Week 17

Dear Family and Friends, 

It has been another great with here in NOM. Ah I just continue to love and embrace this work.  I thank my Heavenly Father everyday for this amazing opportunity that he has given me.  I am so humbled each and every day.  This week so a roller coaster of emotions.  Sister Belka and I well let's just say that we are just the best of friends.  I love her so much, and am so grateful and humbled for the many things that she has taught me.  I will be forever grateful for her.  I was so blessed with an amazing trainer. One who I will be forever grateful for. She taught me that obedience is everything, and how we receive blessings. She taught me how to have charity and love people. She taught me how to strengthen my relationship with Father. She taught me how to use the atonement. She taught me how to love this work, and work hard. I could go on and on all day. I am so grateful for the many things that she has taught me. I just hope and pray that I can continue to grow, and become who Heavenly Father needs me to become. I hope and pray each day that he is proud of me, and the missionary that I am. My new companion's name is Sister Graham.  She is amazing!!  We joked a couple of weeks together how sad we were that we would never be able to be companions, and now look what happened.  We are both so excited.  As we have taught together I have already began to understand the many amazing things that I am going to be able to learn from her.  

I had such a humbling experience yesterday on tour.    I had a feeling that I needed to go and sit up in first chair.  Not even five minutes later an older couple walked in through the doors.  I knew that there was something special about them from the moment I looked into their eyes.  I walked them into the Theater room, and started asking about them.  Patricia is having surgery tomorrow, and so they wanted to come and touch the temple tonight to bring her some comfort.  They then began to tell me that they had been really inactive for quite some time.  Patricia felt prompted to read in the bible one morning, and knew in her heart that she needed the gospel back in her life.  So she told her husband thinking that he wasn’t going to agree with her, but to her surprise he felt the exact same way.  He then went on a drive and ended up at the church where he found his old bishop, and went in and talked with him. Since meeting with him they have come back to church, and have received the blessings that this gospel brings.  They have understood that this is where they need to be in order to have the fullness of Joy that the gospel brings.  They then told me that they were going to be sealed next month.  I was instantly able to feel of the love that Heavenly Father had for them.  It was so overwhelming.  The spirit was so powerful as I told them the love that I had for them, but most importantly how much Heavenly Father loved them.  We all just sat there and cried.  We then watched God’s Plan.  There was not a dry eye in the room.  I was so humbled to be able to grow such a powerful love for them instantly, and to be able to share my testimony with them.  I was then able to take them on tour, and focus the whole tour on covenants.  We all were able to bear testimony of the blessing that this gospel has brought to us.  It was such a tender mercy.  As we got to the Temple I was able to testify of the blessings that come from the temple, and the blessings that they were going to receive as they prepare to enter the temple next month.  They then asked me to go to their sealing.  How humbling.  I know that Heavenly Father is so aware of me, and he allowed me to change tonight because of their testimony.  I hope that I will be able to be a part of their special day.  Before they left Patricia told me that what I said at the beginning of the tour as I expressed the Love that God had for them was almost exactly what her patriarchal blessing said.  I am so grateful that I was able to speak from the spirit, and be able to teach them what they needed to hear.  I love this work.  I love the trail center.  I am so grateful to be here.  

I also had a very powerful experience with Elder Watson.  He has become my best friend (He is the TC director).  He is leaving in just two weeks, and so he told me he wanted to give me a blessing before he left.  So he brought me into his office, and started telling me how proud he was of me, and most importantly how proud Heavenly Father was of me.  We talked about some other stuff, and he just gave me some really powerful counsel.  He then gave me a blessing.  In the blessing he promised many so many powerful things.  He was able to tell me how proud Heavenly Father was of me, and also how proud my family was.  He told me that they were such a huge support to me.  How I got so lucky I will never know.  He then told me that I have been forgiven from everything.  That I am pure and clean, and that I needed to move on.  This past month I keep looking back on all the mistakes I have made, and am sick inside for the things that I have put my Savior through.  Today I realized the true power of the Atonement.  I can't tell you how humbling of an experience this was.  I am so grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ and for his atoning sacrifice for me.  I know that he loves me, and is with me EVERY STEP OF THE WAY!!  I walked out of that office a new determined missionary.  I walked out of there knowing that I can do anything.  That I have a Savior who loves me, and is going to bless me as I continue to Change, and become who I need to be.  

Sister Whitt