Week 42 - Dulce Oracion!

June 5, 2018

HELLO!! 

This week was really great! We have an investigador that we really feel like is starting to progress, her name is Ines and her husband Marcos and her son, Felix. They are keeping their commitments and are really receptive to learn! We are going to eat ice cream with her after this even though my fingers are already frozen from typing ha!

Hna Henson stayed with us the last 2 days because her comp went home..bien divertido!

Juan Pablo came to church this sunday as well! We are planning a day with a member so that he can watch the Restoration as we have felt several times that this might help him gain a greater testimony in prophets. We also had a very inspired and spirit-guided lesson where we talked about praying in the name of Jesus Christ, which before he was refusing to do. We did some studying before, and found that more than Him being the way we can come to live with our Heavenly Father, when we close in His name, we are saying that we are aligning our will with His, and basically saying that what we say is something that Christ would say. In the bible dictionary it says that if our prayers aren't answered, that many times we are praying for things that 'in no way represent His mind but spring out of the selfishness of man’s heart,' and so they aren't prayed in Christ's name. We discussed this with Juan Pablo and at last he said that it made sense and he would start to make the change to pray in His name. Yay!!

From last week at the charla that I got today..Hna sSlva and a newbie who she's training and my dear Hna Vasquez!

I read a scripture this morning that I loved. D&C 34:7, dice "4 I am the same which have taken the Zion of Enoch into mine own bosom; and verily, I say, even as many as have believed in my name, for I am Christ, and in mine own name, by the virtue of the blood which I have spilt, have I pleaded before the Father for them." Really it isn't Christ shedding His blood and suffering for us that makes His atonement meaningful, it's the VIRTUE of His blood that He shed that makes the difference and gives His suffering value and redeeming power. It's because He was perfect and lived a clean and rightous life, and is pure that gives Him the ability to overcome all sin and plead before the Father for us. I love that.

Hope you all have a great week! Don't forget to pray and ready your scriptures every. day. God wants to hear from you and answer you, I promise(:

Muchisimo amor y cariñitos,

Hermana Briggs

ps. hope all of us (especially the youth but really all of us) can take the challenge of doing the 5 things from President Nelson's devotional Sunday. I know it was inspired and will make all the difference!! link:

https://www.lds.org/blog/five-things-the-prophet-invites-all-youth-to-do-now?cid=HP_SU-3-6-2018_dPTH_fBCAST_xLIDyL1-A_&lang=eng

Five Things the Prophet Invites All Youth to Do Now - lds.org In a special devotional for youth, President Russell M. Nelson told young people across the globe that taking part in the gathering of Israel is their most important purpose right now. www.lds.org

Week 41 - Our Talents to Share the Gospel

Our lovely zone-they're pretty great!

May 29, 2018
Another week? where does time go!

a few highlights from the week:

Alrighty, juan pablo. He's an investigator who really wasn't progressing and the lesson this week just confirmed that even more (he's great, but he does something that's called the buffet approach. He just kinda floats from church to church, taking the things he likes, leaving the things he doesn't like and moving on, creating his own religion based on what he's comfortable with. But God's commandments and gospel are unchangeable and eternal truths, even if we, with our limited knowledge, want to see them as otherwise.) Anyway, after this lesson we decided we were going to drop him, as that's what we felt we should do and hope that maybe he'd be ready at a later time in his life. Then the following Sunday he calls de la nada in the morning to tell us he's comin to church...what?! He hadn't gone to church in months! But we were excited and he came, felt the spirit, stayed all three hours, made lots of friends, and loved how he felt there. Wahoo! So now we're just gonna keep teaching him! Stay tuned!

It's a rainy day today so I'm pretty happy!!

We met a lady who was raking her leaves and we felt like we should stop to talk to her. We gave her a  tarjeta of the temple and explained what it means to us. She then expressed what she had been feeling the last few years with some pretty traumatic deaths that had taken place in her family and how she had just moved on with faith, not knowing where they went or why they had died, but still believing in God and never doubting his presence in her life, knowing that God knows best and looking to him for solace. She is an amazing lady! We were able to share more about temples and eternal families and she said she knew that there weren't coincidences in us passing by to tell her about the peace and joy that can come from the knowledge of the gospel and plan our father in heaven has for us. We've since gone by to teach her and is praying to know if what we are teaching is true.

Our little chapel is behind the big glass building...spot the steeple??

We've also started to try to find ways to bless others by using our talents because we've received lots of counsel on this from church leaders. I mean it makes sense, right? There is no one cookie cutter missionary (or church member) and everyone has God-given gifts that we can use to serve others and share the gospel! So I found out that hna Siebach is really good at water color, so we bought some two mil water colors and got painting! I also like calligraphy, so she did the painting and I did the writing and have been giving little cards of the favorite scriptures to hermanas who feed us lunch everyday and to some other people and for certain occasions! (a few are pictured below:) Every single one of us can find something- a talent or even just something we enjoy doing to bless the life of someone else! 

Love you all! Keep looking for ways to make a difference and share the gospel!

--1 Nefi 16:5 -  And it came to pass that they did humble themselves before the Lord; insomuch that I had joy and great hopes of them, that they would walk in the paths of righteousness.

Besitos y Abrazos! 

Hermana Briggs

The little tarjetitas with scriptures

...hna siebach is so talented!

Sometimes I get a little stressed ...... This helps so much!