Life is too good. :)
Hello my favorite people!
How is everyone doing? I hope you all had a great week. It's been a quick week. It seems like I was just here at the church emailing y'all. I guess that's what happens when you have a preparation day on a Tuesday. It definitely makes a difference. It has been a great week here in the beautiful land of Tanglewood and I am so grateful to be a missionary. I love love love love being a sister missionary. There is nothing else I would rather be doing at this time in my life. The spirit I feel on a day to day, hour to hour basis, and the people I meet and the experiences I have make this whole adventure worth it. I just need you to all be here with me. Let's all go on a huge family mission. Maybe to Haiti...? :) I still can't wait to get back there either. That is my second home away from home.
Each week I am having a harder and harder time trying to figure out what to email to y'all. The weeks are full of so much stuff, but also a lot of similar stuff. I am just out here doing missionary work.
There's nothing more to it. :) I am sorry if my emails have been struggling lately haha.. I really just don't know what else to update you on. We were able to go on two exchanges this week and that was fun, but overwhelming. I stayed in my area both times, but did get to have Sister Stratford with me, so that was super fun. It was weird being with an old companion for a little bit. We were able to see lots and lots of miracles, but it felt really good to have Sister Cottis and Sister Corrigan come back. :) It's just not the same. It's amazing to see how the Lord is really involved in this work. Even though I served with Sister Stratford for a good 4 months, it's amazing the difference that I felt. She is not my companion anymore and you can tell. The spirit is just different. It's amazing how the Lord runs your companionship and it is almost like there is a mandate over the companionship. I don't really know how to explain it, but teaching, finding, planning, everything just runs smoothly when you have your assigned companion. I love my two sisters. :) Sister Corrigan goes home in a week and then we will be back to two. I don't know if President will keep Sister Cottis and I here, but I am definitely hoping that we get to stay at least one more. However, we did find out this past Sunday that the Tanglewood Ward is splitting... So I don't know what is going to happen with that whole situation. It's kind of freaking me out. There is 600 members, so it's about time that it gets split.. But I don't know what they are going to do with the missionaries. I hope we can stay! :)
We had a wonderful zone conference and I learned so much. It is always so good to be with President and Sister Alexander. We were able to do a training on building member relationships and building member trust and I thought that went really really well. We didn't have a whole lot of time to prepare, but the spirit carried us through. We also had Robert come speak to all the missionaries and that was SO POWERFUL. Oh my goodness. That guy is amazing. He shared his conversion story and helped the missionaries understand and realize how valuable they are and the impact that they make. It was a really good thing for our missionaries and I just felt so good inside. I helped someone come unto Christ and it just was so amazing. He also got asked to speak in ward conference this next Sunday and I know he is looking forward to it. We met with him this past week and talked about how to give a testimony and some of the things that he should talk about and shouldn't talk about. :) It was fun.
We had to have a few drop lessons this week and that was really sad. I absolutely hate those. It's always so sad having to drop people, after we have tried to do SO much for them. We dropped Keith and James. Ugh. I have spent so many hours on my knees praying for these people. I have studied and have tried so hard to know what I could do to help them progress in the gospel, but they still chose to reject it. Right now is just not their time. I know that one day they will accept it.
It is just not right now. :) We were going to visit James a few days ago and his truck was in his driveway (which meant he was home for sure) and we walked up to the door and knocked, and we heard him come up to the door and look through the peep hole, and then he just walked away and didn't answer. Talk about heartbreaking. Then a few days later we tried one more time, and he did the same exact thing. We knew without a doubt he was home. We texted him and called him and everything and just got no response. I thought we had a really good lesson last week, but he might have ran into anti doctrine or something else that pushed him away.. I don't know.. But whatever it is, it made me sad. It's so hard to see these people exercise their agency unrighteously. Keith was just not coming to church because his church is right in the middle of ours, and so he just couldn't sacrifice his I guess. Which also makes me really sad because he is SOOO close. He accepts and believes the Book of Mormon and everything.
He is just not putting two and two together. If the Book of Mormon is true, then the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is true. He doesn't understand that. One day he'll be ready. :) Thank you for all of the prayers on their behalf. I am grateful that I was able to meet them and work with them. I know they were placed in my path for a reason. I just know there are others out there right now who we need to find and spend our time on. If these people aren't progressing, we have to move on and find those who are elect and who are ready.
We were able to find a few new investigators this week and I think some of them have potential. It's amazing to see how many people we talk to, and yet how many actually want to learn more. Right now we are working with a guy named Michael and he is pretty solid. He is a single guy just looking for more direction in his life. He knows one of our recent converts and we are hoping to get them connected. Lately I have also been really trying to use the scriptures in my teaching.
In our zone conference President Alexander talked about how important the scriptures. He really talked about Alma 31:5 and how the word has a more powerful effect than ANYTHING else. As I was reading in my scriptures yesterday I also came upon 1 Nephi 15:24-25 which says, "And I said unto them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction.
Wherefore, I, Nephi, did exhort them to give heed unto the word of the Lord; yea, I did exhort them with all the energies of my soul, and with all the faculty which I possessed, that they would give heed to the word of God and remember to keep his commandments always in all things." Again, it was another testimony to me of just how powerful the scriptures are and how Nephi exhorted with ALL the energies of his soul and with ALL the faculty which he had, to get these people to read the word of God. It made me have a greater desire to be like Nephi and to do EVERYTHING in my power to get my investigators to read the scriptures. I am going to do better!
This past week we decided to go to an area that none of us had ever been too and we just wanted to do some tracting. Well, we were able to meet and talk to a lot of great people, and we witnessed a miracle. As you all know, we have still been praying and fasting to find our eternal family and I think we found possibly another one. We met this amazing family who was just so receptive and open to the spirit and the message. It was so amazing. We are already working on finding a fellowship family and are excited to see where they go. I know God hears and answers prayers. We were also able to hit our ultimate goal of contacting 30 people that day, (we have been asked to each contact
10 people a day, so that would be 30 for our companionship) and so it was a really good day because we accomplished that. Which is a lot easier said than done.
Last night we had another miracle. We went over to a members home for dinner and afterwards taught a super powerful 10 minute restoration.
Before we began, we invited them to think of someone who may need the message as we shared it. Well, after a really spiritual lesson, we talked about the thoughts that they had. The wife of the home started talking about her boss, her husband started talking about their neighbor, and the grandma gave us a referral of a lady who she works out with at the YMCA! Right there in one single dinner apt, in a 10-15 minute span, we got 3 referrals! It was a miracle!!! In zone meeting we went over that and role played it and it was so fun to actually do what we practiced in zone meeting and put it to the test and to see that it actually worked! We are definitely going to start doing it with more members. If you know anyone who needs the gospel back at home... PLEASE give the missionaries their information. It is the greatest thing ever. Missionaries love referrals and...... Hand written letters. :)
Well, sorry this is kind of long and boring. I will share with you some of my studies this week. My personal study time from 8:00-9:00 am is literally the best hour of my life every single day. I crave it so bad. When 9:00 comes I just don't want to quit. I LOVE STUDYING THE GOSPEL. This past week I was studying the life of the Savior, and how he can help us through adversity. Jesus Christ literally possesses the power to ease our burdens and lighten our loads. We have to turn to him and let him heal us and fix us. I read a quote yesterday that really hit me. ”Doors close regularly in our lives, and some of those closings cause genuine pain and heartache. But I do believe that where one such door closes, another opens (and perhaps more than one), with hope and blessings in other areas of our lives that we might not have discovered otherwise." I think each one of us have had experiences in our lives where something happens that we don't expect. We experience a trial or adversity that we didn't know was going to happen.. But guess what that is. Just another door opening up for us.
A few years ago, President Marion G. Romney said that all men and women, including the most faithful and loyal, would find adversity and affliction in their lives because, in the words of Joseph Smith, “Men have to suffer that they may come upon Mount Zion and be exalted above the heavens." We all have to go through it. It is part of life! When we were up in heaven, we chose to come down and face trials.
Therefore, we cannot complain. We came to mortal life to encounter resistance. It was part of the plan for our eternal progression.
Without temptation, sickness, pain, and sorrow, there could be no goodness, virtue, appreciation for well-being, or joy. We must remember that the same forces of resistance which prevent our progress afford us also opportunities to overcome. We all have those trials in our lives that we have to prepare for, for they will come. Often they will require some pain, some unexpected changes in life’s path, and some submitting, “even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19). Another quote I really liked was, "Opening up celestial doors may take us--indeed, undoubtedly will take us--right up to the concluding hours of our mortal lives." Our detours and disappointments are the straight and narrow path to Him. God knows what we do not know and sees what we do not see.
We have every reason to be optimistic and confident even in times of trial and difficulty. Our relief society told a story about a game they once played. They got a bunch of people in a circle and had everyone throw their shoes or problems, trials, fears, afflictions, stress, etc.... Into a circle. At the end, they concluded that you would be fighting to get your own shoes back after you see/hear/feel others problems. You don't know what it'd be like to be in someone else's shoes, and you'd probably want your own back in the end, because someone will ALWAYS have it worse than you.
I know with all of my heart the God lives. He loves us so much that he sent his son, our Savior Jesus Christ to die for us and help us get through this life we have to live here on this earth. I am so grateful to be a missionary and am so grateful for the atonement in my life. I know that it is real. I know that repentance and forgiveness is real.
I know that the lord is aware of each one of us and he will bless us and heal us. I am so grateful that I have each and every day to proclaim the good news of the gospel. I love this gospel so much. I love my savior so much. I am so grateful for my knowledge of eternal families. I know that we can live together with one another for time and all eternity. I know that all of that is only possible through the priesthood power. I am so grateful for the authority that has been restored on the Earth through our prophet Joseph Smith. As is says in Romans 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." I am not ashamed. I will testify until the day I die. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Thank you for all of the love and support. You guys are the best. I cannot wait to see you. I love & miss you more than anything! Have a great week. Talk to ya in seven. Xo
Sister Kyla Joan Worthington
Sister Kyla J Worthington 7616 Waterford Ridge Dr. Apt. 1003 Charlotte, North Carolina 28212 ~ kyla.worthington@myldsmail.net~
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
February 16, 2016
hello familia!
Hello from the beautiful land of Charlotte, North Carolina!
How is everyone? First and foremost, I have to apologize for not emailing you yesterday. I totally forgot to tell y'all that my preparation day was getting changed due to President's day. Usually it gets switched to a Tuesday if there is a holiday on a Monday. My bad.
So sorry! I figured since y'all were at the cabin, you wouldn't even get my email anyways. Hopefully I didn't worry you mama. :) And second, thank you soooo much for the Valentine package. Mom, you're way too good. Definitely the BEST missionary mom out there. And I will argue with anyone too. You're just way too good. So over the top and I just felt so spoiled and special. Thank you thank you thank you! And please tell the Meadow wood RS thanks as well. Their card made me cry.
Literally. It's been a really good, but LONG week. Let me tell you, God was definitely correct when he planned to give his missionaries a preparation day every seven days. My goodness. Yesterday all three of us were just not having it. We were all moody and just done with missionary work haha. It was quite funny. We definitely were ready for today. Not to mention I just got done with a 2 hour full body massage. Kind of feeling on top of the world at the moment. We have a member in our ward who is from the Philippines and she is a massage therapist. We decided to trade some service for a massage. Best idea ever. It's quite amazing how worn out your body gets on a mission. You just don't have time to take care of it and spoil yourself very often. I think there's a reason girls can only serve for 18 months. Our bodies just can't take it! :)
My Valentine's Day was good... But not the same. Basically called it Independence Day haha. We had a good church service and I had to play a special musical number, so that was fun. Another miracle story there. I got asked to play in sacrament meeting and accompany 3 ladies singing. Well, I gladly accepted, not knowing beforehand what I was getting myself into. When they brought me the music, the first half of the song had 6 flats, and the second half of the song switched to 5 sharps. Oh my gosh I about died. I almost gave it back and was like "nope, can't do that haha." After a lot of prayers.. I managed to pull it off. I'm loving this give of music I've been given lately. God's really helping me out. :) It ended up going really well and I felt super good about it. Then my two companions and I got to be in primary and do singing time and sharing time while the teachers had a special conference thing. That was pretty fun. I have a whole new respect for primary teachers and leaders. My goodness. It was overwhelming. My ward here has 162 primary kids though so that also didn't help the cause. It kind of reminded me of my home ward in Highland. Lots of kiddos! We had a great dinner that night with some of my favorite members! We taught a few lessons and stopped by some houses to drop off cute little Valentine gifts and then it started snowing really really bad and they don't let us drive the mission cars so we ended up spending the rest of the night in our apartment. Which let me expand on that one too. It was raining ice. Literally. They call it freezing rain here. It was absolutely insane. It's not hail, it's like legit frozen rain. It was intense. Overall the day was good, just another day haha.I was definitely thinking about all of you back at home though. :) And... Dad was my Valentine so that was special.
Let's see, this week we were able to accomplish a lot. We met a lot of great people with lots of potential. I love when we find new investigators. It makes the work so much better when we actually have a teaching pool and have people to teach. We are still working with a few of the regulars that I've talked about the past few weeks, but we STILL haven't been able to get them to come to church. I don't know why it's so hard for people. But, it just is. I had a really neat spiritual experience with our investigator James this past week that I wanted to share with ya! We went over to his house with the plan to read in the Book of Mormon with him, since he is having a hard time reading on his own. When we got there and started talking to him, I felt really impressed to go a different direction and share the Mormon message called "Hope of God's light" with him. Sometimes I really hesitate doing something that we don't plan because I never know what my companions may be thinking or feeling, but this time I didn't care, I just went for it. If the spirit told me to do it, I was going to do it. So I pulled out my iPad and told him that we wanted to share a special video with him. As he began to watch it, he started to tear up and the spirit flooded the room. We all felt it so strongly. It was as if the Savior was in the room with us. After we showed the video he was silent and in deep thought. We left on a really spiritual high and I know without a doubt that he is ready to turn his life around. He's been struggling with the word of wisdom and having a hard time that God even exists, and I know this touched him. I walked out feeling so good and so grateful that I followed the prompting of the spirit.
