Group E-mail 6/23/14

First of all, two cool miracles that happened this week. On Tuesday we were visiting a bunch of people -- investigators, potentials, less-active members, active members. Everybody. And nobody was answering the door. Eventually we decided to go visit Sis. Black, who is a less-active member that we both had never met. She was in her front yard when we got there. She has cancer and had just gotten home from chemotherapy and was about to go to bed. She was excited to see us and let us inside. We got to know her and shared a message. When we said the closing prayer, Sis. Hassell prayed and after she finished, Sis. Black started praying. She thanked Heavenly Father for answering her prayer that she had offered just the day before to send the sisters over because she hadn't seen us in a long time. There are few things more humbling in this world than being an instrument in Heavenly Father's hands to answer one of His children's prayers. 

For the second miracle I have to recap. The sisters here have been teaching a girl named Bridgette for quite awhile. She wasn't really going anywhere, but a couple of weeks ago we had a couple really great lessons with her and things were going to start moving. But then she texted us and told us she was moving to Florida for the summer. We were so bummed! Things were going so well. So, after Sis. Black on Tuesday we went out with some senior missionaries that are now in our ward and then went to dinner. Then we visited a member family that we see every Tuesday night, and after that I really had to go to the bathroom. Walmart was close by, so we went there. We had just gotten in front of the bathroom entrance and all of a sudden somebody ran up behind us and gave us these huge hugs from behind. And it was Bridgette!! What the flip?! Apparently she thought Florida was lame and had come back a few days before. We talked to her and her best friend, Katie, who has sit in on a lesson with her before. And we have an appointment to meet with both of them tonight. We are so excited! Heavenly Father's timing and placement is so amazing!

The rest of the week we spent visiting less-active members that other members in the ward have referred to us to visit. Our stake president talked at our district meeting on Friday. He pretty much talked about how our ward was the weakest in the stake -- but that is okay! -- and that we need to focus on helping the ward leaders in the rescue effort -- helping reactivate less-active and inactive members. So that is what we have and will continue to be doing. Lots of work to be done. And the rescue effort is going to be how we find new investigators along the way. It is all part of the Lord's work. 

I love being a missionary. The longer you are out, the more focused you become, and the better it gets. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ really do love us perfectly and God's hand is in every aspect of our lives, we just have to keep our eyes open. And when we are diligent and obedient, the Lord always blesses us. Even if it doesn't come when we want or expect it to. "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." (D&C 82:10).

I hope you all have a great week! You are all amazing!

Love,

Sister Sylvester

Group E-mail 6/16/14

We had a really good week. The Lord definitely blessed us. We finally found a new investigator. It's taken awhile. Thursday morning we were doing weekly planning. I was feeling a little down because it seemed like nothing we have been doing was working and nothing has really been going anywhere. I went into the bedroom to grab something and when I walked out Sis. Hassell told me that we got a Mormon.org referral. So we went to go see this lady that afternoon. She answered and told us to come back Friday at noon. So we did and had a really great talk with her. We got to know her and answered some of the questions she had. She is very active in her church. A security sale guy was talking to her the other week and talked about his mission and asked if he could send the missionaries over and she agreed. We gave her a Book of Mormon and taught her about it and the promise that if we read and pray about it, we can come to know it is true. She really liked it and was excited to start reading it. One of the best things about Houston is that no matter how interested people are, most of them love God and love to talk about Him.  It is so great to be able to hear about their love for Him and how they choose to show it. And as we talked to this lady, Jackie, you could feel of the love that she has for our Heavenly Father.

We were also able to meet with one of our investigators that we haven't seen in a long time. We stopped by a few weeks ago and he told us that his wife had left him. We were out with a member and went to visit him. He is doing much better. We were able to talk to him about spiritual awakenings and how we can get them when we read the word of God and take an act of faith. We read some Book of Mormon passages to him about how the words of Christ can guide and heal us.

We were also able to meet with a lady  named Courtney. She lives close by one of our members. Sis. Hassell and her last companion met her when they were bringing something to the members and they knocked on the wrong door. We visited her and ended up teaching her a brief restoration lesson and about the plan of salvation. The Spirit was so strong. And she definitely felt it. She is very prepared. We just have to get her to take that step of faith. She has had a very hard life and told us about her experience with learning about Christ and coming unto Him. It was amazing. The power of Christ's Atonement is so real. It really can heal everything.

