do not contact" on our ward list, but our ward mission leader said we should drop by and "pray really hard before". So with faith, we did. Brother Smith answered and was really nice! He couldn't talk then, but we have a return appointment -- miracle!

#8- Our investigator was confirmed on Sunday! The spirit was so strong and she was crying. She told us after how powerful the experience was, and it was such a happy moment to see her complete her process of becoming a member of Christ's church on the earth today.

#9- Facebook! I've been wondering how exactly to use this tool the past few weeks, and this week I finally feel like I have some solid direction to go. We don't have specific instructions or rules on any of this yet, because we are all trying to figure it out together. But look for good things.

#10- Saturday night Sister Bowman and I had a free chunk of time for the first time in a while, and we decided to schedule some tracting (for my first time ever!). We've knocked a few doors before when we were in areas with leftover time, but this was the first scheduled tracting. It was FREEZING cold and we even saw snow (the first we've seen here so far). One Jewish lady wasn't too happy to see us, others were cordial. At the end of the night we knocked on a door and this nice family invited us in. Turns out the Mom is a member (we think)! She hasn't been to church in years because her husband is Muslim and said he didn't care if she was a member but that the missionaries weren't allowed to preach in his house. Since then she hasn't really gone back. We were able to talk with her and say a prayer, and we have an appointment next week to give her a tour of the chapel. Her older son isn't a member, and we have high hopes for both of them! It was a great way to end my first tracting experience.

The moral of the story is, if we humble ourselves and work hard, the Lord WILL bless us! And even though Friday was a pretty rough day for me to focus, as Sister Bowman and I really tried to work hard and talked things through, we were able to receive great blessings. 

I feel so blessed. There is a lot of power to actually COUNTING our blessings. I think the Lord is happy to see us do so, and knows that even if it's hard at first, counting in faith is worth it.

Make a list of your blessings!

*Names have been changed for confidentiality.

the beginning

The decision to serve a mission was a long process for me.

I won't get into all the gory details with you here, but suffice it to say 5 months ago I never would have pictured myself sitting in a library in Maryland with a nametag on my cardigan. But alas, here I sit in a blue cardigan typing away.

More specifically, I didn't expect to be on blogger or facebook as a missionary, because that would be absurd. But the world of missionary work is changing! And boy am I happy to be apart of it. I've joked a few times since I found out my mission is an online proselyting mission that all those hours on facebook and blogger weren't wasted (although my mother may disagree). With all the "experience" I've gathered in that area, I hope that I can use these tools in a way that would bring others closer to Christ, because that's what I'm here to do.

I've decided to start a blog, since blogging is such a great format for writing longer posts. The direction this blog will take is still a bit unclear to me, but I have faith that as I start typing, the Lord will start directing.

The title of this blog, "Be Ready Always", comes from the scripture currently residing on my missionary plaque quite of few states west of me - 1 Peter 3:15.

"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear."

This scripture has meant a lot to me in the past. Since I had it memorized, it quickly became one of those "fall-back" scriptures I would recite in my head every time I found my thoughts headed in a direction I didn't like, and served the purpose of refocusing me. Early on, it didn't carry a lot of meaning, but after making the decision to serve a mission, I realized how perfectly this scripture applied to missionary work.

Be ready always. Prepare yourself ahead of time to bear your testimony to anyone that asks for it. Be ready to answer those questions about your faith. Be excited to share the joy that has come through your membership in Christ's church.

Because people will ask. They'll wonder what's different about you, why you carry such hope with you all the time. The world may not realize it, but they're craving it:

"Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God." Ether 12:4

My hope with this blog is that it might serve a few purposes: to solidify that hope for members of the church, to provide some guidance and ideas on how to best spread this beautiful gospel and "be ready always", to inspire non-members to want to read more, and to invite all of the above to come closer to Christ.

So here it goes!