We have also been working with a girl named Angie. She is a referral from a less active member and she is just in the prime time of life. She is 24 and is looking for more peace and purpose in her life.
Hello, Gospel! We have had some really neat experiences with her and I know she has definitely felt the spirit. Something I really noticed this week was the significance of the spirit.
I was reading in doctrine and covenants 50: 13-14, 17-22 and I love how it talks about how we have been called to preach the Gospel by the spirit, and if it be not the spirit, then it won't be any other way. I really liked verse 22 which says, "Wherefore, he that preacheth (me, the missionary) and he that receiveth (investigator), understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together." In a few of our lessons this week I felt the spirit so strongly and it really just hit me that if I feel the spirit and it's in the room, than the investigator can feel it also. In other words, when we are teaching we know if we feel the spirit, they will feel it as well. They may not understand the feelings at that time, but I know they feel it. This is how missionary work gets done. I need to learn to embrace these verses in D&C and open my mouth at all times in all places. My investigators might not end up getting baptized in the end, but I know it'll bless me personally and I will learn and grow from being courageous, and will have these experiences to look back on for the rest of my life. I am so grateful for the Holy Ghost and the wonderful gift that He is in my life. I read a talk this morning that talked about learning to recognize the gift of the Holy Ghost and how it speaks to you and I have definitely been able to learn more about how he works with me since being on a mission. There is just something about being a missionary. I wish all of you could understand. Although I am far from perfect, I know that as I am constantly trying to improve and remain worthy of the spirit, He will bless me. I have seen it time and time again. I am so grateful for the spirit. It's interesting to think that out of ALL of the gifts or things that Heavenly Father could give us after we were baptized, he chose to give us the gift of the Holy Ghost. Think about that. He could've given us ANYTHING, and that is what he chose.
We were teaching a recent convert/less active yesterday and we're talking a lot about the spirit. She was talking about the great blessing it's been in her life and brought up a really good point. She mentioned that it's the one part of the church and gospel that she can have with her at all times, in all things, and in all places. I really thought about that and it made perfect sense. We may not always be able to attend church every single week, or we may not always be able to surround ourselves with good LDS people, or we may not always feel worthy to be a member of the church, but those of us who have been baptized have all been given the gift of the Holy Ghost, which can dwell with us ALWAYS. It's the one thing that will stay with you forever and ever and ever. And all you have to do is remain worthy of it. Even if you get off the path a little bit and slip up, all you need to do is repent, come unto him, and he has promised that you can have it again. What a beautiful blessing and a beautiful manifestation of the Savior's love for each one of us. Oh how I love and adore him.
Since Sister Cottis and I got put together, we have been praying for a miracle family. Well, we finally got to meet that miracle family. We were able to teach them in a members home and it was just the greatest thing ever. The little boy's name is Jacob and he is 7 years old. He will be getting baptized in April. His mom and step dad are taking the discussions with them and I am praying with all of my heart that they accept the message and get baptized with him as well. Jacob has been going to church with his grandparents for 7 years and knows that it's the true church. He just LOVES it and eats it up. He keeps telling his mom and step dad that their church is wrong and that he KNOWS that Joseph Smith restored the true church. It's the cutest thing in the entire world. I wish you could meet him. He is so smart and is just so excited to get baptized. All he keeps saying over and over again is that he wants his mom and step dad to get baptized with him. How precious is that? Ah! Seriously, it's killing me. He will be considered a convert baptism since his parents aren't members, so I am really hoping that I get to stay in the area so I can be there! He is also reminding me so much of my sweet Kenna Grace, whom I miss so very much. It's just amazing how smart these little children are. I am amazed. We are also teaching another 8 year old girl named Selene, and she is getting baptized on March 12. Children are perfect. There is no doubt in my mind that God loves the little children and weeps over them. I know without a doubt he loves the little children. I am so grateful for the experiences that I've had to be able to work with little children. I cannot wait for my own! Okay, maybe a little while, but still. They are just such a blessing & joy.
I am really getting along with my 2 companions and couldn't be happier. I love them both so much. Sister Corrigan goes home this transfer, (Feb. 29) and then we will be back to two. It's been really fun being in a trio and I'm definitely going to miss it. I have missed my one on one time with Sister Cottis, but we are still having our moments alone and I just love the girl to death. I know I say that every week, but we are literally best friends. I cannot wait until we are both home and can hang out. We already have so many trips planned and things to do, so just be ready for us. We are the dynamic duo. We are still on our crazy exercise kick and last Fast Sunday we started a
40 day fast from sugar with the elders, so that's been good for us. :) We are working on trying to be more fit and healthy... Since your mission really does wreck your body, as I mentioned earlier.
Let's see, I really don't have much more to report on, and we've gotta get going. Between my massage and shopping today, we're about out of time! So so sorry! I hate not having enough time to email haha. I will repent next week. I am healthy, happy, and doing well. Sleeping like a baby, eating good, I have enough clothes to wear, my hair is now below my bottom (Mom, it is SO long. It's never been longer in my life) So I am getting a haircut from a member on Thursday and I'm kind of nervous. What else, we have great members in this ward, I think I'll stay for at least one more transfer, I'm hoping two more so I can stay until Sister Cottis goes home. The weather here is bipolar, so it goes from freezing, to 60 degrees. So that's been throwing me off. I really am doing great and just love being a missionary. I can't complain about a single thing. All is well and life is good. All I need is y'all right by my side. :) Then I will be perfect. Tonight we get to go have dinner at the old folks home that we do service at once a week and I'm super excited for that. It's family night over there so all of the residents families are coming over and having dinner! The theme is Mardi Gras so we get to wear some fancy jewelry and crowns and such. It should be a good night. :) I am excited.
I hope each one of you are doing well. I hope you know how much I love you and how grateful I am for each one of you. I couldn't do this without you. I know that this is Christ's work and I know that there is nothing greater that we can do than share our testimonies of the Gospel with the world. I am so grateful for this opportunity that I have had to serve and cannot wait to see what the next few months brings me. I want you to know that I know that God lives. He loves each and every one of you. He knows what you are going through. He knows best. He knows what you need and when you need it. Trust him and trust in his timing. I know it's a lot easier said than done, but try it. Turn yourself over to him and follow his will and his plan. I am so grateful for the chance that I've had to serve the people here and to experience a change of heart. I am a converted soul to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I am not ashamed to share what I know and what I believe. I hope you can continue to do what is right. Stick to the basics, it will bring you the most happiness. :) I hope you all have a wonderful week this week. Remember who you are and remember that there is a Sister in North Carolina who is thinking about you, who loves you, and who is praying for you!! Please let me know if there is ever anything that I can do for any of you. Have a fantastic week! Talk to ya in six! Not seven! Yay!! Xo
Sister Ky Worthington
Hello from the beautiful land of Charlotte, North Carolina!
How is everyone? First and foremost, I have to apologize for not emailing you yesterday. I totally forgot to tell y'all that my preparation day was getting changed due to President's day. Usually it gets switched to a Tuesday if there is a holiday on a Monday. My bad.
So sorry! I figured since y'all were at the cabin, you wouldn't even get my email anyways. Hopefully I didn't worry you mama. :) And second, thank you soooo much for the Valentine package. Mom, you're way too good. Definitely the BEST missionary mom out there. And I will argue with anyone too. You're just way too good. So over the top and I just felt so spoiled and special. Thank you thank you thank you! And please tell the Meadow wood RS thanks as well. Their card made me cry.
Literally. It's been a really good, but LONG week. Let me tell you, God was definitely correct when he planned to give his missionaries a preparation day every seven days. My goodness. Yesterday all three of us were just not having it. We were all moody and just done with missionary work haha. It was quite funny. We definitely were ready for today. Not to mention I just got done with a 2 hour full body massage. Kind of feeling on top of the world at the moment. We have a member in our ward who is from the Philippines and she is a massage therapist. We decided to trade some service for a massage. Best idea ever. It's quite amazing how worn out your body gets on a mission. You just don't have time to take care of it and spoil yourself very often. I think there's a reason girls can only serve for 18 months. Our bodies just can't take it! :)
My Valentine's Day was good... But not the same. Basically called it Independence Day haha. We had a good church service and I had to play a special musical number, so that was fun. Another miracle story there. I got asked to play in sacrament meeting and accompany 3 ladies singing. Well, I gladly accepted, not knowing beforehand what I was getting myself into. When they brought me the music, the first half of the song had 6 flats, and the second half of the song switched to 5 sharps. Oh my gosh I about died. I almost gave it back and was like "nope, can't do that haha." After a lot of prayers.. I managed to pull it off. I'm loving this give of music I've been given lately. God's really helping me out. :) It ended up going really well and I felt super good about it. Then my two companions and I got to be in primary and do singing time and sharing time while the teachers had a special conference thing. That was pretty fun. I have a whole new respect for primary teachers and leaders. My goodness. It was overwhelming. My ward here has 162 primary kids though so that also didn't help the cause. It kind of reminded me of my home ward in Highland. Lots of kiddos! We had a great dinner that night with some of my favorite members! We taught a few lessons and stopped by some houses to drop off cute little Valentine gifts and then it started snowing really really bad and they don't let us drive the mission cars so we ended up spending the rest of the night in our apartment. Which let me expand on that one too. It was raining ice. Literally. They call it freezing rain here. It was absolutely insane. It's not hail, it's like legit frozen rain. It was intense. Overall the day was good, just another day haha.I was definitely thinking about all of you back at home though. :) And... Dad was my Valentine so that was special.
Let's see, this week we were able to accomplish a lot. We met a lot of great people with lots of potential. I love when we find new investigators. It makes the work so much better when we actually have a teaching pool and have people to teach. We are still working with a few of the regulars that I've talked about the past few weeks, but we STILL haven't been able to get them to come to church. I don't know why it's so hard for people. But, it just is. I had a really neat spiritual experience with our investigator James this past week that I wanted to share with ya! We went over to his house with the plan to read in the Book of Mormon with him, since he is having a hard time reading on his own. When we got there and started talking to him, I felt really impressed to go a different direction and share the Mormon message called "Hope of God's light" with him. Sometimes I really hesitate doing something that we don't plan because I never know what my companions may be thinking or feeling, but this time I didn't care, I just went for it. If the spirit told me to do it, I was going to do it. So I pulled out my iPad and told him that we wanted to share a special video with him. As he began to watch it, he started to tear up and the spirit flooded the room. We all felt it so strongly. It was as if the Savior was in the room with us. After we showed the video he was silent and in deep thought. We left on a really spiritual high and I know without a doubt that he is ready to turn his life around. He's been struggling with the word of wisdom and having a hard time that God even exists, and I know this touched him. I walked out feeling so good and so grateful that I followed the prompting of the spirit.
We have also been working with a girl named Angie. She is a referral from a less active member and she is just in the prime time of life. She is 24 and is looking for more peace and purpose in her life.
Hello, Gospel! We have had some really neat experiences with her and I know she has definitely felt the spirit. Something I really noticed this week was the significance of the spirit.
I was reading in doctrine and covenants 50: 13-14, 17-22 and I love how it talks about how we have been called to preach the Gospel by the spirit, and if it be not the spirit, then it won't be any other way. I really liked verse 22 which says, "Wherefore, he that preacheth (me, the missionary) and he that receiveth (investigator), understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together." In a few of our lessons this week I felt the spirit so strongly and it really just hit me that if I feel the spirit and it's in the room, than the investigator can feel it also. In other words, when we are teaching we know if we feel the spirit, they will feel it as well. They may not understand the feelings at that time, but I know they feel it. This is how missionary work gets done. I need to learn to embrace these verses in D&C and open my mouth at all times in all places. My investigators might not end up getting baptized in the end, but I know it'll bless me personally and I will learn and grow from being courageous, and will have these experiences to look back on for the rest of my life. I am so grateful for the Holy Ghost and the wonderful gift that He is in my life. I read a talk this morning that talked about learning to recognize the gift of the Holy Ghost and how it speaks to you and I have definitely been able to learn more about how he works with me since being on a mission. There is just something about being a missionary. I wish all of you could understand. Although I am far from perfect, I know that as I am constantly trying to improve and remain worthy of the spirit, He will bless me. I have seen it time and time again. I am so grateful for the spirit. It's interesting to think that out of ALL of the gifts or things that Heavenly Father could give us after we were baptized, he chose to give us the gift of the Holy Ghost. Think about that. He could've given us ANYTHING, and that is what he chose.
We were teaching a recent convert/less active yesterday and we're talking a lot about the spirit. She was talking about the great blessing it's been in her life and brought up a really good point. She mentioned that it's the one part of the church and gospel that she can have with her at all times, in all things, and in all places. I really thought about that and it made perfect sense. We may not always be able to attend church every single week, or we may not always be able to surround ourselves with good LDS people, or we may not always feel worthy to be a member of the church, but those of us who have been baptized have all been given the gift of the Holy Ghost, which can dwell with us ALWAYS. It's the one thing that will stay with you forever and ever and ever. And all you have to do is remain worthy of it. Even if you get off the path a little bit and slip up, all you need to do is repent, come unto him, and he has promised that you can have it again. What a beautiful blessing and a beautiful manifestation of the Savior's love for each one of us. Oh how I love and adore him.
