“It’s a beautiful day, and the corn is Tall!
The Sky is blue, and the weeds are small!
Whenever you walk by the corn so tall,
remember that God Loves us All!!”
Hey! There’s a corny Song for my lovely friends and family that my companion and I sing! 🙂 I love this time of year in Iowa! It’s so gorgeous everywhere you look! John Deere combines are actively harvesting the corn and soybeans throughout the mission both day and night. We are also heavily involved in a harvest. But, ours is a harvest of souls. Doctrine & Covenants 4:4 says, “For behold, the field is white already to harvest, and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul”. I really love several things about this scripture. First, there are a great number of people ready to accept the gospel and be baptized. Second, we need to work hard and thrust in our missionary sickle with all our might. Third, every soul we bring unto Christ is precious to our Father in Heaven and brings salvation to our souls. A lot of members don’t realize that this isn’t just a full-time misisonary scripture!! Salvation depends on them sharing the gospel too…So it’s kind of cool to think of all the new tools available to help with members and missionaries work together. 🙂
We drove all over the place this week! We were in Iowa City and received amazing Leadership Council this week about how members and missionaries are like a teeter-toter and have to go hand-in-hand! It’s so true! For the first time on my mission, I feel more confident on how to help the members invite their friends! So we went out and were just way more natural about it with the members and got 6 referrals!! This one lady said, “Oh, my friend will turn you down. She’s not ready for the church.” And I said, “Well, you’ll never know unless you invite her!” So she gave us her address, and they agreed to meet with us and the member!!!!! YEAH!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 Heavenly Father…you are really there! 🙂
Then we gave a training in our zone, as well as the Ft. Dodge zone on Stress Management the next two days. The Church is the coolest! They came out with a new missionary resource called, “Adjusting to Misisonary Life!” Because there are so many new missionaries coming out who’ve never lived away from home before and who have no idea how to handle the challenges that come with saving souls…It’s the most amazing resource to handling stress I’ve ever seen. I’ve learned so much about the Savior through reading this! And this is what President Jensen wanted us to train our zones on! 😉 We had a lot of fun with it. The Assistants were there for both of them and so we got to be better friends with them! I just love the leaders of our mission. I don’t know how they only get like 3 hours of sleep, but they are always the most helpful and chipper people ever. 🙂
We helped the most wonderful family, The Bennetts (we’re teaching them!) by crawling under their trailor and undoing their sewage pipe! YESSS!!! I haven’t been so messy in a long time. 🙂 We’re struggling to figure out what Becky’s main concern is, but she came to church yesterday! Will you help us pray that she can get a testimony of the Book of Mormon and quit smoking? :0) Thanks!
Love you all so much. It’s been a blessed week! 😉 I’m starting the BOM in 1 Nephi 1 today! Do you want to have a contest to see if you can finish it by the time I get home?? I’ll try my hardest to do it! 😉 Thanks so much!! LOVE YOU aLL!
Blessed!
Sister Tobias 😉
A LONG LOST LETTER I JUST FOUND
This week was one of those weeks where every night I thought, “How am I going to get through this week?!” But the Lord helped me make it! Haha it was an AMAZING week! Just filled with a super busy schedule! 😉
The Lord led us right to 3 new investigators this week! So, I’ll introduce you to one named “Wolfy”. This gentleman is like 6’6” and 400 lbs. Sis. Cannon and I started talking to him when he was BBQing a long time ago, but he just kinda said, “Ok. I’ll call you if I’m ever interested.” Well…This week we ran into him and he was cutting up a pig in his garage! So we invited him to conference and he said, “Wait a second? You mean to tell me there is a living prophet with 12 apostles on the Earth….hmmm…Soo….that makes your church better….well…I don’t mean better…but like….Jesus’s Church?” WOAH!! It was so awesome! Hahaha He SAID IT! We love him. I was kinda intimidated by his size, but he is just a teddy bear. He’s a new investigator!
