Sister Tessa Bishop: LETTER 49: The one where Tessa is saved from a ticket by the Book of Mormon

7/21/14

It has been such a great past week! We have been working to get all updated and up to speed in our area (: We went on 3 exchanges, twice with the Mission Hills sisters and one with the Northridge sisters. We have been teaching Leo his "new member lesson" and he just blows us away with his rock solid testimony! On Saturday--less than 3 weeks into his membership in the church--he told us he's decided to serve a mission. Oh my heart!! I'm soo happy. He's going to be the best missionary. He is an inspiration.

We also got pulled over by LAPD going home one night!! haha so funny. There were two cops, and they walk up on both sides of the car and shine their flashlights in all our windows looking around. All they saw were pictures of Jesus and Books of Mormon haha. The cop kind of chuckled when he saw we were two sister missionaries! He took our registration and Sis Goettsche's license, then came back 5 seconds later and said, "I can't do it! God's on your side. Drive home safe." Haha it was great. (by the way--we were innocent! He thought we ran a red light, but really someone was turning left and almost hit us, so we stopped to avoid the crash, and the light was red. He caught the tail end of the incident.)

Here's my learnings for the week (:

--Something that's stood out a lot to me is that first and foremost, we are spirit children of God. We can't neglect to feed our spirit. We should spend as much time focusing on our spirits as we do our physical bodies.

--The knowledge of Christ helps lift us above our present circumstances. He is the divine pattern after whom we should fashion our lives. He is light and life. He brings purpose and depth and love into our lives. He is my friend, my Savior, my Lord, my God. I can't express my gratitude and love for Him.

--Being filled with love is critical! What we do doesn't matter if we aren't filled with love. When I truly see each individual as the child of God they are, the rest comes easier. All this work is about is being God's instrument to express His love to His children.

My mission has been and is the most rewarding thing in my life! It's pointed me in the right direction and helped me work to have God as #1 priority. And when God is #1, everything else follows. I have such a testimony of that. Thank you for your love and support. Until next week!

xoxo

Sister Bishop

My year mark! Re-enacting leaving with my suitcases (;