I really liked my letter to President this week, so here yall go!
So before I go into the Assistants' email, I have to tell you about the miracle we had this week President! On Friday, during weekly planning Sister Beckert and I were talking about next month's ZTM and since we will have a baptism for February before ZTM and then a very tiny teaching pool containing someone else who has a baptize date for Feb 16th, we decided we needed to set a FINDING SMART goal for the month of February. We talked about how we have been taught to find families with a specific number of how many would be in the family. We thought a family of 4 would be sufficient. We went to the Lord in prayer and 4 didn't feel right, but 3 felt better. So we set a goal to find a family of 3 to find and teach in February and baptism at the beginning of March. We made plans on what we could to accomplish the goal: DETOX ourselves. We would fast for the family of 3 on this next fast Sunday! Perfect! What else? We will go on a mail fast, we won't read our mail until next Monday. WHat else can we do? Continue to be obedient and talk to 25 people, bless homes from 3-5pm, always have it in our prayers. I felt excited, nervous, fearful, but overall I felt the Spirit testify to me that this is what we needed to do. It would be hard but we could do it with Heavenly Father's help.
After weekly planning we went out to work. Our plans were to check out a lady Sister Smith and I contacted on our exchange. Then we would bless homes on a street near by. The lady wasn't home. So we started walking. We passed a school where children were getting released. We tried talking to parents. We started walking down 15th street. Turns out the road we chose was a road in a gated retirement mobil park. BLAST! Well, we will just push onward and keep going. We continued walking and we see this black guy. A really buff black guy sitting on his porch. I turned to Sister Beckert and said, "There is a guy." She asked, "Do you know him?" I replied, "...no..." and she said, "Well I don't either!" Well perfect Sister, lets go talk to him. I walked down this hill and said something like excuse me Sir, can we share a message with you? He asked about what and we told him about Jesus Christ. We asked him if he had faith in Jesus Christ and he said, "No" we asked what did he have faith in and he replied, "A pistol!" hahaha. We soon started talking to him and his wife came out and we told our purpose and what we did. They asked us all kinds of questions. We asked if we could come back on Sunday and they said yes AND THEY WOULD FEED US! Their names are Carl and Matha. We got Matha's number, it didn't work out. We were nervous. But yesterday we had dinner with them! Amazing! Carl had to leave but Matha stayed around and we talked to her about prayer and the Holy Ghost and committed her to read 3 Nephi 11 and a soft baptism date. She is really excited. We are going back on Tuesday and we have the PERFECT member to go with. Now you might be asking what does this have to do with our goal, I forgot the most important part, her son lives with them. PRESIDENT WE FOUND A FAMILY OF 3!!! (:
From the Assistants' email i like that they said, "Our purpose is not fulfilled in talking to 25 people per day, it is fulfilled in helping others come unto Christ." We are so obsessed with talking to 25 people that we aren't going beyond anything else. We have to understand our calling and most importantly we need to forget our own weaknesses and shortcomings. We need to truly let everything go and do this work. Time is short. The Work is hastening and Christ will be coming. I don't know about you, President, but at judgement I don't want to be standing in front of Heavenly Father at Judgement and asked why didn't I do what he asked of me. He didn't asked me to be perfect, he asked me to work and hard and open my mouth. He would do the rest.
I think Elder Holland's talk from this last conference is PERFECT. We have been trained in November on what we can do. Jesus Christ is yelling at the mission saying,"FOM Elders and Sisters, why are you here? Why are we back on this same shore, by these same nets, having this same conversation? Wasn't it obvious then and isn't it obvious now that if I want fish, I can get fish? What I need, FOM Elders and Sisters, are disciples—and I need them forever. I need someone to feed my sheep and save my lambs. I need someone to preach my gospel and defend my faith. I need someone who loves me, truly, truly loves me, and loves what our Father in Heaven has commissioned me to do. Ours is not a feeble message. It is not a fleeting task. It is not hapless; it is not hopeless; it is not to be consigned to the ash heap of history. It is the work of Almighty God, and it is to change the world. So, FOM Elders and Sisters, for the second and presumably the last time, I am asking you to leave all this and to go teach and testify, labor and serve loyally until the day in which they will do to you exactly what they did to me."
As I look at the calendar and see the days go by so fast, I am terrified of March. I knew it all would come to an end of being a set apart representative of the Lord. I don't want to waste a single minute. I don't want to waste another feeling on "discouragement and self-doubt" or even "lacked confidence, we were afraid of failure and sometimes we couldn't honestly say that we had given our all at the end of the day." We cant fail if we get out and work and do all we can to do this work. And finally if missionaries remember this part, "There is no one that is more interested in our success than Heavenly Father himself. We have not been asked to be perfect missionaries, if Heavenly Father wanted perfect missionaries then He would get them, but He trusts us to do this work because He knows we can." Heavenly Father called US to the FOM AT THIS TIME for a SPECIFIC REASON. If we question our "success" and "why are we here?" Then we question Heavenly Father. WE CANT FAIL IN THIS WORK! Its a perfect work, and its perfect Gospel. We only fail if we don't get out and give it our best.
Wow, I think I burnt a hole in this keyboard. So I will end it there.
Thanks for all you do!
love, Sister Ploth
The mission is going through some ups and downs. We aren't seeing the success we would like and because of that we are all "depressed". Finding that family of 3 this past weekend, really helped me feel the Spirit again. Sister Beckert and I are working hard. We don't know why people don't want to to listen but we wont quit. We are having a baptism this weekend! Jan is ready and so excited. Her interview is for Wednesday morning. We are defiantly seeing miracles and things are going great! Some days are harder than others but thats okay. Heavenly Father loves us and wont let us fail.
I love you all and I appreciate the love and support!
pic 1: Sister Kinkade and Brother Sprouge got me DDP Caffeine free for my birthday! They accidentally got reg dr pepper so they returned it and got this.
pic 2: on Thursday I hit 500 days! WOW! We biked on beach side.
love always,
Sister Ploth
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