Hey family!!!
Good to hear from you, as always :)
General Conference was soooo good! I always get so excited; like a child at christmas time. And then it goes by super fast, just like christmas. The Saturday session was amazing! I really like ...well...all of the talks ha. But they talked about missionary work, christ-like attributes, the plan of salvation, commandments, everything! so good. I really liked when Elder Bednar was speaking about blessings from tithing, but i feel that it also aplies to keeping any commandment when he said that "subtle blessings will naturally flow through the windows of heaven as we keep the commandments of God." I also loved when they referred to Christ as the Great Physician. I feel like that title is not mentioned as much and I feel like it is one of the great titles. We are all imperfect and need saving and healing from the great touch His hands.
Our investigator, Mayetta and her husband, Charles came to watch General Conference! It was a surprise that her husband agreed to come! We have been teaching Mayetta and she called us and said she didn't need a ride to church because her husband was going to come with her. YES! So they oth came and they really enjoyed it. Elder Oaks was laying down the law for chastity and we could hear Mayetta quietly agreeing with everything he said. Her husband really enjoyed when the prophet spoke about his wife. These two people are pre-mormon, :). They are going to get there. THey are so humble and willing to learn. It is so exciting! I pray that they will continue to have that fire and desire for this gospel.
We are still teaching the boys from Haiti. They were unable to come to general conference, but they said they would watch it online. We still need to follow up on that today. They seem to still be doing good though!
Transfers are here yet again. It goes by soo fast! My companionship is staying the same though. yay! So I'll be in knoxville still with sister weirich and sister benge. and with the hunts upstairs :) its so fun, I love it.
Oh, also this past week we had MLC (mission leadership council). All of the zone leaders and sister trainer leaders attend that meeting to prepare for the next month. We are preparing to study chapter 6 of preach my gospel this month, which is centered on Christ-like attributes. I'm so excited. I love that chapter.
One of the Elders, Elder Mills and I were assigned to give a training on diligence through planning in this meeting and then again at our zone conference. Everything we do in missionary work is centered on effective planning, but even going further than that, our lives need to be well planned. So we studied from the scriptures and preach my gospel and listened to some talks and Elder Mills pointed out something that was great. Preach My gospel shows us a formula for effective planning and we find it in the scriptures and it was in a talk we listened to. The reason i'm telling you this is because we applied this training to planning for investigators as well as planning for our personal lives. we need 4 things:
vision: What do we want to do or become and why?
goals: what are we going to do to achieve this vision? (a vision or goal not written will remain a wish)
planning: what are the specific details of things we need to do THIS week to come closer to the vision (specific dates, times, locations)
accountability: this is the GO and DO. put the plans into your hands and feet and ACT. pray to the Lord for help
The zone leaders helped in their training to transform this formula from our investigators and put it on the missionary. We, as children of God, need to find His vision for us. What is our full potential and what are we doing to get there? God LOVES us so much, it's hard to comprehend. And it really hit me; when we were putting so much time into our investigators over the length of our mission, that the Lord is putting in so much time and effort in US to help us in our conversion and development to become the sons and daughters that he knows we are meant and designed to be.
It's a wonderful work that we have all been called to be apart of. We all have unique styles and skills and talents that Heavenly Father needs, to reach out to those around us. It's the best thing we can be a part of for life!
love ya'll so much. Have a great week!!!
love the sister in the south,
Sister Valerie Preston