Another lady is Liz! We helped her husband with a new roof with the Elders help. We love her to death! Her kids asked us last time, “Why don’t you come over here everyday? Why don’t you come over here all day?” And they run out the door when we leave. So that’s a good sign! WE ARE SO excited to teach this family!
Another man is Vinny! He needed help moving. We were the only girls in the house, so we couldn’t go in. He handed us his boxes out of his basement window, and we carried it to the truck! Haha 🙂 THE blessings of obedience! Then he took us out to lunch and he was really intersted in the BOM and wants to be better person. HUGE BLESSINGS THIS WEEK!!!
After an amazing Lesson with Joann J., Sister Dixon got stung by a black bee! So we went to get some stuff in the car to get medicine…(water and mud) to fix her up. After we got everything fixed, she walked away for a second to get something, and I shut the trunk to follow her…Well….the keys were in the trunk!!!! Ha!
So! We called our Chief of Police (who happens to be the 1st Counselor in our Branch) and he tries to Slim Jim our car open. BUT! Our car is a James Bond Car–seriously–(2013 Ford Fusion) and starts the car alarm and beeps a light that says “Security System-Locks prohibited” or something!! hahaha! So Bro. B. called a Lock Smith. It was going to be $107 to make the key, but he fixed it for us for free because we are missionaries!!!
Awwwww! So we started saying thank you by offering our service and a free DVD! He said, “Actually, I know a lot about Mormons, and you’re really nice!” So we started telling him a little about our church and he was baffled that the Police Chief was a Mormon in this little Dutch town!! But we prayed with Him and then he hopped in his car and started backing up, when BANG!!!!!!!!!!!! He got in a car accident!!!!! Can you believe this??!! But nobody got hurt and there was just minimal damage. Unbelievable! We were all so amazed! It was like an angel was protecting us all for the sake of service. 🙂 We love the Lord!! We know His angels are guiding us to meet people who are prepared to listen to this message! Even in crazy times and places! 🙂 We asked Bro. B. how we can help him, and he asked us to speak in Sacrament meeting. 😉
So later that day, I started feeling super sick and my brain was having some “thunder storms.” 😉 So my comp. and I drove home and called the nurse and we had to stay in the rest of the night because I had a fever and she was worried about me having a seizure…THe next morning my companion’s bee sting was SUPER SWOLLEN! LIke huge and itchy! Turns out she is allergic!!!!!!! And I had a bad cold with a froggy throat, But we both were to give a training In Osceola for our zone. The Lord helped us through it and we had a wonderful zone meeting! 🙂 We should’ve gone home and taken care of ourselves, but we just love to work! So we stayed out longer and that’s when we met Wolfy!
The next day we were supposed to go on an exchange with Ames sisters, but the nurse told Sis. Dixon she couldn’t drive on Benedryl. So we had to cancel exchanges… :S So for the first time on my mission…We stayed in because of sickness! Saaaaad day!! Nonetheless, I am pretty lucky to only have to stay in once after 15 months!! But it is still hard to hold missionaries from serving the Lord because it brings so much joy!
The next day my fever, cold, and cough was tons better and so was SIs. Dixon’s bee sting! HALLELUJAH! 🙂 We know it was a miracle! We gave another training for the Ames Zone Meeting. I LOVE GIVING TRAININGS!!! Especially when the missionaries laugh and participate. 🙂 We talked about breaking walls with members by being dilligent like a Jackhammer. (Consistent efforts all the time) Then we asked them….What sound does a JackHammer make??! FFT! FFT! FFT! FFT! FFT! We need to teach them members to Be “Finders, Fellowshippers, and a Testifyers!” They loved it. 🙂 But It was SO totally the spirit that made people like it because I have no public teaching skills without the spirit. 🙂
We taught seminary and spoke in sacrament. I bawled almost the whole time because I was talking about experiences I’ve had with investigators where the members were SO crucial to them. Because they had FFT’s they were able to feel the Spirit working with them.
LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!! THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND PRAYERS!! THIS IS THE BEST FEELING EVER!!
Sister Tobias 🙂