First things first yes I got your jerky and it was very delicious. The skittles were great too! thank you :)
So I feel like I have been at the car dealership this whole week. near the beginning of the week we woke up and went out to our car and saw the the hood was popped open on our car. not completely open you still had to undo the little latch and open it but it was popped open and we thought that was weird but thought nothing of it. so Sister Grover walks to the back of the car (because she has to back me out of the drive way.) and I am about to get in the car when I see that our car is a complete mess! There are pass along cars all over the seats the glove box was open and papers were everywhere and it looked like they were trying to tare off the back seat because it was really bent. I don't know what they were trying to do. I don't really know if it was through the trunk that they got in but it was a mess. I asked sister Grover, "Do you remember leaving the car like this? I didn't think so."
So we call the district leader he tells us to call the vehicle coordinator and the first thing he asks if "tiwi" is okay. haha i hate "tiwi". but yes he was okay and then he tells us to take it to the toyota dealership so see how much the damage is going to cost and what else needs to be fixed. We drive to toyota and I am worried that they did something to the engine and the car is going to explode on the way there. But we got there safely and things were checked out and everything was fine the only thing that needed fix was the back seat. We had to go back another day and get an oil change too.
But the cool thing about that experience is the night before I decided that I was going to bring my gps in to help us plan for the next day and that was the first time I have done that! And it just so happened to be the night our car got broken into! Following impressions received from God! crazy! Also they never found our gas card so I guess we did a good job hiding that.
So then on Saturday morning I had the responsibility to drive 3 and a half hours to St.louis with 4 other sisters in Rain/Snow! We arrived safely to hear an Apostle of the Lord speak to us. Elder Rasband is amazing. From this mission conference experience I have learned what it means to "come prepared with a question in your heart" you hear people say that a lot. So to explain...
I told you about shay last week and that was awesome. We got to meet up with him again this week but this time he brought a friend and his friend brought some other friends and it ended up that me and sister grover where teaching like 5 people. But his friend named Blake is a preacher I guess? He holds bible studies. I don't know. The best way I can explain there beliefs is they are hipster Christians. They believe in the apostasy in saying that true christian beliefs were changed. They are not part of an organized religion. Blake i guess has studied most his life on hebrew and greek writings and bible stuff. And Blake is saving all his friends. Anyways in our discussion we talked about asking God to know what is true and receiving answers by the Holy spirit. Blake rambled on and on about how he knew what was true using hebrew and greek terms and I was trying really hard to follow what he was saying. But I pretty much said that you can do all the research you want but you to get to a point where you can't do any more research and you have to ask God what is true. And it is by the power of the Holy Ghost that we can know the truth of all things. Then he went on about how the devil can deceive us and make us think that we are receiving answers from God but really we are not. And we shouldn't be naive and just trust completely in feelings and especially in a man who had 40 wives. But in the end we gave them all a book of mormon and Blake said he would read it if we would read the New testament. I told him no problem! so I guess that was cool.
So going back to Elder Rasband, I have been studying a lot about the spirit. And more specifically the difference between the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the devil. I was trying to distinguish the too and learn how to recognize what is from God. I made a chart in my notes and put spirit of God on one side and spirit of the devil on the other. From looking at different scriptures I learned that it is very important to understand the spirit in this life because it helps us know how God works and who he is. (Eccl. 11:5;John 3:8) And that the spirit that we choose to obey really does effect our salvation. (Alma 3:26-27) A lot of verses in the bible talk about the spirit of the devil being "familiar spirits" which I thought was interesting. But how can we distinguish the too? Well I got the obvious out of the way anything that testifies of Christ and leads us to Christ is of God And anything that takes us away from Christ is not. And the spriti of God always is true and the devil always deceives and gives us error. (1John 4:1-6; Moroni 7) And I like how in John it says try the spirit. Because for little things where it is not so obvious we have to test it for example live the teachings in the book of mormon to know if it is true. Or in missionary work, talk to the person you feel prompted to talk to and you will see if it was actually God talking to you or not. And when we practice and try the spirit, the spirit becomes easier to recognize. Like How if I was in a crowded room and I hear mom voice, I would recognize her voice because I know her. It is the same with the spirit.
SO with that being said, I had this question and I figured a lot out on my own. Like what you said in point two of your President Eyring reading. He wasn't expecting an answer until he did everything he could to study it out in his mind. (D&C 9:7-8) When I went to mission conference I was prepared. And there was this one part that really stuck out to me that really solidified my question. He talked about bridling our passions (Counsel Alma gave his son) and letting virtue garnish our thoughts (D&C 121:45) So he said when we are obedient and when our thoughts are virtuous (uplifting, humble,pure etc.) we are entitled to the Holy Ghost. There is no reason we should not expect to receive promptings. He told a story from when he was a mission president in New York New York mission how some elders were in a restaurant in the bronks and a family walks in which doesn't happen very often and one elder asked the other "should we talk to them?" and then the other one said "nah they are busy eating." And then they never ended up talking to that family. and Elder Rasband asked why do we do that? Is it the devil prompting us to not talk to these people? And then Elder Rasband says, " It is not the devil prompting us to not talk to that person. It is the natural man. The natural man is an enemy to God UNLESS he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit. I never took it from that perspective before and I was really grateful that I was given some light to my question. The familiar spirits is like witchcrafts and that weird stuff but the devil uses the natural man in us to lead us slowly away.
Anyways now that I bored you with that rant and it probably makes no sense to you but that is okay because God spoke to me through his Apostle and I do not believe in coincidences!
So Elder Rasband was amazing. from all the Apostle that have come to speak to us I have come to realize that they are just regular dudes but they are so inspired. I also liked how he said that we are not robots. we can receive revelation for our areas and our investigators. He talked a lot about how divine our calling is and that we are sent to where the Lord wants us to be. and that we should never be a whiner about an area.
So with that being said, we also got transfer calls this week. President Morgan called meSaturday night and I was worried that you guys talked to him again but it wasn't that. He asked me if I would be upset with him if he took me out of Mahomet. I told her that I would never be upset with him :) haha he just laughed. He then told me that he needed me to be an STL (Sister Training Leader) in O'Fallon MO. It is in the outskirts of St.Louis. I guess you could say that a stl is like a female version of a zone leader. I will be going on exchanges with all the sisters in the st louis north and st. louis zones and go to other leadership meetings and give trainings and stuff like that. I am trying not to freak out but I am not going to lie I am kind of nervous. hopefully the saying "whom the Lord calls, He qualifies" plays into action here.
So sorry this is super long. I love you all. And miss you.
LOVE Sister Fisher
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