Since Sister Cottis and I got put together, we have been praying for a miracle family. Well, we finally got to meet that miracle family. We were able to teach them in a members home and it was just the greatest thing ever. The little boy's name is Jacob and he is 7 years old. He will be getting baptized in April. His mom and step dad are taking the discussions with them and I am praying with all of my heart that they accept the message and get baptized with him as well. Jacob has been going to church with his grandparents for 7 years and knows that it's the true church. He just LOVES it and eats it up. He keeps telling his mom and step dad that their church is wrong and that he KNOWS that Joseph Smith restored the true church. It's the cutest thing in the entire world. I wish you could meet him. He is so smart and is just so excited to get baptized. All he keeps saying over and over again is that he wants his mom and step dad to get baptized with him. How precious is that? Ah! Seriously, it's killing me. He will be considered a convert baptism since his parents aren't members, so I am really hoping that I get to stay in the area so I can be there! He is also reminding me so much of my sweet Kenna Grace, whom I miss so very much. It's just amazing how smart these little children are. I am amazed. We are also teaching another 8 year old girl named Selene, and she is getting baptized on March 12. Children are perfect. There is no doubt in my mind that God loves the little children and weeps over them. I know without a doubt he loves the little children. I am so grateful for the experiences that I've had to be able to work with little children. I cannot wait for my own! Okay, maybe a little while, but still. They are just such a blessing & joy.
I am really getting along with my 2 companions and couldn't be happier. I love them both so much. Sister Corrigan goes home this transfer, (Feb. 29) and then we will be back to two. It's been really fun being in a trio and I'm definitely going to miss it. I have missed my one on one time with Sister Cottis, but we are still having our moments alone and I just love the girl to death. I know I say that every week, but we are literally best friends. I cannot wait until we are both home and can hang out. We already have so many trips planned and things to do, so just be ready for us. We are the dynamic duo. We are still on our crazy exercise kick and last Fast Sunday we started a
40 day fast from sugar with the elders, so that's been good for us. :) We are working on trying to be more fit and healthy... Since your mission really does wreck your body, as I mentioned earlier.
Let's see, I really don't have much more to report on, and we've gotta get going. Between my massage and shopping today, we're about out of time! So so sorry! I hate not having enough time to email haha. I will repent next week. I am healthy, happy, and doing well. Sleeping like a baby, eating good, I have enough clothes to wear, my hair is now below my bottom (Mom, it is SO long. It's never been longer in my life) So I am getting a haircut from a member on Thursday and I'm kind of nervous. What else, we have great members in this ward, I think I'll stay for at least one more transfer, I'm hoping two more so I can stay until Sister Cottis goes home. The weather here is bipolar, so it goes from freezing, to 60 degrees. So that's been throwing me off. I really am doing great and just love being a missionary. I can't complain about a single thing. All is well and life is good. All I need is y'all right by my side. :) Then I will be perfect. Tonight we get to go have dinner at the old folks home that we do service at once a week and I'm super excited for that. It's family night over there so all of the residents families are coming over and having dinner! The theme is Mardi Gras so we get to wear some fancy jewelry and crowns and such. It should be a good night. :) I am excited.
I hope each one of you are doing well. I hope you know how much I love you and how grateful I am for each one of you. I couldn't do this without you. I know that this is Christ's work and I know that there is nothing greater that we can do than share our testimonies of the Gospel with the world. I am so grateful for this opportunity that I have had to serve and cannot wait to see what the next few months brings me. I want you to know that I know that God lives. He loves each and every one of you. He knows what you are going through. He knows best. He knows what you need and when you need it. Trust him and trust in his timing. I know it's a lot easier said than done, but try it. Turn yourself over to him and follow his will and his plan. I am so grateful for the chance that I've had to serve the people here and to experience a change of heart. I am a converted soul to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I am not ashamed to share what I know and what I believe. I hope you can continue to do what is right. Stick to the basics, it will bring you the most happiness. :) I hope you all have a wonderful week this week. Remember who you are and remember that there is a Sister in North Carolina who is thinking about you, who loves you, and who is praying for you!! Please let me know if there is ever anything that I can do for any of you. Have a fantastic week! Talk to ya in six! Not seven! Yay!! Xo
Sister Ky Worthington
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
February 8, 2016
happy love week! ❤️
Hello family!
How is everyone doing? I hope you all had a wonderful week. It feels like I haven't talked to you in forever. It was definitely a long week full of ups and downs and I am grateful for the new week that is ahead of me. I always love new weeks. As I'm sure you all heard, our lovely Carolina Panthers didn't quite make it yesterday. So sad! I actually wanted Denver to win, so I was pretty happy when I found out haha.
Everyone here is just not having it though. It's been a pretty intense weekend here in NC. Everyone was going crazy. I wish you could've seen it. It was pretty fun. I mean come on now, it's a game. Last night we didn't have a whole lot of success because the game was from 6-9, but we were still able to teach two lessons to some older ladies who didn't care too much about the game. Although I missed watching the game with y'all and spending time with some of my favorite people, I am grateful for the chance that I have to be here and know that the Lord will bless me for my sacrifice. :) There is always next year.
I don't really know where to even begin with this email haha. Please just forgive me in advance. It's probably going to be all over the place. I also don't have very much time today so I will try to type fast. :) We had a zone activity today and went bowling and played lots of sports at the church so I haven't had a whole lot of time to email today. Unfortunately. This past week was super super busy. We had lots of meetings and administrative stuff! The first week of the month is always chaotic. I literally feel like a chicken running around with my head cut off. We have to do so many things and it's almost impossible to remember everything. From numbers to miles to averages to exchanges to zone meetings to MLC meetings to reports to missionary work, it's pretty overwhelming. God definitely blesses me because there is no way that I can remember everything. It's amazing the spirit that comes into my life during that week. We had a mission leadership conference in Charlotte that really started off the month with a bang. I absolutely love those meetings. We have some great leaders in our mission. We set a goal as a mission to get 400 baptisms this year and we are really trying to work towards that. I know it's definitely possible if we all come together as a mission and really focus on teaching repentance and baptizing converts. It is what we have been called to do! I loved being able to be with President and Sister Alexander. They are wonderful. I also got to do a special musical number with my two sisters and that was fun! My musical abilities have just increased ten fold so that's been good. I am actually singing in sacrament meeting in a few weeks with one of my zone leaders so please pray for me. I'm going to need some help haha. I don't do solos.
Wednesday was a pretty good day. We spent a chunk of the day planning for zone meeting with the zone leaders. That is always a special experience as well. We really are endowed with power on high as we all come together and seek revelation. It's quite an amazing process. We pull up a picture of each missionary in our zone and pray for them by name and really try to see what our missionaries need to hear and who needs to give trainings and so forth. It's a great experience. We also had the opportunity to go and do service at an old folks home. It's so much fun. It is literally the highlight of my week. We were able to sing lots of songs with them and make lots of Valentines. I love them!
We had some appointments Wednesday night and those were all pretty good. We have a lot of new investigators but are really working on trying to get them to progress and move forward. We need them to come to church and commit to a baptism date. That is always the hardest thing to do.
Thursday was a good day. We had interviews with President Alexander.
Those are always really good! He inspires me and helps me to be better. Our interview was short, sweet, and to the point. I didn't have very much to talk to him about and so I was in and out of there pretty fast! He did something different this week and invited my two sisters to come in with me towards the end of my interview. He asked us to role play the restoration for him in four minutes. Talk about scary! We ended up doing a really good job and the spirit was so strong. Every time I recite the Joseph Smith account I am filled with the spirit. As many times as I've said it, it still rings so true to me. I know that he really did see God the father and Jesus Christ. I know that he restored the church of Jesus Christ back to this earth. I couldn't be more sure. We are really working on teaching simply and powerfully and role playing things in four minutes has really helped us become better teachers.
Friday was great! Our zone meeting was soo good. The spirit was so strong. We had some really powerful trainings and I learned so much.
Those meetings just make me so pumped up and just increase my desire to go out and serve and testify of my Savior Jesus Christ. Oh how I love and adore him. One of the elders in my area had an anxiety attack at the very end of our meeting and we had to call the ambulance so that was quite an adventure. He like stopped breathing and they had to come into our church and get him and everything. At least they stepped foot into the church and felt the spirit, right? Haha. He is doing okay though so all is well. Just added some excitement to the day. It was also one of my favorite elders birthday on Friday so we all went out after the meeting and had a birthday lunch for him! Then some of us went and decorated their apartment. I think it made him really happy. Birthdays on the mission are rough haha. Anything to make someone feel special and loved is worth it.
We are still working with Keith and James. They haven't really made any progress since last week so I don't have very many updates for you. Keith loves everything we are teaching him, he just isn't putting two and two together. He knows the Book of Mormon is true, but he can't see that if its true, than our church is the true church. He just isn't getting it and it's driving me insane. WHY! It's not that hard to understand. It's quite simple actually. James is still having word of wisdom problems and that's been really hard to help him because he's just not totally committed, but he will come. We were able to start Robert's new member discussions this past week and those are going really well. We had him come to dinner at the Henderson's with us and we all had a really good time. I love that family to death. We had yummy fresh spring rolls and had a good night talking about missionary work and the gospel! Melissa is struggling, so please keep her in your prayers. She just feels like she doesn't fit in and is slowly starting to pull away. We are trying to see her more frequently and are really trying to keep daily contact with her. She's a strong girl, but needs some love and prayers.
I am loving being in a trio. I love each of my lovely companions. We get along really well and I am so grateful for each of them. They help me be better and really have been such a blessing in my life. I truly believe your companions become some of your greatest friends and some of your best associations in this lifetime. I love them! We started a
40 day sugar fast and have been doing some intense workouts in the morning so that's been really fun! I miss working out haha. Nothing too exciting has happened this week. Sorry this email is pretty boring. We were out getting wifi at Krispy Kreme last night at 8:55 and all of the sudden one of our ward YSA members walked in with one of his friends. They sat down and started talking to us and I just felt super inspired to start talking to his friend about his past life. He ended up really opening up and sharing a lot with us. We talked to him about how much Christ can help him and we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. He seemed really interested and wanted to learn more. We asked him if he wanted to change his life around and he said yes! We invited him to be baptized and he agreed. WHAT! We set up a return appointment for tonight and I couldn't be more excited.
Straight up miracle. Member present and new investigator all in one.
And at the very last minutes of the day. I know that that is when God gives us the most miracles, is truly at the end of the night. He tests us to see if we are diligent and working hard! Then he gives us miracles. I loveeeee this work.
My studies have been really good lately. All last week I studied about PEACE. And then guess what? I went to church yesterday and the RS lesson was all on peace. It was exactly what I needed to hear. You have no idea. President and Sister Alexander came to our ward council yesterday morning and gave a great training. They decided to stay for sacrament meeting and it was one of the most powerful fast and testimony meetings I have ever been apart of. It was so good. I love the gospel and I love the sacrament. AH! Literally life saving. Then back to RS, I was just so overwhelmed with the spirit. I needed to hear the message of peace.
Our teacher started off by telling us that the Holy Ghost is the teacher and that we needed to open our hearts and our minds to be receptive to him. Not the teacher. I really liked that. She started talking about how Jesus Christ is our source of true peace. He can bring us perfect peace. In Isaiah 26:3 it says, "Thou wilt keep her in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because she trusteth in thee." I love love love that. He will give us PERFECT peace. Not just peace. We can cultivate peace as we live the principles of the Gospel.
All we need to do is keep our covenants. All we have to do is be faithful to them and we can be at peace no matter what situation we are stuck in. That also made me really think of the eternal perspective of things. How grateful I am that the gospel gives us an eternal perspective. It makes living life so much easier. The Savior can also help us find peace within regardless of the turmoil that is around us. All we need to do is surrender ourself and give everything to him. By fixing our eyes on Jesus Christ, we can triumph over elements that would destroy peace. I was looking at a picture of Christ when he was a baby and was so amazed at how peaceful he looked.
Then I thought about every picture that I have seen of Christ. He looks so peaceful in EVERY PICTURE. He is the prince of peace. He is so peaceful, and so WE need to be peaceful. That is what he wants for us.
We have all gone through things that we had no idea were going to come our way. And, we are all going through things right now that we didn't think we would ever have to go through. We must each PRAY FOR PEACE and he will grant it unto us. I have seen that come to me especially this past week. God is real and his peace is real. It passes ALL understanding. WE HAVE NO IDEA. Like the story of Peter in the waves and the darkness, Christ will always be there to lift us up and give us peace. I have such a strong testimony of the principle of peace.
It's real and I've felt it, and so can you. I hope each of you can access the atonement this week and feel the true PEACE that comes from this gospel and our Savior Jesus Christ. Turn to him. I know you can be happy and calm. Get down on your knees and cry unto him. He hears your prayers. He knows who you are and what you're going through.
I love each of you so very much. I cannot wait to see all of you. Keep working hard and doing what's right. I am so grateful for your examples and for your love and support. Keep the faith. Keep going strong. Keep partaking of the sacrament and accessing the atonement.
It's so real. I love this gospel with all of my heart. I love being a missionary. I know he lives. I know this is his work. Talk to ya all in seven. Feel free to send me pictures and emails throughout the week. They make me happy!! :) Have a wonderful Valentine's Day and remember that your sister in North Carolina LOVES you and prays for you daily!! Sending all my love and more your way. Xo
Sister Ky Worthington ❤️💕
Hello family!
How is everyone doing? I hope you all had a wonderful week. It feels like I haven't talked to you in forever. It was definitely a long week full of ups and downs and I am grateful for the new week that is ahead of me. I always love new weeks. As I'm sure you all heard, our lovely Carolina Panthers didn't quite make it yesterday. So sad! I actually wanted Denver to win, so I was pretty happy when I found out haha.
Everyone here is just not having it though. It's been a pretty intense weekend here in NC. Everyone was going crazy. I wish you could've seen it. It was pretty fun. I mean come on now, it's a game. Last night we didn't have a whole lot of success because the game was from 6-9, but we were still able to teach two lessons to some older ladies who didn't care too much about the game. Although I missed watching the game with y'all and spending time with some of my favorite people, I am grateful for the chance that I have to be here and know that the Lord will bless me for my sacrifice. :) There is always next year.