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Sister Sylvester

Group E-mail 6/9/2014

Sorry I didn't send out an email last week. Ran out of time. So let me do my best to fill you in on the last two weeks. 

We got to go the temple a couple of weeks ago. It was amazing as always. I love the Temple. No matter how you are feeling before you go or what is going on at the time, you can always come out of the Temple full of peace and righteous confidence and the strength of the Lord. I am SO grateful that we have the Houston Temple in our mission and that we are able to go so often. I'm pretty sure none of the missionaries here would be able to survive without it. It is an irreplacable source of strength.

Two Friday's ago we had a really great power hour after dinner. We decided to go tracking, but we weren't exactly sure where to go. We had been having dinner at our apartment, so we decided to tract a street in one of the areas closest to our apartment to save some miles. Sis. Hassell started randomly moving her finger around on the map and told me to tell her when to stop. I told her when, and her finger landed on a road. It was a really little road, and we weren't really sure about it. Then we thought that we should probably pray and ask God where He wants to go instead of leaving it up to chance. We prayed and asked God to lead us to His prepared children. Then Sis. Hassell moved her finger around again because we couldn't come up with any better way to do it. Her finger landed on the same street. So we prayed again and asked Heavenly Father if that was where He wanted us to go. We felt good about it, so we drove over there and started tracting. We found so many potential investigators. We are teaching one of them on Wednesday. One guy and his wife, we taught last week. They weren't interested in continuing to meet, but it was a really great discussion about the Restoration of the Gospel. They really love God, but they were too hung up on the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. Then there was a lady we met named Irma. She is awesome. When we knocked on her door, she said no because it was all the same God. But she asked us where our church building was. We told her and she said that she drives by it a lot and has always wanted to go there to see how it feels inside -- see if the Spirit of God is there. We invited her to come and gave her all of the information and she was excited. At the end she told us that she has felt like something in her heart was missing. Then this last  Friday, we were on exchanges. I was here with Hermana Woodward. We knocked on Irma's door again. She answered and said she was sorry she hadn't come to church that week. Something had come up and she wouldn't be able to go this week, either because she has a family thing. But, she said, it was still in her heart to go to church. We had a really great talk with her. She let us inside. We got to know her and ended up talking a little about temples and eternal families and what missionaries do. She was impressed and we are going to go teach her this week. 

Last Saturday, May 31, Tim got baptized!! A member drove Sis. Hassell and I all the way up to Oak Ridge so that we could attend his baptism. It was so great. First of all, Megan looked great! She was so happy and is doing so well. Tim looked great as well. He was very happy and excited to get baptized. And he even teared up a bit during one of the talks. They are just so awesome! And it was great to see everyone. My whole old district was there, so that was really fun to see all of them. And it was great to see some people in the ward. I love them so flipping much. They're just fantastic and I miss them like crazy. 

They are a couple of things I have been thinking a lot about this week.

1. The Priesthood. So I mentioned the lesson we had with the husband and wife who couldn't accept the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith, no matter how many times we told them they just had to pray about and ask God. One of the things they kept going back to was what made Joseph different from other pastors/preachers and their interpretation of the scriptures. We talked about how the Priesthood was the difference, but it didn't really do anything. Ever since that lesson, I have just kept going back to how it really is the priesthood that makes all the difference. Joseph Smith didn't claim to be just another preacher. He claimed to be a prophet of God, and as such he had authority from God to do His work, to lead Christ's church, and to interpret the scriptures. He had the priesthood. And either he was a prophet of God with that authority, or he wasn't. And as we read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and pray about Joseph Smith, asking God, the source of all truth, if it is all true, we can come to know for ourselves that Joseph Smith really was a prophet of God with that Priesthood power. And because of that, his interpretation does matter.

2. Acting vs. being acted upon. We decide how to react to different situations and if we are going to let those situations define us or if we are going to define the situations. A situation either brings us closer to God, or further from Him -- we decide. In my Book of Mormon class at BYU, our professor talked about Alma 62:41. "But behold, because of the exceedingly great length of the war between the Nephites and the Lamanites many had become hardened, because of the exceedingly great length of the war; and many were softened because of their afflictions, insomuch that they did humble themselves before God, even in the depth of humility." They each chose whether to let the war bring them closer to or further from God. He then said "Boiling water hardens eggs and softens carrots." Same trial -- boiling water. Different reactions/outcomes.

I hope you all have a great week!!

Love,

Sister Sylvester

Tim was baptized! 5/31/14