ALOHA! (aloha means both hello and goodbye)
Well it was transfers on Wednesday!! So of course, craziness happened!! I am still a zone leader for the south 2 zone, but this transfer, I am training a new zone leader. Her name is Sister Davis and she is from South Jordan Utah. We have only been together for 2 days now, but she is loving, spunky, funny, diligent, tech savvy and has an amazing testimony. I am excited to learn from her this transfer and to work hard with her.
There are lots of sisters in the zone that I have not served with before, and I am excited to get to know them. We have 2 sisters who are training, 1 sister back from Outbound and many sisters in their last transfer. We have such a diverse group of Sisters, and they all have different concerns, but to help them to resolve their concerns, we have decided to focus on "How do you measure conversion" this transfer as a zone. Many of these sisters don't know if they are converted or need to be more deeply converted. We know this from many of the ways that they act and treat others and themselves. We have some pride in our zone and we are going to try and root it our with becoming really converted and serving because we love God. I think this will really help the sisters.
It was really hard for me to say goodbye to Sister Magidson yesterday. I also had so say goodbye to, Sister Thacker, Sister Ellis, Sister Luki, Sister Bailey, Sister Hancock, Sister McQueen, and many others. Saying these goodbyes broke my heart and I did cry. I did not cry as much as I thought that I would, but I did cry a lot. I kept a lot of tears inside of me. I have learned so much from these sisters and have been companions with 3 of them. They have taught me so much from their examples, actions, and words and have helped me to develop into the sister that I am today. I love each of them so very much and I hope I can continue to keep in touch with them. The mission is so good because you get to see so many people all over the world that all know for themselves that the gospel of Jesus Christ is restored on the earth. but it is hard because you can not stay with them forever in this life, but if we all keep our covenants, we will see each other again with our Heavenly Father with our families.
This past Sunday, I gave my talk and it went really well. I did my talk in about 7 minutes which was my time limit. yay! ;) The spirit was really there and I really had prayed for help to know what to say and what the sisters needed to hear. I actual had one of the hosts in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building recognize me and thank me for my talk! That was pretty cool. I think I already shared my topic with you last week, but here it is again. "In one who is wholly converted, desire for things contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ has actually died, and substituted therefor is a love of God with a fixed and controlling determination to keep his commandments. Latter-Day Saints who are wholly converted dedicate their lives to service and simply "press on"." I started by talking about what conversion is and when we are converted, our desires change. When we are really converted, we will obey because we love Heavenly Father. I shared when I became fully converted. It happened when I was outbound. I realized that I was not giving everything to the Lord and what I was giving, I was giving because I knew I was suppose to do it. I realized that I needed to do things because I love my Heavenly Father. The change of heart that I had, changed my life and has changed the person that I am. That day changed my life. I am so grateful that I was able to have that humbling experience. I then talked about how conversion is a process and we constantly have to learn and gain testimonies of different principles. When we truly love God, we will dedicate our lives to him and serve him always. We covenanted to do this when we were baptized, and our opportunities to do so are endless!! There are always chances to serve and help others. :) The spirit was very strong during my talk and I felt guided by the spirit. :) The talk helped me and I hope and pray that it helped others.
For Halloween tomorrow, the square is closing at 5pm and we are going to go eat dinner at the church office building and then go to the7pm temple session!! I am so so excited!!
I love you so so much!! I hope that you are all doing well!!
Love Always,
Sister Stephen
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