I don't really know where to even begin with this email haha. Please just forgive me in advance. It's probably going to be all over the place. I also don't have very much time today so I will try to type fast. :) We had a zone activity today and went bowling and played lots of sports at the church so I haven't had a whole lot of time to email today. Unfortunately. This past week was super super busy. We had lots of meetings and administrative stuff! The first week of the month is always chaotic. I literally feel like a chicken running around with my head cut off. We have to do so many things and it's almost impossible to remember everything. From numbers to miles to averages to exchanges to zone meetings to MLC meetings to reports to missionary work, it's pretty overwhelming. God definitely blesses me because there is no way that I can remember everything. It's amazing the spirit that comes into my life during that week. We had a mission leadership conference in Charlotte that really started off the month with a bang. I absolutely love those meetings. We have some great leaders in our mission. We set a goal as a mission to get 400 baptisms this year and we are really trying to work towards that. I know it's definitely possible if we all come together as a mission and really focus on teaching repentance and baptizing converts. It is what we have been called to do! I loved being able to be with President and Sister Alexander. They are wonderful. I also got to do a special musical number with my two sisters and that was fun! My musical abilities have just increased ten fold so that's been good. I am actually singing in sacrament meeting in a few weeks with one of my zone leaders so please pray for me. I'm going to need some help haha. I don't do solos.
Wednesday was a pretty good day. We spent a chunk of the day planning for zone meeting with the zone leaders. That is always a special experience as well. We really are endowed with power on high as we all come together and seek revelation. It's quite an amazing process. We pull up a picture of each missionary in our zone and pray for them by name and really try to see what our missionaries need to hear and who needs to give trainings and so forth. It's a great experience. We also had the opportunity to go and do service at an old folks home. It's so much fun. It is literally the highlight of my week. We were able to sing lots of songs with them and make lots of Valentines. I love them!
We had some appointments Wednesday night and those were all pretty good. We have a lot of new investigators but are really working on trying to get them to progress and move forward. We need them to come to church and commit to a baptism date. That is always the hardest thing to do.
Thursday was a good day. We had interviews with President Alexander.
Those are always really good! He inspires me and helps me to be better. Our interview was short, sweet, and to the point. I didn't have very much to talk to him about and so I was in and out of there pretty fast! He did something different this week and invited my two sisters to come in with me towards the end of my interview. He asked us to role play the restoration for him in four minutes. Talk about scary! We ended up doing a really good job and the spirit was so strong. Every time I recite the Joseph Smith account I am filled with the spirit. As many times as I've said it, it still rings so true to me. I know that he really did see God the father and Jesus Christ. I know that he restored the church of Jesus Christ back to this earth. I couldn't be more sure. We are really working on teaching simply and powerfully and role playing things in four minutes has really helped us become better teachers.
Friday was great! Our zone meeting was soo good. The spirit was so strong. We had some really powerful trainings and I learned so much.
Those meetings just make me so pumped up and just increase my desire to go out and serve and testify of my Savior Jesus Christ. Oh how I love and adore him. One of the elders in my area had an anxiety attack at the very end of our meeting and we had to call the ambulance so that was quite an adventure. He like stopped breathing and they had to come into our church and get him and everything. At least they stepped foot into the church and felt the spirit, right? Haha. He is doing okay though so all is well. Just added some excitement to the day. It was also one of my favorite elders birthday on Friday so we all went out after the meeting and had a birthday lunch for him! Then some of us went and decorated their apartment. I think it made him really happy. Birthdays on the mission are rough haha. Anything to make someone feel special and loved is worth it.
We are still working with Keith and James. They haven't really made any progress since last week so I don't have very many updates for you. Keith loves everything we are teaching him, he just isn't putting two and two together. He knows the Book of Mormon is true, but he can't see that if its true, than our church is the true church. He just isn't getting it and it's driving me insane. WHY! It's not that hard to understand. It's quite simple actually. James is still having word of wisdom problems and that's been really hard to help him because he's just not totally committed, but he will come. We were able to start Robert's new member discussions this past week and those are going really well. We had him come to dinner at the Henderson's with us and we all had a really good time. I love that family to death. We had yummy fresh spring rolls and had a good night talking about missionary work and the gospel! Melissa is struggling, so please keep her in your prayers. She just feels like she doesn't fit in and is slowly starting to pull away. We are trying to see her more frequently and are really trying to keep daily contact with her. She's a strong girl, but needs some love and prayers.
I am loving being in a trio. I love each of my lovely companions. We get along really well and I am so grateful for each of them. They help me be better and really have been such a blessing in my life. I truly believe your companions become some of your greatest friends and some of your best associations in this lifetime. I love them! We started a
40 day sugar fast and have been doing some intense workouts in the morning so that's been really fun! I miss working out haha. Nothing too exciting has happened this week. Sorry this email is pretty boring. We were out getting wifi at Krispy Kreme last night at 8:55 and all of the sudden one of our ward YSA members walked in with one of his friends. They sat down and started talking to us and I just felt super inspired to start talking to his friend about his past life. He ended up really opening up and sharing a lot with us. We talked to him about how much Christ can help him and we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. He seemed really interested and wanted to learn more. We asked him if he wanted to change his life around and he said yes! We invited him to be baptized and he agreed. WHAT! We set up a return appointment for tonight and I couldn't be more excited.
Straight up miracle. Member present and new investigator all in one.
And at the very last minutes of the day. I know that that is when God gives us the most miracles, is truly at the end of the night. He tests us to see if we are diligent and working hard! Then he gives us miracles. I loveeeee this work.
My studies have been really good lately. All last week I studied about PEACE. And then guess what? I went to church yesterday and the RS lesson was all on peace. It was exactly what I needed to hear. You have no idea. President and Sister Alexander came to our ward council yesterday morning and gave a great training. They decided to stay for sacrament meeting and it was one of the most powerful fast and testimony meetings I have ever been apart of. It was so good. I love the gospel and I love the sacrament. AH! Literally life saving. Then back to RS, I was just so overwhelmed with the spirit. I needed to hear the message of peace.
Our teacher started off by telling us that the Holy Ghost is the teacher and that we needed to open our hearts and our minds to be receptive to him. Not the teacher. I really liked that. She started talking about how Jesus Christ is our source of true peace. He can bring us perfect peace. In Isaiah 26:3 it says, "Thou wilt keep her in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because she trusteth in thee." I love love love that. He will give us PERFECT peace. Not just peace. We can cultivate peace as we live the principles of the Gospel.
All we need to do is keep our covenants. All we have to do is be faithful to them and we can be at peace no matter what situation we are stuck in. That also made me really think of the eternal perspective of things. How grateful I am that the gospel gives us an eternal perspective. It makes living life so much easier. The Savior can also help us find peace within regardless of the turmoil that is around us. All we need to do is surrender ourself and give everything to him. By fixing our eyes on Jesus Christ, we can triumph over elements that would destroy peace. I was looking at a picture of Christ when he was a baby and was so amazed at how peaceful he looked.
Then I thought about every picture that I have seen of Christ. He looks so peaceful in EVERY PICTURE. He is the prince of peace. He is so peaceful, and so WE need to be peaceful. That is what he wants for us.
We have all gone through things that we had no idea were going to come our way. And, we are all going through things right now that we didn't think we would ever have to go through. We must each PRAY FOR PEACE and he will grant it unto us. I have seen that come to me especially this past week. God is real and his peace is real. It passes ALL understanding. WE HAVE NO IDEA. Like the story of Peter in the waves and the darkness, Christ will always be there to lift us up and give us peace. I have such a strong testimony of the principle of peace.
It's real and I've felt it, and so can you. I hope each of you can access the atonement this week and feel the true PEACE that comes from this gospel and our Savior Jesus Christ. Turn to him. I know you can be happy and calm. Get down on your knees and cry unto him. He hears your prayers. He knows who you are and what you're going through.
I love each of you so very much. I cannot wait to see all of you. Keep working hard and doing what's right. I am so grateful for your examples and for your love and support. Keep the faith. Keep going strong. Keep partaking of the sacrament and accessing the atonement.
It's so real. I love this gospel with all of my heart. I love being a missionary. I know he lives. I know this is his work. Talk to ya all in seven. Feel free to send me pictures and emails throughout the week. They make me happy!! :) Have a wonderful Valentine's Day and remember that your sister in North Carolina LOVES you and prays for you daily!! Sending all my love and more your way. Xo
Sister Ky Worthington ❤️💕
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
February 1, 2016
happy february. ❤️
Hey family,
January has come and gone and February is here. I cannot believe it! I thought January was going to be a slow month, but it really went fast and we were able to accomplish a lot. What a beautiful month it's been. One full of ups and downs and miracles left and right. I have learned so much and am grateful for the change and growth that I have seen in myself and that I've seen in others. It has been a month of trials and I have been able to turn to my Savior a lot, especially this past month. My understanding of the atonement has increased and the depth of my conversion has been strengthened. I am grateful for the atonement and the healing power that it has. It is available to anyone and everyone. All we have to do is seek it and find it. It's there for us to access at anytime, in any place, and for any purpose.
How is everyone doing? I hope that you all had a good week and that you were able to apply the atonement at some point in your life this past week. It should be something that we are using every single day of our lives. Christ didn't just suffer for no reason. He suffered for you and for me, so that we could have peace and joy, amongst the trials and tribulations that we will face.
Everyone here in North Carolina is going crazy. All I hear is "Panthers Panthers Panthers Panthers Panthers Panthers and Superbowl superbowl superbowl superbowl superbowl." It is absolutely insane haha. Everyone is so excited. It has been fun to have something to talk about and it has been a really good conversation starter. It should be an interesting game. I am sure we will hear all about it and will probably be updated on the game throughout the day as we go out and visit people. Hopefully they will be winning so some hearts will be opened and softened.
This week has been an interesting one. Sister Cottis and I received a call from President Alexander this past week informing us that we would be getting another sister. What! There was an emergency transfer of a sister in the mission and there was a sister who was companionless. President said that he prayed and prayed and prayed and felt that this lovely sister needed to be with Sister Cottis and I. We were a bit nervous, but were grateful for the inspiration that President received. She arrived on Thursday and her name is Sister Corrigan. She is from West Jordan, Utah and goes home in 4 weeks. She is a really sweet girl and it has been fun getting to know her. Now that we have 3, we feel invincible. We were able to get into so many more doors and were able to just have another witness to support us.
We also just added so much knowledge and faith to our companionship, so we are grateful. Sometimes it's overwhelming going up to a door with 3 people, and then bringing a member out with us is even more overwhelming, but I love it. It's been such a fun adventure!! The more the merrier. I moved all my stuff over to the other side of the apartment and now I share a bathroom and closet with Sister Cottis. It has been a really good time haha. Thank goodness we are super close.
This is just bringing us even closer. (which I don't even know how it's possible because we are already so dang close) I am just really grateful that Sister Cottis and I got to stay together. Each and every day we become closer and our friendship gets stronger. She has been helping me a lot lately and I am grateful for her example. We have so much in common and it she has just been such a blessing.
This past week we were able to see lots of success. We taught a lot of lessons and saw a lot of miracles. We found a lot of new people and are starting to build up our teaching pool. I don't know how much potential they have yet, but it has been nice to be able to actually talk to people and have them be some what interested in our message.
We are still working with Keith and James. They are doing really well.
They both have great desires to change their lives around and have been able to see how the gospel can help them. That is something that I love about the Gospel. We are also working with a woman named Margrete. She is something else. She is a friend of a member and she is just one of a kind. She talks and talks and talks and talks, and then cries and cries and cries and cries. Talk about drama queen. It has been really interesting teaching her and working with her, but it has taught me a lot of patience and persistence. Melissa and Robert are really struggling and if you don't mind praying for them, I would greatly appreciate that. Satan is definitely getting them! Robert no longer is able to see his daughter and his world is just getting rocked. His ex wife doesn't like the church at all and found out that Robert was taking his daughter to church every week when she was staying with him, and the mom was not happy about that one bit. It absolutely broke my heart. Robert has to like go to court and all this stuff and he just doesn't deserve this! He is still super strong in the Gospel and knows that it's the best thing that he has in his life right now. I am grateful that he at least recognizes that. He is wonderful! We get to go see him tonight and I am really looking forward to that. Now that we have 3 sisters, we can go inside anywhere, because the male/female ratio is always okay now, so I am excited for that. Melissa is just Melissa. Just struggling with some previous habits, and that's been hard to watch her go through.
This past week I have been really thinking about my calling as a missionary, and my divine role as a daughter of god, a daughter of earthly parents, a sister, cousin, and friend, and as a sister missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I have been really focused on family history a lot lately and have been trying to use that more in my missionary work. More and more I have come to realize how important family is. Each and every one of us has a special role and a divine purpose here on earth. Whoever you are or wherever you may be, you hold in your hands the happiness of more people than you can now imagine. Each day and every hour you can chose to make or keep a covenant with God. When you choose to make or keep a covenant with God, you choose weather or not you will leave an inheritance of hope to those who will follow your example. I talked a little bit about that last week I think, but it still continues to be on my mind. A lot of our hope and eternal happiness depends on people not born and their free agency to follow afterwards, our example.
Think about that. The eternal perspective is so important. We must leave a good legacy so that those who follow after us will continue in the path that we have led. You may just be the first to lead the way to eternal life along the path of sacred covenants made and kept with diligence and faith. The Lord has given all of us the source of hope as we struggle to help those we love accept their eternal inheritance. He has made promises to us as we keep on trying to gather people to him, even when they resist the invitation to do so.
After all we can do in faith, the Lord will justify our hopes for greater blessings for our families than we can even begin to imagine.
This past week I have often asked myself if I am leaving a heritage of hope for my future. When I find myself doing something that I know I shouldn't be doing, I have asked myself if this is something that I want to leave behind for my future generations. It has made me think twice about things.
As a missionary, and as members of the church, we have a divine commission to bring souls unto God. It is also the thing that will be the most worth unto us. (Doctrine & Covenants 15:6) We have already all received our lessons in the spirit world and are now called to labor here for the salvation of others. I have really been working on spiritually giving myself to whomever I am talking to and to wherever I may be. I am trying not to be routine and rote. I am trying to focus and be an "all in" missionary. I know that that is how the spirit will come, and that is how these people of North Carolina will join us all in Heaven! I am trying to focus on my motivation and trying to let it all be coming from the love that I have for the Lord and for this work, and nothing else. One of my favorite quotes is, "When you're in my employ, the wages are from me, not from those you serve."
