LETTER 44: The one where Tessa is anxiously engaged

6/19/14

We had a good week, lotsa finding and a TON of service out of no where! I think I fit my whole 18 months worth of service into the past two weeks. Haha moving and cleaning...there's been a lot of that.

We had a big miracle. Last Sunday, we had about 45 mins left for the night and were going to work on organizing an assignment ward council gave us. But we only had 6 contacts left to hit our weekly goal of 171, so we decided to go out and contact instead. The first guy we talked to was a man named Raymond, he's actually our neighbor and he set a return appointment with us for Tuesday. So we go over Tuesday, and he's told us he studied with missionaries about 30 years ago in Tennessee. He said he knows the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and our church is different. On Sunday, all he could think about was baptism but he didn't know why or what to do about it--then we met him! So right in our first lesson, we invited him to be baptized and set a date for June 29. CRAZY!! We invited him to pray about the date before we left, and his prayer was "Dear God, I'm getting baptized June 29. No questions asked." haha it was wild. He's way prepared! But we might move the date, because we want to make sure he really is ready for the commitment. We'll see how it goes, but it was super cool to say the least!

This week a scripture took on a lot more meaning to me. D&C 58:27--"Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness."

I was thinking about being "anxiously engaged in a good cause" and how that can mean many things--family, education, work, service, church, etc. It's all about using our agency to do things that invite the spirit. It's the idle time that gets us, when the blessings of the spirit leave and sinful or depressing thoughts creep in. Even just in down time, we should strive to keep our thoughts engaged in a good cause, actively pursuing wholesome and productive things.

That's a wrap for this week, until next Monday--

Sister Bishop

Service, I'll miss the Hubbard fam!

Giant Book of Mormon!