LDS.org (October 2, 2017)

Go watch conference! We posted this one Facebook to invite people to watch conference, and a lot of members shared it with their friends! We love this new opportunity we have to use social media to share the gospel.

Conference was AMAZING!! I hope you all watched! There were so many amazing talks. I had so many questions answered, and there were also so many concerns addressed of our investigators, and we are so excited for these next few weeks to continue sharing the messages of conference. What were all of your favorite messages from conference? 

This week has also been crazy. Most of our main investigators are out of town right now, so we just went hard on finding and inviting literally everyone we could talk to to watch conference. 

The Mary Tyler Moore Statue! I know most
of you won't appreciate it, but that's ok. 

We had a cool miracle last week on p-day. We went up to Minneapolis to explore with two other sisters from our zone. It was great fun, Minneapolis is so cute. I really wanted to go find the Mary Tyler Moore Statue, because I grew up watching those TV shows (Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke). No one else I was with knew who Mary Tyler Moore was, but they agreed to find it with me. We were on a street trying to look at a map, and a city resource officer noticed our plight, and offered to lead us to the statue. She's a college student, and we started talking to her. She asked kind of who we are and what we were doing, so we started explaining to her what we do as missionaries, and she was really interested. She told us how she grew up in a very religious family, but she began to ask questions and trying to go deeper, and that was looked down in her church, so she stopped being involved. We joyfully were able to testify to her about the restored church, and how it all started with a question, and God encourages us to ask questions, we have continuing revelation and he wants us to continue to learn the truth for ourselves. We started to talk about the Book of Mormon, and she asked where she could get a copy. We were able to give her one, and connect her with the missionaries in Minneapolis, and invite her to watch conference, and she was so genuinly excited. It was an incredible miracle, and shout out to my parents for having us watch old tv shows when we were young. God prepares us in so many ways to find and teach people here. 

We were temporarily homeless this week as well. The family we live with needed us to leave for a few days, so we packed up suitcases and went to live with our branch president and his family in their basement for the week. Haha, we made it a big deal that we had no where to live when we first found out, and just missionaries out on the streets with no where to go, but we are actually super grateful for our amazing members and that we have comfortable homes to live in here. 

So there are just wild turkey's romaing around Minnesota. I'm not kidding. The first time we saw one we were just like "oh, that's weird," but they are seriously everywhere. And we asked some members, and they were like "Oh yeah, that's normal. There are peacocks too sometimes around our house" So, Minnesota never ceases to amaze us.

We were told this week we dress like we live in medieval times, but we're choosing to take that as a compliment.

I had a really cool moment at service this week. We give service at a local church here in Burnsville, and we help people get food and clothing for the month, as well as talk to them about if there is anything else we can do to help them. I was helping this one woman, and right when she sat down to talk to me, I could tell how overwhelmed she was. Facing unemployment, and supporting her teenage children, and paying bills, and she just needed so much help, and was so grateful for anything that could be spared to help her. We just refer them to the departments that can help them depending on their needs, so I explained that I couldn't personally do anything, but that this other department had representatives who could come talk to her. And she was so grateful. We said a prayer together before she left, and she said she got the chills, and it was incredible to see how much the spirit had brought her peace and calmed her in that short time we were together. We're not allowed to prostelyte at service since we are working with another church, but hopefully one day if she sees another missionary with the same tag, she will take a second to listen. And I felt so humbled to be an instrument in God's hands to help bring that woman just a little more peace that day. 

I am not going to be adding my own spiritual message this week, as we have been noursished by so many spiritual thoughts this weekend, and found so much peace in the gospel, I would encourage you to go listen to those messages. I was particularly impressed by how many references were made to President Monson's talk about the power of the Book of Mormon, and the importance of following the guidance of our living prophet. I testify that their words are true, and that as we heed their counsel, we will find more peace in this life then by any other means. I would like to invite you to watch conference, even one session, if you didn't have the chance, I know you will find peace and comfort from the words of the prophets. And if you did watch conference, please remember and treasure up those words you have heard. Think of someone in your life who could benefit from those messages you heard, a fellow member, a friend, a family member, whoever, and share that with them, in social media or in person. The joy that comes from sharing the gospel cannot be matched, and I know that by small and simple things, great things are brought to pass.

Hermanas take Minne🍎is!