I have also come to know that missions are hard, and that trials come to all people. Everyone. We cannot believe that bad things will not happen to you. Because they will. And when they come, we cannot say that God was not true or real. We cannot say that God is not keeping his promises to us. Something I really liked that I heard this past week was that "The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not insurance against pain. It is a resource in an event of pain, and when that pain comes, rejoice that you have a resource to deal with your pain." I really liked that.
I am thoroughly convinced that we fought a war in Heaven for the privilege of coming to a place that was unjust. Therefore, we will experience pain, grief, and sorrow. It also made me think of Eve as she said, "It is better that we should suffer." She had a rare insight and she knew what we needed. She knew that feeling pain was the best thing for her and Adam. I hate feeling pain. I hate seeing people go through pain. I hate injustice, loss, and all the things that come from those, and I don't think God takes pleasure in the pain that comes to us- but, we came to a world where we are not protected from those things. Sorry I'm talking about pain, but, want to rather talk about how to encounter that pain in such a way that it does not destroy you, and how to find profit in that awful and unrewarding experience. I know that a lot of you right now are experiencing a lot of pain in your lives. Thankfully we have the gospel to help us and comfort us. Use it. Use the blessings of the atonement and of the priesthood power. It is there to help us and to heal us.
I have to get running, but I just want you to know how much I love you and how grateful I am for each one of you. I love my mission with everything in me. It has been really hard being here with everything going on back at home, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I wouldn't take a check for a million dollars for the experience that I have had on my mission. "There is no greater work than that of missionary work. My mission has been the most rewarding undertaking in my entire twenty years of life. My life is dedicated to serving the Lord. My heart is overflowing as are the tears of joy that are now coming from my eyes. There is nothing so wonderful--nothing--as tasting the joy and success of missionary labors.” I am grateful for all that I am learning and experiencing. I am working on sanctifying myself and and becoming who God needs me to become. "Missions are for missionaries. It is a marvelous gift of time, a time given when you can experience glimpses of heavenly life here on earth. It is a time of cleansing and refreshing. It is a special time when the Holy Ghost can seal upon you the knowledge of the great plan for your exaltation.
It is one of your best opportunities to become a celestial candidate.
The teaching and conversion of others is the natural product of this process. To sanctify yourself you must serve others. The highest of all service to others is to teach them truth and bring them into the kingdom of God."
I love you all. Have a wonderful week. Thank you for the prayers and the support. I hope you all stay safe. I'm praying for ya! Talk to ya in seven. xo
Sister Kyla Worthington
Hey family,
January has come and gone and February is here. I cannot believe it! I thought January was going to be a slow month, but it really went fast and we were able to accomplish a lot. What a beautiful month it's been. One full of ups and downs and miracles left and right. I have learned so much and am grateful for the change and growth that I have seen in myself and that I've seen in others. It has been a month of trials and I have been able to turn to my Savior a lot, especially this past month. My understanding of the atonement has increased and the depth of my conversion has been strengthened. I am grateful for the atonement and the healing power that it has. It is available to anyone and everyone. All we have to do is seek it and find it. It's there for us to access at anytime, in any place, and for any purpose.
How is everyone doing? I hope that you all had a good week and that you were able to apply the atonement at some point in your life this past week. It should be something that we are using every single day of our lives. Christ didn't just suffer for no reason. He suffered for you and for me, so that we could have peace and joy, amongst the trials and tribulations that we will face.
Everyone here in North Carolina is going crazy. All I hear is "Panthers Panthers Panthers Panthers Panthers Panthers and Superbowl superbowl superbowl superbowl superbowl." It is absolutely insane haha. Everyone is so excited. It has been fun to have something to talk about and it has been a really good conversation starter. It should be an interesting game. I am sure we will hear all about it and will probably be updated on the game throughout the day as we go out and visit people. Hopefully they will be winning so some hearts will be opened and softened.
This week has been an interesting one. Sister Cottis and I received a call from President Alexander this past week informing us that we would be getting another sister. What! There was an emergency transfer of a sister in the mission and there was a sister who was companionless. President said that he prayed and prayed and prayed and felt that this lovely sister needed to be with Sister Cottis and I. We were a bit nervous, but were grateful for the inspiration that President received. She arrived on Thursday and her name is Sister Corrigan. She is from West Jordan, Utah and goes home in 4 weeks. She is a really sweet girl and it has been fun getting to know her. Now that we have 3, we feel invincible. We were able to get into so many more doors and were able to just have another witness to support us.
We also just added so much knowledge and faith to our companionship, so we are grateful. Sometimes it's overwhelming going up to a door with 3 people, and then bringing a member out with us is even more overwhelming, but I love it. It's been such a fun adventure!! The more the merrier. I moved all my stuff over to the other side of the apartment and now I share a bathroom and closet with Sister Cottis. It has been a really good time haha. Thank goodness we are super close.
This is just bringing us even closer. (which I don't even know how it's possible because we are already so dang close) I am just really grateful that Sister Cottis and I got to stay together. Each and every day we become closer and our friendship gets stronger. She has been helping me a lot lately and I am grateful for her example. We have so much in common and it she has just been such a blessing.
This past week we were able to see lots of success. We taught a lot of lessons and saw a lot of miracles. We found a lot of new people and are starting to build up our teaching pool. I don't know how much potential they have yet, but it has been nice to be able to actually talk to people and have them be some what interested in our message.
We are still working with Keith and James. They are doing really well.
They both have great desires to change their lives around and have been able to see how the gospel can help them. That is something that I love about the Gospel. We are also working with a woman named Margrete. She is something else. She is a friend of a member and she is just one of a kind. She talks and talks and talks and talks, and then cries and cries and cries and cries. Talk about drama queen. It has been really interesting teaching her and working with her, but it has taught me a lot of patience and persistence. Melissa and Robert are really struggling and if you don't mind praying for them, I would greatly appreciate that. Satan is definitely getting them! Robert no longer is able to see his daughter and his world is just getting rocked. His ex wife doesn't like the church at all and found out that Robert was taking his daughter to church every week when she was staying with him, and the mom was not happy about that one bit. It absolutely broke my heart. Robert has to like go to court and all this stuff and he just doesn't deserve this! He is still super strong in the Gospel and knows that it's the best thing that he has in his life right now. I am grateful that he at least recognizes that. He is wonderful! We get to go see him tonight and I am really looking forward to that. Now that we have 3 sisters, we can go inside anywhere, because the male/female ratio is always okay now, so I am excited for that. Melissa is just Melissa. Just struggling with some previous habits, and that's been hard to watch her go through.
This past week I have been really thinking about my calling as a missionary, and my divine role as a daughter of god, a daughter of earthly parents, a sister, cousin, and friend, and as a sister missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I have been really focused on family history a lot lately and have been trying to use that more in my missionary work. More and more I have come to realize how important family is. Each and every one of us has a special role and a divine purpose here on earth. Whoever you are or wherever you may be, you hold in your hands the happiness of more people than you can now imagine. Each day and every hour you can chose to make or keep a covenant with God. When you choose to make or keep a covenant with God, you choose weather or not you will leave an inheritance of hope to those who will follow your example. I talked a little bit about that last week I think, but it still continues to be on my mind. A lot of our hope and eternal happiness depends on people not born and their free agency to follow afterwards, our example.
Think about that. The eternal perspective is so important. We must leave a good legacy so that those who follow after us will continue in the path that we have led. You may just be the first to lead the way to eternal life along the path of sacred covenants made and kept with diligence and faith. The Lord has given all of us the source of hope as we struggle to help those we love accept their eternal inheritance. He has made promises to us as we keep on trying to gather people to him, even when they resist the invitation to do so.
After all we can do in faith, the Lord will justify our hopes for greater blessings for our families than we can even begin to imagine.
This past week I have often asked myself if I am leaving a heritage of hope for my future. When I find myself doing something that I know I shouldn't be doing, I have asked myself if this is something that I want to leave behind for my future generations. It has made me think twice about things.
As a missionary, and as members of the church, we have a divine commission to bring souls unto God. It is also the thing that will be the most worth unto us. (Doctrine & Covenants 15:6) We have already all received our lessons in the spirit world and are now called to labor here for the salvation of others. I have really been working on spiritually giving myself to whomever I am talking to and to wherever I may be. I am trying not to be routine and rote. I am trying to focus and be an "all in" missionary. I know that that is how the spirit will come, and that is how these people of North Carolina will join us all in Heaven! I am trying to focus on my motivation and trying to let it all be coming from the love that I have for the Lord and for this work, and nothing else. One of my favorite quotes is, "When you're in my employ, the wages are from me, not from those you serve."
I have also come to know that missions are hard, and that trials come to all people. Everyone. We cannot believe that bad things will not happen to you. Because they will. And when they come, we cannot say that God was not true or real. We cannot say that God is not keeping his promises to us. Something I really liked that I heard this past week was that "The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not insurance against pain. It is a resource in an event of pain, and when that pain comes, rejoice that you have a resource to deal with your pain." I really liked that.
I am thoroughly convinced that we fought a war in Heaven for the privilege of coming to a place that was unjust. Therefore, we will experience pain, grief, and sorrow. It also made me think of Eve as she said, "It is better that we should suffer." She had a rare insight and she knew what we needed. She knew that feeling pain was the best thing for her and Adam. I hate feeling pain. I hate seeing people go through pain. I hate injustice, loss, and all the things that come from those, and I don't think God takes pleasure in the pain that comes to us- but, we came to a world where we are not protected from those things. Sorry I'm talking about pain, but, want to rather talk about how to encounter that pain in such a way that it does not destroy you, and how to find profit in that awful and unrewarding experience. I know that a lot of you right now are experiencing a lot of pain in your lives. Thankfully we have the gospel to help us and comfort us. Use it. Use the blessings of the atonement and of the priesthood power. It is there to help us and to heal us.
I have to get running, but I just want you to know how much I love you and how grateful I am for each one of you. I love my mission with everything in me. It has been really hard being here with everything going on back at home, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I wouldn't take a check for a million dollars for the experience that I have had on my mission. "There is no greater work than that of missionary work. My mission has been the most rewarding undertaking in my entire twenty years of life. My life is dedicated to serving the Lord. My heart is overflowing as are the tears of joy that are now coming from my eyes. There is nothing so wonderful--nothing--as tasting the joy and success of missionary labors.” I am grateful for all that I am learning and experiencing. I am working on sanctifying myself and and becoming who God needs me to become. "Missions are for missionaries. It is a marvelous gift of time, a time given when you can experience glimpses of heavenly life here on earth. It is a time of cleansing and refreshing. It is a special time when the Holy Ghost can seal upon you the knowledge of the great plan for your exaltation.
It is one of your best opportunities to become a celestial candidate.
The teaching and conversion of others is the natural product of this process. To sanctify yourself you must serve others. The highest of all service to others is to teach them truth and bring them into the kingdom of God."
I love you all. Have a wonderful week. Thank you for the prayers and the support. I hope you all stay safe. I'm praying for ya! Talk to ya in seven. xo
Sister Kyla Worthington
January 25, 2016~more snowflakes
Hi familia!!
Oh how I love you and miss you even more. How is everyone doing? How was your week? I have been thinking about y'all lots this past week and really hope this letter finds you all happy, healthy, and safe!
First and foremost, I am alive and safe! I don't know how many of you heard about the big storm that was going to hit the southeast, but it definitely us here in North Carolina and as a result, Sister Cottis and I were confined to our apartment for 3 straight days, and it was the most miserable thing I've ever experienced. (I will explain more detail later.) Amongst the lovely storm, I was able to have a really great week. I was just full of the spirit and had so much love and joy in my heart. I honestly don't even know how it happened because it was my second week without the sacrament and that's just super rough, especially as a missionary. I need that spiritual boost and renewal every single week to keep me going. Somehow the Lord blessed me and I know he definitely heard my prayers and answered them. I just prayed to have a good week even though I wasn't able to partake of the sacrament and renew my covenants. I knew he heard me and could tell of the desires that were in my heart. I was so grateful.
I don't really even know what happened this week. It was all kind of a blur. Monday through Thursday we just did our thing! On Wednesday we were able to go to the stake center with our zone and participate in the worldwide missionary broadcast! That was such a special experience and will be one that I will never ever forget. I absolutely loved the broadcast and it definitely gave me a lot of motivation to go out and work harder and declare repentance! The title of the broadcast was called, "Teach repentance & baptize converts." The spirit definitely taught me and I learned a lot. I learned that I need to be a better teacher. I need to improve my teaching skills so that I can bring the spirit UNTO our investigators, in order to have them bring it INTO their own lives. Elder Bednar talked a lot about the Holy Ghost and how we can provide an environment for the spirit to be present, but ultimately the investigator or the individual has be be the one to bring it into their heart. We cannot control that part, but we can definitely influence it. That really stood out to me and helped me get a better idea of how to do that and how to create a more spiritual environment. The spirit is key. It is the converting tool. I can't do anything without the spirit. It doesn't matter what I say or what I do, it's all up to the spirit and how they receive it. It's quite a difficult concept to grasp. Teaching about the spirit is so hard because it's different for everyone. Everyone feels it so differently and it's hard to explain it. Anyways, I also really loved something that was said. Someone said that we need to focus on always having Christ's name on our lips. I have been praying for opportunities to be able to just testify on the spot and always be ready. It has also really helped me to fulfill the commitment I made at baptism to "always remember him." I have noticed a significant difference and in turn, have been blessed with receiving the blessing of keeping that part of my promise... The Holy Ghost. :)
After the broadcast, we decided to venture out and go to a place in our area that's about 30 minutes away and that uses a lot of miles, which we don't have. While there, we were able to find so many new people! And, we were able to meet and teach two families. We are not quite sure how solid they are yet, but we are excited to go back. We had return appointments on Saturday, but we had to cancel all 4 appointments. Shoot me now! It was the worst thing. We like dream of having 4 set appointments in one day, let alone 2/4 being families!
