Week 40 - So Many Miracles

Hey Ya’ll,

Beautiful Sunsets of Oklahoma

The Lord this week has blessed Sister Jenkins and I with beautiful days and we have seen so many miracles, and the weather has been absolutely perfect. So we have been out biking, believe it or not. I’ve not been able to bike a lot of my mission for several reasons, and so I’m so excited to be on a bike. The other day we were riding our bikes home from dinner and the clouds were just parting and you could see the sun coming over the clouds and the colors were magnificent. It was just absolutely gorgeous. I partly miss the mountains but I don’t think we would have the brilliant sunsets if we had mountains. So I am so grateful for the weather and the beauty we have seen this week

  

Yeah! We get to bike again!!!

We also saw some beautiful and amazing miracles this week. Here is a brief overview because it was so awesome. First of all, one of our investigator’s, Brandie, kids wanted to come to church. We had a member with us pick them up. It took a while for them to warm up to church but hopefully they enjoyed it and hopefully they can come back next week. Also we were knocking random doors out in the middle of nowhere in Lexington, which is just outside of Noble, and we pulled up to this random house and were going to try several houses on that street. But we decided to go up the hill first and found a road. Sister Jenkins commented that she didn’t think very many missionaries would have gone down this road, so we started our way down the road and a dog was blocking our path. Every time we took a step it would start growling and barking at us and we got a little freaked out that it was going to bite us. But we kept walking and stayed confident and had faith that the dog wouldn’t bother us. Later we realized that there were puppies it was trying to protect. We ended up getting by the dog but to get back to our car we had to go past the dog again and it was still on that road. The funny thing was that we didn’t find any houses on the road so this is where the crazy miracle comes in. The dog is there so Sis. Jenkins says, “Let’s pray.” So we say a little prayer that we won’t get bit by this dog, that we can walk by it confidently and literally 5 seconds after we said that prayer, the owner of the dog came out and called her dog in and the dog started walking away. Then the lady came out and we started talking to her. Her name is Saundra. It was so cool because she had met missionaries in Guatemala, she is from Guatemala, and knew what Elders were. She said that we could come back, so we are going back on Tuesday at 7 and we are so excited. We will even get to meet some of her family, her son. Miracle #1…dog didn’t bite us; Miracle #2 we have a lesson with Saundra and that is really amazing.

  

Sister Lewis, Jenkins, Walker, Gentry

I’m counting this as a miracle also. Transfers just happened. Sister Jenkins and I are staying in Noble, so excited that we’re still together. So we get this phone call from the sisters (Sis. Lewis went to Bartlesville and Sis. Gentry on OU is now training a new missionary, a greeny). So we were really excited to see who this new greeny was. Sister Gentry called and asked if we knew a Madison Baker. The name sounded so familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on it. We had to wait a full day before we could see who that was so Sister Baker got on the phone and said, “Yea Sister Walker, I know you, I went to the Fair with you 4 years ago.” She is from Meridian, Idaho and I was so excited to make connections with her. So the whole night I was trying to put a face to Sis. Baker. Then immediately when we went to pick the sisters up for Dist. Council I recognized her. It turns out that we have so many mutual friends and we had actually hung out a few times. It has just been really fun to make connections and have the similarity of being from Meridian. That was a pretty awesome miracle so this is going to be such a fun transfer. 

  

District breakfast

We also have quite a few more miracles and they are just little small things like being able to be invited in to sing for people or get a teaching appointment with a former investigator. This former investigator moved and happened to now live down the street from a member. As they were talking they mentioned that they knew missionaries, so they sent us over and we got to know them a little bit better and ended up meeting one of their friends who is now living with them. He has read the Book of Mormon twice, like that’s cool. He’s pretty set on just believing right now but we keep encouraging him to keep reading the Book of Mormon, exercise your faith, come to church. We’re really excited to see where this goes. He seems like a super cool guy. Another miracle we saw was when we went to try and find a less active and we ran into her grandson who has been living with her, but she was unfortunately not home at the time.  We talked to her grandson instead and his wife who had just had a little baby, so that gave us an opportunity to talk a little bit about the plan of salvation and it went pretty good. We were able to testify of how the plan of salvation has blessed us. So we’re hoping that we can go back and meet them again and teach them a little bit more.

  

I was thinking, isn’t it crazy that we have another General Conference in a few short weeks? So I CHALLENGE you to make it a priority for the next 3 weeks before General Conference that you pray and ponder about something you would like to hear the Apostles and our brand new Prophet, President Nelson, talk about. I am so grateful that there is a prophet on the earth today and that it is President Nelson. I will miss President Monson dearly. I loved him and that is the prophet I grew up with, but I know that President Nelson is a prophet of God, called of God to teach us and share what the Lord would have him share. He is the mouthpiece of the Lord, I know that to be true. I know that all the Apostles are mouthpieces of the Lord, that they testify of truth, that they only speak truth, they would never lead us astray. I have not a doubt in my mind that they would ever lead us astray. And if any one of them would ever lose his way I know that the Lord would not ever let them lead us astray. So for the next 3 weeks prepare for General Conference, and also pray to know whether President Nelson is a prophet, called of God. You can also do that with all of the Apostles. Let me know how that goes if you don’t mind sharing it with me. I love hearing how your experiences go that I give you each week. I hope you have a great week, see miracles.

I love Ya.
Sister Sarah Walker

I wanted to leave you with something to study this week if you get a chance. It’s in the book of Omni and then in the book of Moroni. We gave this dinner message challenge to the Sturgis family tonight. It was a really cool comparison to make.There is this guy named Chemish in the book of Omni, only in one verse though because the book was handed over to him by his brother, Omni, who said you probably should write in it. I guess we’re supposed to, so Chemish wrote a verse. Go to the book of Omni, verse 9 and read what Chemish wrote and I want you to ask yourself, “Does it testify of Jesus Christ? Does it challenge us to do anything? What kind of testimony do you think Chemish had?”  Now go to the book of Moroni 10:3-5, for those of you who don’t know, was a pretty amazing person in the Book of Mormon. He had such a strong testimony. Moroni 10:3-5 says,

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how ^amerciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ^bponder it in your ^chearts.

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ^aask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not ^btrue; and if ye shall ask with a ^csincere heart, with ^dreal intent, having ^efaith in Christ, he will ^fmanifest the ^gtruth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may ^aknow the ^btruth of all things.

 

So we see that not only did Moroni testify of Jesus Christ, he also challenged us. He said if you will do these things you will know of assurity that Christ lives. You will know the truth of these things by the power of the Holy Ghost and I guarantee you that Moroni did the exact thing that he’s challenging us in these verses to do. He had a strong testimony. So, I CHALLENGE you guys to read Omni verse 9 and then compare it to Moroni 10:3-5 and I want you to ask yourselves, “Do you have a testimony of the Savior like Chemish or do you have a testimony of the Savior like Moroni?”  This is an add on challenge and I want to know your insights from this study.  Thanks!