Miracles

Some Miracles of the Week:

1. The elders met a man named Deon for literally 20 seconds in Newton Abbot, but in those 20 seconds he said he had faith, but dint have a church to go to and gave them his phone number and told them he lived in Teignmouth. The elders then called us to let us know about him and to give him a call later that evening. Literally an hour later, we were walking in Teignmouth and stopped a man. Turns out it was Deon! We proceeded to teach him, and set up a time to meet again. I think the Lord really wants Deon to be taught and we are excited about him.

2. We watched Finding Faith in Christ with Alan, and it was one of those teaches where the truth just clicked. The Spirit was there and he was able to understood more fully about who our Savior really is and what he has done for us. He was tearing up, and although he was feeling awful he came to church on Sunday. There was some drama between him and a less active member that he actually knows, but thanks to the elders and another member they were able to calm him down in a classroom and his whole demeanor changed from the beginning of church to the end. The blessings of coming to church are real, even when we feel horrible.

3. Maxie has not been feeling good lately, but she was driving around the roundabout by the church one evening and saw the lights on and remembered that it was choir. She felt like she needed to just sing to feel better, and lo and behold right as we are walking by the chapel we see her and is like is that Maxie!? We never usually go to choir on Wednesday, but we felt like we should that day. We were late, and it seriously was just meant to be that we could just see her since we hadn't been able to for a few days. After choir there was a relief society activity that she stayed for, and it was so good to see her smiling and happy and participating. Yet again the gospel, the members, the chapel, and the Spirit uplift those in need. I love seeing it repeated again and again in so many lives.

Calming down and focusing on the person: So we are really busy lately in teaching and going on exchanges and what not, and there was one time I realized that I was stressing about getting to the next appointment during a teach with someone else, and I stopped and pondered afterwards: what am I doing? I need to just focus on this person and their needs at this moment, and trust that everything else that day will work out how it is meant to be AND NOT STRESS. I was reading in 3 Nephi today about the Savior visiting the Nephites in the Americas and I love how He was about to leave them after speaking and teaching them, but there is a moment where he just looks at them. He sees they have tears in their eyes, and he feels their faith. He is moved with compassion, and even though he needs to go, he stops to help those in need. He heals those in need, blesses the children one by one, and prays a beautiful prayer to Heavenly Father with them. They are filled with joy, and he is filled with joy. It is this circle of reciprocated love that really brings joy to our lives. BUT, this opportunity and joy that happened could have been easily missed if Jesus was stressed about time. I am learning that everything works out how it is meant to be, and we just need to stop and focus on the person that is right in front of us. I love the quote that goes along the lines that, a problem to be solved should never take priority to a person that needs to be loved.

I love you all,so much.

Love,

Sister McLeod    

Smile

Teeth: If you want to boost your confidence about your smile, come to England. Seriously a couple of times a day people will just stop in the middle of our discussion and ask us how we have such white and straight teeth. So I have grown to be more grateful for my parents, American culture, my dentist, and my orthodontist for helping me take care of my teeth! 

Knocking: Seriously we knocked the most poshest of poshest houses for hours on end one day because they need to hear the gospel.  It was actually quite fun and hopeful because each one I just thought of the potential they could do for good. Well not one of them were interested, but we enjoyed our day as we critiqued  architecture, doors, gardens, doorbells, doorbell knockers, robot danced, thought of an interpretive dance routine of the Book of Mormon, and what not. You kind of go a little crazy after doing it for awhile so it was fun to laugh with Sister Chamberlain about random things. You have to do that on the mission and just in life. Always focusing on the positive even if you may appear to be in a not so good situation. It is all about choosing to be happy. 

Stress: So I was a bit of a stress case in high school about grades and school and all that stuff and so when I went to BYU Hawaii it was a blessing to unstress me out. Don't get me wrong it is still good to have a that stress to push you forward to work hard to achieve your goals, but I'm talking about the unnecessary things you do not need to stress about. So my high school self crept up yesterday at church. I checked the phone like every other minute worrying about our investigators. I know last week I wrote about how busy church can be, but yesterday it got to the point where I was not doing myself or anyone any good. It then crept into our dinner appointment that lasted a little bit too longer than it should have. So then I got stressed about not being exactly obedient. Then I forgot my bus pass so we had to go all the way home to get it, where it turned out I could not find it anywhere. So the stress kept building and building. One little thing after the other, until my sweet companion just said forget your bus pass, let's go somewhere else today. And I knew that is exactly what I had to do to get out of my stress-funk. Forget yourself and go testify of the truth of the gospel. And so that is what we did. And guess what the first hour of knocking, people were mean and all atheists (like the norm here), but man it felt so good to say simple truths like I know there is a God. I know Heavenly Father loves us and has a plan for our families. I know we can communicate to God through prayer. I know the Book of Mormon is the work of God. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior. There was one man in particular that just went OFF about saying there is no God about 10 times and saying how we need to rethink our lives and get out of the bubble we are living in. All I said after he was done ranting was, I know there is a God, I hope you have a great day. Man, I felt the Spirit so strongly from that simple sentence. I am grateful for the opposition in life, to understand how true the gospel really is. But don't worry after an hour of knocking this one street, we felt like we should go to this other one and BAM we met 3 new people we are going back to teaching this week! The ishness of feeling stressed was definitely cured. Even if we didn't meet those 3 people, just testfying of God and truth made me feel so happy and at ease in life. It just puts life into perspective!

Indians: I want to hug every person from India every day, they are just so nice. Sujata is progressing and has come to church 3 times and is praying specifically about a baptismal date. She is growing so much closer to God and she feels it and knows how big of a step of it is for her. Seriosuly after teaching her this week, we just get so pumped and are so happy for her. She brought her friend Kumari to learn as well so we are just loving it! And getting the best Indian food evaaaaaa! 

Sister Chamberlain: is a boss! I love her so much, we have a lot of fun together. She is so solid and an inspiration to me. And she is just the cutest. 

Be happy, life is good. It's all about using our agency to do good and be good.  I love you all, the gospel keeps getting truer and truer even though everyone here seems to love telling me it is not. It still is :)

Love and Cheers,

Sister McLeod