Ah! I know the Lord understands and it will all be okay. I feel like we have some parts in our area that just get so neglected because we don't have the miles/time to get out there! It was definitely a blessing to see our act of faith pay off though! We will definitely be going back to the lovely place of Yadkinville.
We are still working with Fonda and Keith. They are both great! We had a hard time getting in touch with them this past week because they were both not feeling well and had some other things come up so that made things difficult, but we are not giving up just yet! We have Keith on date to be baptized on Feb. 13, but will probably have to push that back because he wasn't able to come to church yesterday because of the weather. Okay, yeah. Get this! Church was canceled yesterday! Like what?! There was maybe 5-6 inches of snow and church got canceled. I freaked out because that means no sacrament AGAIN!
That would be 3 weeks. The night before the storm hit EVERY parking stalk in Walmart was full and people were going insane. I have never laughed harder in my life. Everyone was stalking up on their bread and milk and preparing. It was honestly so funny. Snow is like foreign to these people. The whole town shuts down and everything closes. They canceled school and everything. For like a few inches of snow, if even that. I wish y'all could be here. It makes me smile. The storm came Thursday night and so we got word from President Alexander that we couldn't drive our cars, couldn't ride our bikes, and had to be inside until further notice! I have never been more miserable! Staying inside was absolutely horrible. We had nothing to do! We ended up doing a
1000 piece puzzle, baking lots of good food, singing and dancing, working out, laughing & talking, doing a coconut oil treatment on each others hair, reading scriptures together, building a snowman, and just trying to stay productive. We used the phone a lot and bundled up a few times and walked outside and got wifi to use Facebook and skype!
We walked to Panera Bread one day and got some lunch and overheard someone talking about UTAH football so we obviously started talking to them and got to know them. They apparently already knew all about the Mormons and were very happy in their church, but we gave them another chance to accept the gospel and hopefully down the road they will change! We were able to shovel lots of driveways and walkways for people so that was fun! We managed to go out and tract a little bit and surprisingly got a few lessons in so that made it all worth it. It was so much fun and this weekend will just be one that I'll never forget! The roads were SO icy and had 3 inches on snow on top of that so having to walk everywhere was definitely a change, but was good for us! We almost starved to death because we had like no food and had to cancel all our dinner appointments so that was interesting... but somehow we managed to survive! All is well! Storm Jonas (yes, it had a
name) has passed and we are alive!
Anyways, long story short, we are hoping Keith & Fonda can make it to church next week! They really are elect and I know God has prepared their hearts!
Our recent converts and less actives are doing well and I enjoy working with them. We were able to sit down with our ward mission leader and our bishop and talk about some of them and who we really want to focus on and what is next and that was super successful. We have great leadership here in the Tanglewood Ward and I am grateful that I get to serve with such amazing people! We actually had a really neat experience yesterday that I'll never ever forget. Our mission president gave us permission to have the sacrament and Sister Cottis and I were ecstatic! We were able to walk with the elders to a members' home and partake of the sacrament. This member lived 3 miles away and the walk was so amazing. It made me miss all my Sunday walks.
It also made me realize how blessed I am. I have never had to sacrifice so much just to be able to partake of the sacrament. I mean it wasn't like it was a huge sacrifice or anything, only 3 miles, but I just have never had to do that for the sacrament before. Having said that, it meant so much more to me this time. We got to our member's house and then said an opening prayer and then we all read 3 Nephi 18:1-12, sang a sacrament song, partook of the sacrament, shared our testimonies, sang a closing song and said a closing prayer and it was such a special experience. I was overcome by the spirit and was so grateful to have the chance to be able to focus so intently on the ordinance of the sacrament. It was even more powerful than being in church I felt like. Hearing our elders say the prayer so clearly and bless and brake one piece of bread was just so amazing. It was so sacred and so tender. I needed it so bad and am now refreshed and ready for the week! :) I LOVE THE SACRAMENT.
Sister Cottis and I are doing really well. We are so happy we get to stay for another transfer! We were able to re-set some visions, goals, and plans for this transfer and are excited to continue to work with one another. We are really also looking forward to getting to know the new sisters better and serving with them. We have some really great sisters in our zone and we couldn't feel more blessed. They are wonderful! We don't have any concerns with anyone right now... So we are just excited to get to know them better and pray it stays this way! I love being an STL and hope I can be one for a while! It's so much fun!
My studies this week have been wonderful! Each and everyday I learn something new and feel so blessed to be able to have so much time to study and learn about the gospel. My knowledge has just increased ten fold and in turn, my testimony has grown immensely. This past week I decided that I wanted to learn more about trials and endurance. Yes, I know, weird. Trials. Lately I have been thinking about the pioneers and what they must have gone through. I have been thinking about those I know right now who are going through trials in their lives and who are desperately struggling. Myself included, have been struggling with some things and it's always a good reminder to realize the peace and hope that can come through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Everyday we are teaching about the Doctrine of Christ. Faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, and enduring to the end. We mostly focus on the first four, and then tend to not really focus on the "enduring to the end"
part. That part is just as important as the rest! We must endure! That is what it's all about! We must endure to the end and push through the end. What a beautiful thing. There will always be testings and trials along life’s paths. Heartaches and tragedies should not defeat us and take over, if we remember God’s promise. It is essential to learn to endure in a consistent effort. In our race for eternal life, pain and obstacles will come to all of us. We will all experience heartaches, sorrow, death, sins, weakness, disasters, physical illness, pain, mental anguish, unjust criticism, loneliness, and rejection. How we choose to handle these challenges determines whether they become stumbling blocks or building blocks in our lives. To those of us who can endure, these challenges will make progress and development possible. They will stretch us and help us grow.
Sometimes I think we are often told everything would be all right. But life is not like that. No matter who you are, you will have problems.
Tragedy will come. Frustration will happen. So, when those things do happen, what are we going to do about it? No one wants adversity.
Trials, disappointments, sadness, and heartache come to us from two different sources. There are those who transgress the laws of God will always have those challenges and consequences. Then there is the other reason for adversity and that is to accomplish the Lord’s own purposes in our life so that we can receive the refinement that comes from testing. It is so important for each of us to identify which source our trial comes from because what we chose to do next is going to be different based on which type of trial we have. With the first source, you must simply repent and stop doing what you are doing, and those consequences will stop. With the second source of adversity, that testing that comes from Heavenly Father is needed to all of those who are living a worthy, righteous life and for those of us who are being obedient to His commandments. We must have trials to learn and to grow. We must progress. I recently read a quote that I really liked.
It said, "Sometimes the most challenging form of endurance is found in trying to stay with our priorities, commitments, and assignments. How easy it is for some of us to lose our way when the unexpected, and seemingly undeserved, surface in our lives. Greatness is best measured by how well an individual responds to the happenings in life that appear to be totally unfair, unreasonable, and undeserved. Sometimes we are inclined to put up with a situation rather than endure. To endure is to bear up under, to stand firm against, to suffer without yielding, to continue to be, or to exhibit the state or power of lasting." Just when all seems to be going right, challenges will come.
When those challenges are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He gives us experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which will ultimately be for our everlasting benefit. To get us from where we are to where He wants us to be requires a lot of stretching, and that typically brings a lot of discomfort and pain, and faith! Because remember that faith is uncomfortable! & if you are comfortable, then you are not exercising enough faith!
I have been able to experience a lot of trials in my life. It has been interesting to look back and try to distinguish which kind of trial they are and how I reacted to them. I have been able to think about all of the growth that has come from them and the blessings that have ultimately come because of them. Being out on a mission has allowed me to experience a lot of trials, but has also given me the opportunity to see many others go through trials. I have been able to see how the Gospel of Jesus Christ has helped these people through their trials. I want each one of you to know that there is nothing that you are going through that the Savior doesn't understand. There is nothing that the Savior hasn't already experienced and hasn't already felt. Why do we let ourselves suffer so bad with something that has already been suffered for? Why are we not letting the Savior take away the pain that we feel? It is almost like we are mocking him and his atonement if we are not using it and letting it change our life. I think the hardest part is being humble and turning to him. That is all he asks of us. All he requires of us is to come unto him and then he will give us rest. All we need to do is endure, but endure it well. We just have to endure with the Savior on our side. In Doctrine and Covenants 121:8 says, "And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes." That promise was given to Joseph Smith and that same promise applies to you and I.
Lately I have been doing so much better at being a Preach my Gospel missionary! Ever since zone conference, that was one of my goals and I really feel like I am doing great! I have switched up my studies a little bit and have made more time for it and I am loving it!
Sometimes I don't even want to read in my scriptures because I'm so deep into preach my gospel. It has definitely been such a blessing for me and it is one of my "plans" to help me become a master teacher. I encourage all of you to read in that book. It literally can answer any life question you have! Not just church or missionary related either.
Any question! I have come to love that book and am so grateful for that tool that I have to help hasten the lord's work. I love it here.
I love this work. I love being a missionary. It is super hard, but it is super worth it. I've truly come to know and understand that nothing in life worthwhile comes easy. We have to work for what we want. I have wanted to be here my whole entire life. I have prayed for this opportunity since I first learned how to pray. It's finally here and it's up to me to work hard and live my dream. My missionary dream.
Thank you for all of your love and your support. I cannot believe I only have like 6 months left. Time is going by so quickly. I will either be coming home August 23rd orOctober 4th. I hate even talking about that! President just sent out transfer dates and sent an email to all those going home this year. Ew! I don't even like to think about that! I know that this time is so precious and I have to continue to push through and ENDURE joyfully! My testimony of this gospel and of my savior is so strong. I know he lives. If you do not know that, please trust me and know that I know he lives and I know this is his work and his true church. I am so happy. I love being engulfed in the service of the Lord. I pray for each of you daily and hope you can feel those prayers. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you. I am only an email away! I hope y'all have a wonderful week. Keep working hard and praying for the powers of heaven to be poured upon you!! I love you all so much. Talk to ya in seven! Xo
Sister Kyla Worthington❤️
Oh how I love you and miss you even more. How is everyone doing? How was your week? I have been thinking about y'all lots this past week and really hope this letter finds you all happy, healthy, and safe!
First and foremost, I am alive and safe! I don't know how many of you heard about the big storm that was going to hit the southeast, but it definitely us here in North Carolina and as a result, Sister Cottis and I were confined to our apartment for 3 straight days, and it was the most miserable thing I've ever experienced. (I will explain more detail later.) Amongst the lovely storm, I was able to have a really great week. I was just full of the spirit and had so much love and joy in my heart. I honestly don't even know how it happened because it was my second week without the sacrament and that's just super rough, especially as a missionary. I need that spiritual boost and renewal every single week to keep me going. Somehow the Lord blessed me and I know he definitely heard my prayers and answered them. I just prayed to have a good week even though I wasn't able to partake of the sacrament and renew my covenants. I knew he heard me and could tell of the desires that were in my heart. I was so grateful.
I don't really even know what happened this week. It was all kind of a blur. Monday through Thursday we just did our thing! On Wednesday we were able to go to the stake center with our zone and participate in the worldwide missionary broadcast! That was such a special experience and will be one that I will never ever forget. I absolutely loved the broadcast and it definitely gave me a lot of motivation to go out and work harder and declare repentance! The title of the broadcast was called, "Teach repentance & baptize converts." The spirit definitely taught me and I learned a lot. I learned that I need to be a better teacher. I need to improve my teaching skills so that I can bring the spirit UNTO our investigators, in order to have them bring it INTO their own lives. Elder Bednar talked a lot about the Holy Ghost and how we can provide an environment for the spirit to be present, but ultimately the investigator or the individual has be be the one to bring it into their heart. We cannot control that part, but we can definitely influence it. That really stood out to me and helped me get a better idea of how to do that and how to create a more spiritual environment. The spirit is key. It is the converting tool. I can't do anything without the spirit. It doesn't matter what I say or what I do, it's all up to the spirit and how they receive it. It's quite a difficult concept to grasp. Teaching about the spirit is so hard because it's different for everyone. Everyone feels it so differently and it's hard to explain it. Anyways, I also really loved something that was said. Someone said that we need to focus on always having Christ's name on our lips. I have been praying for opportunities to be able to just testify on the spot and always be ready. It has also really helped me to fulfill the commitment I made at baptism to "always remember him." I have noticed a significant difference and in turn, have been blessed with receiving the blessing of keeping that part of my promise... The Holy Ghost. :)
After the broadcast, we decided to venture out and go to a place in our area that's about 30 minutes away and that uses a lot of miles, which we don't have. While there, we were able to find so many new people! And, we were able to meet and teach two families. We are not quite sure how solid they are yet, but we are excited to go back. We had return appointments on Saturday, but we had to cancel all 4 appointments. Shoot me now! It was the worst thing. We like dream of having 4 set appointments in one day, let alone 2/4 being families!
Ah! I know the Lord understands and it will all be okay. I feel like we have some parts in our area that just get so neglected because we don't have the miles/time to get out there! It was definitely a blessing to see our act of faith pay off though! We will definitely be going back to the lovely place of Yadkinville.
We are still working with Fonda and Keith. They are both great! We had a hard time getting in touch with them this past week because they were both not feeling well and had some other things come up so that made things difficult, but we are not giving up just yet! We have Keith on date to be baptized on Feb. 13, but will probably have to push that back because he wasn't able to come to church yesterday because of the weather. Okay, yeah. Get this! Church was canceled yesterday! Like what?! There was maybe 5-6 inches of snow and church got canceled. I freaked out because that means no sacrament AGAIN!
