What a beautiful time of life to strive to become like the Savior. Yesterday we (Sister Jenkins, Howard, and myself) had the opportunity and honor to witness just that as sweet Christine G. Pitts was baptized. She is a celestial soul and it was a really neat and sacred experience to be in person for, I am grateful. She really is such an example, before her baptism she read all of the "Gospel Principles" book in only a matter of 2 weeks and she finished all of 1st Nephi and reread all of the pamphlets we had given her. Like I said, it was an honor to be at her baptism and I feel very lucky to have taught her, such a privilege! It's amazing how someone so quiet can powerfully move a room without even a saying a word. I am so grateful to her!
Other exciting news, our new companion is Sister Howard! She is 20 years old and from Park City Utah and is a short, red head, and is a delight, I adore her :) She is so prepared and she knows and uses Preach My Gospel. I'm so proud of her and she says things in a perfect, concise, short and sweet simple manner. She's great!
So, things are going well, we unfortunately had to drop one of our investigators, Jamie, she wasn't following through with commitments and her mom and dad are kind, but they aren't really doing their part and we'll be seeing the mom one more time, but it looks like that baptism isn't going to happen. I know it's because of the dad because Jamie does know it's true, but ever since he came back home things have changed. I know Jamie will have another opportunity in life when she becomes an adult and I just pray that Ina (the mom) will pray and read and then hopefully we won't have to drop them. I'm not sad about it though, I feel strong and confident that the Lord will have us where He needs us and we've done our part.
Things have been a little challenging with Sister Jenkins these last few days unfortunately. It is sad because we have had a good relationship but she has changed, well I guess not changed. It's just more apparent to me that I'm finding a rift between us. Sister Jenkins is good at being obedient, my one concern for her is she goes a little too far and strives for extreme obedience. Being exactly obedient is a great and good thing, but my fear is she has gone from exactly obedient to nit picky and meticulous obedience and it does effect the spirit. She tends to interpret the rules in her way and that way is usually overboard. For example for studies she'll get upset if my shoes are off because we should be fully dressed for studies. Or she'll always say the phrase "we can't do that" and usually in terms of things that are not in the white handbook or in preach my gospel which are small matters like which library counter we should go to to ask a question, and she'll insist that we need to go to the one that has the information sign over it. Sigh, it's tough because I have tried to talk to her about things and it will always come down to me. I have been fine with adjusting to meet her needs and just going with it but it makes it difficult when trying to train a new missionary and balancing out who trains and it's not very fun for my trainer to be right there judging my training. Yes, Haha, this is going to take work but I know the Lord has us together for a reason and there is a lot to learn. It is fun to think about, wow, how do the 3 Nephites do it? Are they always together? Teaching hasn't been hard, we've been able to find a good balance of taking turns and that's fine, it's just the training.
Anywho enough on that! I have loved the last few days even with the hardships, I have really been striving to have my focus on my relationship with Heavenly Father and our savior Jesus Christ more. I am really striving to learn more about faith in Christ and I'm focusing my studies on this because if we want to become like Christ we need to learn of Christ. It was hard earlier in the week because I was stressing out because I felt like I had so much to change and work on and I realized that part of faith is accepting where you are and that that is ok. God will help you change but you first need to accept the place you are in life and use the enabling power of the Atonement to become more. It's so key to just accept and love yourself where you are now and to pray to Heavenly Father to see you as He see's you! It makes the process a lot more enjoyable when we can accept His time.
Anywho, the scripture I've been pondering this week is Matt 6:33 in correlation to 1 Nephi 8:10 in correlation to Faith. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. It's beautiful that the first principle of the gospel is Faith and we should be putting God first. So by apply faith and putting faith first we are seeking the kingdom of God. And Lehi's dream might seem random, but woot, I found a cool connection. The tree of life is the love of God and Faith is compared to a little seed in Alma 32 that eventually grows into a tree which has the fruit of eternal life which is desirable above all other fruit :) See the connection? Beautiful right?! It makes me really giddy, so I highly encourage you all to read 1 Nep 8 and Alma 32 and go do a session in the Salt Lake Temple and be extra observant of trees while your there :D
I love you all so much and just know that rain will make things grow! So if you're struggling with any stress or trials, know that it will always allow a beautiful opportunity for things to eventually grow and blossom and become a cheesy metaphor or remind you of a super awesome but gets you crying musical song, way to go "Les Miserable," Rainnnnnn will make the flllloooooowwwweerrrrsss.....
So much love and wondering what scripture you'll are pondering,
Sister Tasha C. Bush
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