That would be 3 weeks. The night before the storm hit EVERY parking stalk in Walmart was full and people were going insane. I have never laughed harder in my life. Everyone was stalking up on their bread and milk and preparing. It was honestly so funny. Snow is like foreign to these people. The whole town shuts down and everything closes. They canceled school and everything. For like a few inches of snow, if even that. I wish y'all could be here. It makes me smile. The storm came Thursday night and so we got word from President Alexander that we couldn't drive our cars, couldn't ride our bikes, and had to be inside until further notice! I have never been more miserable! Staying inside was absolutely horrible. We had nothing to do! We ended up doing a
1000 piece puzzle, baking lots of good food, singing and dancing, working out, laughing & talking, doing a coconut oil treatment on each others hair, reading scriptures together, building a snowman, and just trying to stay productive. We used the phone a lot and bundled up a few times and walked outside and got wifi to use Facebook and skype!
We walked to Panera Bread one day and got some lunch and overheard someone talking about UTAH football so we obviously started talking to them and got to know them. They apparently already knew all about the Mormons and were very happy in their church, but we gave them another chance to accept the gospel and hopefully down the road they will change! We were able to shovel lots of driveways and walkways for people so that was fun! We managed to go out and tract a little bit and surprisingly got a few lessons in so that made it all worth it. It was so much fun and this weekend will just be one that I'll never forget! The roads were SO icy and had 3 inches on snow on top of that so having to walk everywhere was definitely a change, but was good for us! We almost starved to death because we had like no food and had to cancel all our dinner appointments so that was interesting... but somehow we managed to survive! All is well! Storm Jonas (yes, it had a
name) has passed and we are alive!
Anyways, long story short, we are hoping Keith & Fonda can make it to church next week! They really are elect and I know God has prepared their hearts!
Our recent converts and less actives are doing well and I enjoy working with them. We were able to sit down with our ward mission leader and our bishop and talk about some of them and who we really want to focus on and what is next and that was super successful. We have great leadership here in the Tanglewood Ward and I am grateful that I get to serve with such amazing people! We actually had a really neat experience yesterday that I'll never ever forget. Our mission president gave us permission to have the sacrament and Sister Cottis and I were ecstatic! We were able to walk with the elders to a members' home and partake of the sacrament. This member lived 3 miles away and the walk was so amazing. It made me miss all my Sunday walks.
It also made me realize how blessed I am. I have never had to sacrifice so much just to be able to partake of the sacrament. I mean it wasn't like it was a huge sacrifice or anything, only 3 miles, but I just have never had to do that for the sacrament before. Having said that, it meant so much more to me this time. We got to our member's house and then said an opening prayer and then we all read 3 Nephi 18:1-12, sang a sacrament song, partook of the sacrament, shared our testimonies, sang a closing song and said a closing prayer and it was such a special experience. I was overcome by the spirit and was so grateful to have the chance to be able to focus so intently on the ordinance of the sacrament. It was even more powerful than being in church I felt like. Hearing our elders say the prayer so clearly and bless and brake one piece of bread was just so amazing. It was so sacred and so tender. I needed it so bad and am now refreshed and ready for the week! :) I LOVE THE SACRAMENT.
Sister Cottis and I are doing really well. We are so happy we get to stay for another transfer! We were able to re-set some visions, goals, and plans for this transfer and are excited to continue to work with one another. We are really also looking forward to getting to know the new sisters better and serving with them. We have some really great sisters in our zone and we couldn't feel more blessed. They are wonderful! We don't have any concerns with anyone right now... So we are just excited to get to know them better and pray it stays this way! I love being an STL and hope I can be one for a while! It's so much fun!
My studies this week have been wonderful! Each and everyday I learn something new and feel so blessed to be able to have so much time to study and learn about the gospel. My knowledge has just increased ten fold and in turn, my testimony has grown immensely. This past week I decided that I wanted to learn more about trials and endurance. Yes, I know, weird. Trials. Lately I have been thinking about the pioneers and what they must have gone through. I have been thinking about those I know right now who are going through trials in their lives and who are desperately struggling. Myself included, have been struggling with some things and it's always a good reminder to realize the peace and hope that can come through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Everyday we are teaching about the Doctrine of Christ. Faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, and enduring to the end. We mostly focus on the first four, and then tend to not really focus on the "enduring to the end"
part. That part is just as important as the rest! We must endure! That is what it's all about! We must endure to the end and push through the end. What a beautiful thing. There will always be testings and trials along life’s paths. Heartaches and tragedies should not defeat us and take over, if we remember God’s promise. It is essential to learn to endure in a consistent effort. In our race for eternal life, pain and obstacles will come to all of us. We will all experience heartaches, sorrow, death, sins, weakness, disasters, physical illness, pain, mental anguish, unjust criticism, loneliness, and rejection. How we choose to handle these challenges determines whether they become stumbling blocks or building blocks in our lives. To those of us who can endure, these challenges will make progress and development possible. They will stretch us and help us grow.
Sometimes I think we are often told everything would be all right. But life is not like that. No matter who you are, you will have problems.
Tragedy will come. Frustration will happen. So, when those things do happen, what are we going to do about it? No one wants adversity.
Trials, disappointments, sadness, and heartache come to us from two different sources. There are those who transgress the laws of God will always have those challenges and consequences. Then there is the other reason for adversity and that is to accomplish the Lord’s own purposes in our life so that we can receive the refinement that comes from testing. It is so important for each of us to identify which source our trial comes from because what we chose to do next is going to be different based on which type of trial we have. With the first source, you must simply repent and stop doing what you are doing, and those consequences will stop. With the second source of adversity, that testing that comes from Heavenly Father is needed to all of those who are living a worthy, righteous life and for those of us who are being obedient to His commandments. We must have trials to learn and to grow. We must progress. I recently read a quote that I really liked.
It said, "Sometimes the most challenging form of endurance is found in trying to stay with our priorities, commitments, and assignments. How easy it is for some of us to lose our way when the unexpected, and seemingly undeserved, surface in our lives. Greatness is best measured by how well an individual responds to the happenings in life that appear to be totally unfair, unreasonable, and undeserved. Sometimes we are inclined to put up with a situation rather than endure. To endure is to bear up under, to stand firm against, to suffer without yielding, to continue to be, or to exhibit the state or power of lasting." Just when all seems to be going right, challenges will come.
When those challenges are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He gives us experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which will ultimately be for our everlasting benefit. To get us from where we are to where He wants us to be requires a lot of stretching, and that typically brings a lot of discomfort and pain, and faith! Because remember that faith is uncomfortable! & if you are comfortable, then you are not exercising enough faith!
I have been able to experience a lot of trials in my life. It has been interesting to look back and try to distinguish which kind of trial they are and how I reacted to them. I have been able to think about all of the growth that has come from them and the blessings that have ultimately come because of them. Being out on a mission has allowed me to experience a lot of trials, but has also given me the opportunity to see many others go through trials. I have been able to see how the Gospel of Jesus Christ has helped these people through their trials. I want each one of you to know that there is nothing that you are going through that the Savior doesn't understand. There is nothing that the Savior hasn't already experienced and hasn't already felt. Why do we let ourselves suffer so bad with something that has already been suffered for? Why are we not letting the Savior take away the pain that we feel? It is almost like we are mocking him and his atonement if we are not using it and letting it change our life. I think the hardest part is being humble and turning to him. That is all he asks of us. All he requires of us is to come unto him and then he will give us rest. All we need to do is endure, but endure it well. We just have to endure with the Savior on our side. In Doctrine and Covenants 121:8 says, "And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes." That promise was given to Joseph Smith and that same promise applies to you and I.
Lately I have been doing so much better at being a Preach my Gospel missionary! Ever since zone conference, that was one of my goals and I really feel like I am doing great! I have switched up my studies a little bit and have made more time for it and I am loving it!
Sometimes I don't even want to read in my scriptures because I'm so deep into preach my gospel. It has definitely been such a blessing for me and it is one of my "plans" to help me become a master teacher. I encourage all of you to read in that book. It literally can answer any life question you have! Not just church or missionary related either.
Any question! I have come to love that book and am so grateful for that tool that I have to help hasten the lord's work. I love it here.
I love this work. I love being a missionary. It is super hard, but it is super worth it. I've truly come to know and understand that nothing in life worthwhile comes easy. We have to work for what we want. I have wanted to be here my whole entire life. I have prayed for this opportunity since I first learned how to pray. It's finally here and it's up to me to work hard and live my dream. My missionary dream.
Thank you for all of your love and your support. I cannot believe I only have like 6 months left. Time is going by so quickly. I will either be coming home August 23rd orOctober 4th. I hate even talking about that! President just sent out transfer dates and sent an email to all those going home this year. Ew! I don't even like to think about that! I know that this time is so precious and I have to continue to push through and ENDURE joyfully! My testimony of this gospel and of my savior is so strong. I know he lives. If you do not know that, please trust me and know that I know he lives and I know this is his work and his true church. I am so happy. I love being engulfed in the service of the Lord. I pray for each of you daily and hope you can feel those prayers. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you. I am only an email away! I hope y'all have a wonderful week. Keep working hard and praying for the powers of heaven to be poured upon you!! I love you all so much. Talk to ya in seven! Xo
Sister Kyla Worthington❤️
January 18, 2016
Snowflakes and miracles.
Hello family!
How is everyone doing? Another week down. & another month down! The 18th of the month is always a tender one. Time is just flying by. I literally blink my eyes and another month has gone by. I hope you all had a wonderful week and were able to count your many blessings everyday! Right now I am super duper tired. We were super busy this morning and got lots of things done and then we went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch! It is usually not open on Monday's but due to the holiday.. it was open. We had to take advantage of it! Then after that we went to a birthday party for a little 9 year old and went to one of those trampoline places for a few hours. This little kid just wanted to invite the missionaries to his birthday party so 8 missionaries all came and just had the time of our lives. One of the better preparation days I have had. Now we are just hanging out at the church and playing some sports. I am ready to just lay down and take a nap. So, I apologize up front if this email is a struggle.
Transfer calls were last night and guess what, I get to stay in Tanglewood with Sister Cottis. I am so excited! We definitely still have a lot to do here and I know that our time together is not done. I am glad the Lord thinks that too! Things are starting to really progress and we are just moving right up the hill. We have been able to find quite a few new investigators and are really hoping to get some baptism dates set for February. We had a zone conference this past week with President and Sister Alexander and the main focus of the meeting was about declaring repentance and baptizing converts. We need to do better. I don't know if you have heard, but all missionaries world wide are having a broadcast from Salt Lake City this Wednesday and that is going to be the topic of discussion. I know that there is more that we need to be doing to bring more people into the church. After zone conference there were a few things that I took away from the meeting. I need to be a better teacher. I want to be a more powerful teacher. I feel like if I can improve my teaching skills, more people will get baptized. I also want to work on becoming a Preach My Gospel missionary. I eat, sleep, breathe, and dream that book, but feel like I could do better at applying what I am actually learning. Application is KEY. My training went really really well. I was super happy with it. It helped to have a lot of time to prepare and I really felt like the spirit helped me the whole time. I also got asked to accompany a musical number last minute (definitely not the first time that's happened) and I literally got the sheet music 15 minutes before the meeting started and somehow pulled it together! I have so many new songs to play when I come home. Unless God is just blessing me with some special gift and the second I come home it's all going to go away... I don't know, but whatever it is right now, I will take it. It has been so fun and so miraculous to see myself being able to read music so easily!
Right now we are working with a lady named Fonda and a man named Keith. They are both doing well. This past week we were able to extend a baptism date to Keith for February 13th and he said yes! We were super pumped. He is this cute little retired guy and just loves to meet with us. We always have to meet outside on his front porch because we cannot go inside with just him, but he always has the chairs set up and has our glasses of water and is ready to go! We just need him to come to church now! The past few days we were able to find a few new people. I was looking through the area book the other day and came across the name James Graham. I felt super inspired to just stop by and see him. We knocked on his door and he was totally home and super excited to see us. He went on to tell us that he had a dream about us. Creepy... but we just went with it. He said that he dreamed that 2 young ladies were going to come to his door and help him turn his life around. We were literally speechless. He has a lot of changes that he needs to make in his life but he is really excited to change and knows that through the Savior's help, anything is possible. We have an appointment with him tomorrow morning and we are excited to see where it goes. Hoping to extend a date to him! Please pray for him!
Yesterday was super amazing! Sister Cottis and I woke up at 6:30 and then started to make blueberry pancakes and bacon for the elders. They always make us breakfast so we thought we'd be nice and make them some. Well, a few minutes into our lovely cooking, the smoke detector decided to go off. We kind of freaked out and ran and opened the doors. Well.... to our lovely surprise, IT WAS SNOWING!! We literally screamed and ran outside in our jammies & bare feet. It made me so happy. You have no idea. I literally felt like I was at home. That started my sabbath day off really well and just carried me through the rest of the day. We had a special conference at church and I really enjoyed that. It was a special southeastern broadcast and only this part of the world was able to see it. We were able to watch a broadcast from Salt Lake City and were able to hear from some of the brethren of the church. It was super powerful and y'all missed out.
Unfortunately we weren't able to partake of the sacrament and that was super upsetting. I needed it so bad. The rest of the day was just rough because I didn't feel like I had the spirit with me. I felt like I wasn't teaching by the spirit and I just felt super "off". I don't really know how to explain it, but I didn't really like it. It is going to be a long week because I am craving that renewal of my covenants so bad. Melissa brought her boyfriend to church and we were able to have a few other non members there and that was really great.
We ended the night off real well with a yummy homemade Philippino meal. We had this amazing soup and some yummy springrolls. Robert and his girlfriend came to dinner with us and we had such a marvelous time. His girlfriend is so amazing and she seemed super interested and wants to learn more. We are so so so excited. Robert has been on FIRE lately and just wants to share the Gospel with everyone. He calls us all the time and asks if he can come to appointments with us. He has definitely seen how the Gospel has blessed his life and just wants to share it with everyone! I wish that every member of the church could have the kind of enthusiasm to share the Gospel as he does. He is amazing! I love him sooooo much. We click so well and I just know that he was placed into my life for a reason.
I have learned so much this past week and there has been so much on my mind. I wish that I could relay to you what I am feeling and the thoughts that have been on my mind. It is actually super difficult through email. I have been studying a lot about divine nature and about who we are as children of God. There was a few good talks I read and after lots of fasting and praying, God has been able to help me more fully understand who I am and my purpose here while on Earth.
Lately I have just been feeling that there are so many people on this earth who are just clueless. They are so confused who they are and why they are here. They don't understand that God has a plan for them and they are living day by day without any true purpose. I strongly feel that if we could come to understand who we truly are... we will change the world. I read a talk by President Nelson that was given to the young single adults and was just blown away at what he felt so inspired to share. I want to share some of his talk with you. He talked about what it means to be a true millennial.
The term millennial is perfect for us in this day and age because we are truly saved for these last days. That term should remind us of who we really are and what our purpose in life really is. A True Millennial is one who was taught and did teach the gospel of Jesus Christ premortally and who made covenants with our Heavenly Father there about courageous things. A True Millennial is a man or woman whom God trusted enough to send to earth during the most compelling dispensation in the history of this world. A True Millennial is a man or woman who lives now to help prepare the people of this world for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and His millennial reign. Make no mistake about it--we were born to be a True Millennial. This is us!
President Nelson gives many suggestions on what we can do to help us.
His first recommendation was to learn who we really are. He invited us to ask our Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, how He feels about us and our mission here on earth. If you ask with real intent, over time the Spirit will whisper the life-changing truth to you.
Record those impressions and review them often, and follow through with exactness. Once again, application is KEY! He promised that when you begin to catch even a glimpse of how our Heavenly Father sees us and what He is counting on us to do for Him, our lives will never be the same! That is quite the promise from an apostle of the Lord.
His second recommendation was to expect and prepare to accomplish the impossible. God has always asked His covenant children to do difficult things. Because we are covenant-keeping sons and daughters of God, living in the latter part of these latter days, the Lord will ask us to do difficult things. We can just count on it. How will we accomplish the impossible? By doing whatever it takes to strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ by increasing our understanding of the doctrine taught in His restored Church and by relentlessly seeking truth.
His third recommendation is to learn how to access the powers of heaven. I loved this one! He basically just talks about how we need to spend more time in spiritual places and in places where the spirit is present. I have really come to know that that is a true principle. As we are in spiritual places, such as the temple, chapel, on our knees, in our home, whatever it may be, the powers of heaven will be poured out upon us. Prayer is also a super essential part of that. We need to ask what we need to stop doing and what we need to start doing. He gave another promise and said, "I promise you that as you consistently give the Lord a generous portion of your time, He will multiply the remainder." I loved that!!! We can give him our time by being in spiritual places and seeking to feel of his spirit.
His last recommendation was to follow the prophets. Sometimes that can be really hard for people, but we must go back to the basics and realize that they know what is best for us. I loved a quote that said, "You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views.
It may interfere with some of your social life. But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord Himself, with patience and faith, the promise is that ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name’s glory’ (D&C 21:6).” How true that is! I know that as we apply those recommendations, we will begin to understand who we really are and the great potential that we have.
President Nelson's wife talked a lot about the word desperation. I loved everything that she said. When we’re desperate to be guided by heaven, we work harder than ever to tune in to heaven. Are we desperate for the Savior to heal us and to help us? To cleanse us, guide us, protect us, and save us? We need to be desperate for Jesus Christ to help us because there are so many things that we cannot do on our own. Now, there are very few guarantees in this life, but there is one: There is a 100 percent guarantee that if we will truly repent, the Savior will cleanse us and heal us--thoroughly, totally, and completely, but we must get to that desperation point! Where we HAVE to have him. Desperation is a great motivator! As we increase our vision, we will begin to spend our time differently! We will begin to see that the things of the world really don't matter. When we’re desperate to be the true disciples of Jesus Christ we were born to be, we suddenly find the courage and determination to remove anything and everything from our lives that is unholy and impure. It is so hard, but oh so worth it. I have loved learning about these things and it has really made me have a different perspective on things.
I am so grateful for the knowledge of the Gospel that I do have. I am so grateful that I have this chance to serve God's children and to help them discover who they are, while in turn, discovering who I am.
I know that I am a daughter of God. I feel his love every single day.
I know that he is real and I know that He lives. I couldn't be more grateful. I love each one of you so very much. I am grateful for your examples and the love and support that you give me. I am thankful for your prayers on my behalf and for the love that I feel from you. I love my Savior. I love each one of you. I pray with all of my heart for each one of you every single day, multiple times a day. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Remember who you are and what you stand for. I love you! Talk to you in seven. Sending all my love my love & more from NC! xo
Sister Ky Worthington
Hello family!
How is everyone doing? Another week down. & another month down! The 18th of the month is always a tender one. Time is just flying by. I literally blink my eyes and another month has gone by. I hope you all had a wonderful week and were able to count your many blessings everyday! Right now I am super duper tired. We were super busy this morning and got lots of things done and then we went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch! It is usually not open on Monday's but due to the holiday.. it was open. We had to take advantage of it! Then after that we went to a birthday party for a little 9 year old and went to one of those trampoline places for a few hours. This little kid just wanted to invite the missionaries to his birthday party so 8 missionaries all came and just had the time of our lives. One of the better preparation days I have had. Now we are just hanging out at the church and playing some sports. I am ready to just lay down and take a nap. So, I apologize up front if this email is a struggle.
Transfer calls were last night and guess what, I get to stay in Tanglewood with Sister Cottis. I am so excited! We definitely still have a lot to do here and I know that our time together is not done. I am glad the Lord thinks that too! Things are starting to really progress and we are just moving right up the hill. We have been able to find quite a few new investigators and are really hoping to get some baptism dates set for February. We had a zone conference this past week with President and Sister Alexander and the main focus of the meeting was about declaring repentance and baptizing converts. We need to do better. I don't know if you have heard, but all missionaries world wide are having a broadcast from Salt Lake City this Wednesday and that is going to be the topic of discussion. I know that there is more that we need to be doing to bring more people into the church. After zone conference there were a few things that I took away from the meeting. I need to be a better teacher. I want to be a more powerful teacher. I feel like if I can improve my teaching skills, more people will get baptized. I also want to work on becoming a Preach My Gospel missionary. I eat, sleep, breathe, and dream that book, but feel like I could do better at applying what I am actually learning. Application is KEY. My training went really really well. I was super happy with it. It helped to have a lot of time to prepare and I really felt like the spirit helped me the whole time. I also got asked to accompany a musical number last minute (definitely not the first time that's happened) and I literally got the sheet music 15 minutes before the meeting started and somehow pulled it together! I have so many new songs to play when I come home. Unless God is just blessing me with some special gift and the second I come home it's all going to go away... I don't know, but whatever it is right now, I will take it. It has been so fun and so miraculous to see myself being able to read music so easily!
Right now we are working with a lady named Fonda and a man named Keith. They are both doing well. This past week we were able to extend a baptism date to Keith for February 13th and he said yes! We were super pumped. He is this cute little retired guy and just loves to meet with us. We always have to meet outside on his front porch because we cannot go inside with just him, but he always has the chairs set up and has our glasses of water and is ready to go! We just need him to come to church now! The past few days we were able to find a few new people. I was looking through the area book the other day and came across the name James Graham. I felt super inspired to just stop by and see him. We knocked on his door and he was totally home and super excited to see us. He went on to tell us that he had a dream about us. Creepy... but we just went with it. He said that he dreamed that 2 young ladies were going to come to his door and help him turn his life around. We were literally speechless. He has a lot of changes that he needs to make in his life but he is really excited to change and knows that through the Savior's help, anything is possible. We have an appointment with him tomorrow morning and we are excited to see where it goes. Hoping to extend a date to him! Please pray for him!
Yesterday was super amazing! Sister Cottis and I woke up at 6:30 and then started to make blueberry pancakes and bacon for the elders. They always make us breakfast so we thought we'd be nice and make them some. Well, a few minutes into our lovely cooking, the smoke detector decided to go off. We kind of freaked out and ran and opened the doors. Well.... to our lovely surprise, IT WAS SNOWING!! We literally screamed and ran outside in our jammies & bare feet. It made me so happy. You have no idea. I literally felt like I was at home. That started my sabbath day off really well and just carried me through the rest of the day. We had a special conference at church and I really enjoyed that. It was a special southeastern broadcast and only this part of the world was able to see it. We were able to watch a broadcast from Salt Lake City and were able to hear from some of the brethren of the church. It was super powerful and y'all missed out.
Unfortunately we weren't able to partake of the sacrament and that was super upsetting. I needed it so bad. The rest of the day was just rough because I didn't feel like I had the spirit with me. I felt like I wasn't teaching by the spirit and I just felt super "off". I don't really know how to explain it, but I didn't really like it. It is going to be a long week because I am craving that renewal of my covenants so bad. Melissa brought her boyfriend to church and we were able to have a few other non members there and that was really great.
We ended the night off real well with a yummy homemade Philippino meal. We had this amazing soup and some yummy springrolls. Robert and his girlfriend came to dinner with us and we had such a marvelous time. His girlfriend is so amazing and she seemed super interested and wants to learn more. We are so so so excited. Robert has been on FIRE lately and just wants to share the Gospel with everyone. He calls us all the time and asks if he can come to appointments with us. He has definitely seen how the Gospel has blessed his life and just wants to share it with everyone! I wish that every member of the church could have the kind of enthusiasm to share the Gospel as he does. He is amazing! I love him sooooo much. We click so well and I just know that he was placed into my life for a reason.
I have learned so much this past week and there has been so much on my mind. I wish that I could relay to you what I am feeling and the thoughts that have been on my mind. It is actually super difficult through email. I have been studying a lot about divine nature and about who we are as children of God. There was a few good talks I read and after lots of fasting and praying, God has been able to help me more fully understand who I am and my purpose here while on Earth.
Lately I have just been feeling that there are so many people on this earth who are just clueless. They are so confused who they are and why they are here. They don't understand that God has a plan for them and they are living day by day without any true purpose. I strongly feel that if we could come to understand who we truly are... we will change the world. I read a talk by President Nelson that was given to the young single adults and was just blown away at what he felt so inspired to share. I want to share some of his talk with you. He talked about what it means to be a true millennial.
The term millennial is perfect for us in this day and age because we are truly saved for these last days. That term should remind us of who we really are and what our purpose in life really is. A True Millennial is one who was taught and did teach the gospel of Jesus Christ premortally and who made covenants with our Heavenly Father there about courageous things. A True Millennial is a man or woman whom God trusted enough to send to earth during the most compelling dispensation in the history of this world. A True Millennial is a man or woman who lives now to help prepare the people of this world for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and His millennial reign. Make no mistake about it--we were born to be a True Millennial. This is us!
President Nelson gives many suggestions on what we can do to help us.
His first recommendation was to learn who we really are. He invited us to ask our Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, how He feels about us and our mission here on earth. If you ask with real intent, over time the Spirit will whisper the life-changing truth to you.
Record those impressions and review them often, and follow through with exactness. Once again, application is KEY! He promised that when you begin to catch even a glimpse of how our Heavenly Father sees us and what He is counting on us to do for Him, our lives will never be the same! That is quite the promise from an apostle of the Lord.
His second recommendation was to expect and prepare to accomplish the impossible. God has always asked His covenant children to do difficult things. Because we are covenant-keeping sons and daughters of God, living in the latter part of these latter days, the Lord will ask us to do difficult things. We can just count on it. How will we accomplish the impossible? By doing whatever it takes to strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ by increasing our understanding of the doctrine taught in His restored Church and by relentlessly seeking truth.
His third recommendation is to learn how to access the powers of heaven. I loved this one! He basically just talks about how we need to spend more time in spiritual places and in places where the spirit is present. I have really come to know that that is a true principle. As we are in spiritual places, such as the temple, chapel, on our knees, in our home, whatever it may be, the powers of heaven will be poured out upon us. Prayer is also a super essential part of that. We need to ask what we need to stop doing and what we need to start doing. He gave another promise and said, "I promise you that as you consistently give the Lord a generous portion of your time, He will multiply the remainder." I loved that!!! We can give him our time by being in spiritual places and seeking to feel of his spirit.
His last recommendation was to follow the prophets. Sometimes that can be really hard for people, but we must go back to the basics and realize that they know what is best for us. I loved a quote that said, "You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views.
It may interfere with some of your social life. But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord Himself, with patience and faith, the promise is that ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name’s glory’ (D&C 21:6).” How true that is! I know that as we apply those recommendations, we will begin to understand who we really are and the great potential that we have.
President Nelson's wife talked a lot about the word desperation. I loved everything that she said. When we’re desperate to be guided by heaven, we work harder than ever to tune in to heaven. Are we desperate for the Savior to heal us and to help us? To cleanse us, guide us, protect us, and save us? We need to be desperate for Jesus Christ to help us because there are so many things that we cannot do on our own. Now, there are very few guarantees in this life, but there is one: There is a 100 percent guarantee that if we will truly repent, the Savior will cleanse us and heal us--thoroughly, totally, and completely, but we must get to that desperation point! Where we HAVE to have him. Desperation is a great motivator! As we increase our vision, we will begin to spend our time differently! We will begin to see that the things of the world really don't matter. When we’re desperate to be the true disciples of Jesus Christ we were born to be, we suddenly find the courage and determination to remove anything and everything from our lives that is unholy and impure. It is so hard, but oh so worth it. I have loved learning about these things and it has really made me have a different perspective on things.
I am so grateful for the knowledge of the Gospel that I do have. I am so grateful that I have this chance to serve God's children and to help them discover who they are, while in turn, discovering who I am.
I know that I am a daughter of God. I feel his love every single day.
I know that he is real and I know that He lives. I couldn't be more grateful. I love each one of you so very much. I am grateful for your examples and the love and support that you give me. I am thankful for your prayers on my behalf and for the love that I feel from you. I love my Savior. I love each one of you. I pray with all of my heart for each one of you every single day, multiple times a day. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Remember who you are and what you stand for. I love you! Talk to you in seven. Sending all my love my love & more from NC! xo
Sister Ky Worthington
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