The Spirit, A Missionary's Best Pal

(Sent August 25 | Pics on Facebook)

I got my hair cut today! Unfortunately, my mission president didn't allow me to fly out to New York to get my hair cut by my favorite hairdresser. Let down, I know, but it really took all my might to allow the hair school student to touch my hair. It's free for missionaries, though, so that was nice of them.

Anyway, on a more missionary-related note, we taught J this week and it was amazing, as usual. He shared a personal experience he had the week before when he was on his trip to New Orleans with his buddies. He realized how easy it was to neglect his routine of studying the scriptures, and he expressed how guilty he felt for not doing so. He noticed how neglecting that simple routine negatively affected him for that weekend.

And so we shared with him a scripture:

"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19, emphases added).

We explained to him that it is in our nature to not read our scriptures and pray every day because obeying the commandments of God really does take effort. Anytime we do something that brings us closer to God is, essentially, us acting upon our faith by doing works. Just like James said, faith without works is dead.

Here, J was given an experience last weekend to teach him about what kind of situations he wants to put himself in. It taught him the importance of scripture study. It taught him of the protection that studying the scriptures provides for him. It's these kinds of experiences that help him progress more than anything anyone could ever say. He needed a chance to notice lacking the Spirit in his life for a time in order to realize his need for Him.

We, as missionaries, are instruments in the Lord's Hands. We are placed to teach people about the gospel of Jesus Christ and create an environment where they can feel the Spirit. Then the Spirit takes it from there.

I love missionary work. I really do! What a fantastic blessing it is!

Love,
Sister Wen

Fields of Sunshine and Butterflies!

(Sent July 21)

We both survived transfers! Both Sister Billings and I are staying here in Parkerrrrrr! This will be our third transfer together and everyone says there's something we need to learn from each other but I'm not sure what because we're like a power companionship.

But I do think it's the area that we need to learn from. I'm learning everyday!

Update on J: We haven't met with him for the past two weeks. His business trips take up the chunk of the week and then he got a call into work before our appointment last Friday. We encourage him to read the Book of Mormon frequently, but we're not entirely sure if he is. I'm sure he is, seeing as to how he's visiting his LDS friends on the side while on his business trips. He'll get there.

But, S. S is a referral from the Interwebz. Some missionaries are doing service for her friend and she requested service as well. We got out of our dinner appointment last Sunday and met a man with his daughter walking their dogs. He was very kind and friendly towards us and let us pet their dogs (cute little kids they were) whom they were fostering. We talked a little bit and parted ways. A couple days later, we met S to set up a time. But, (turn of events) S's husband was the man we met last Sunday!

From then on, both Sister Billings and I knew that something great's going to come from our service for S.

Faith and hope always succeed and lead to even more rewards like fields of sunshine and butterflies! That's how I see Colorado.

Guaranteed.

Farewell!

This is the farewell talk I gave in my church service last Sunday, January 12. It's not word for word what I said, but I tried to write down the gist of what I did say.

This talk is based on the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants, section 4, verse 6: "Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence" (D&C 4:6).

Good afternoon, brothers and sisters! Thanks to the missionaries for that musical number! But if I'm gonna have to sing like that on my mission I better brush up on my singing....
         
And thanks to Brother Payne for that insightful talk, though I realize now that I shouldn’t have asked him to speak before me because of how insightful he is. All my insights are probably going to sound even more unintelligent.
         
Anyway, this is it! I am the last talk of the day meaning this is supposedly the talk you have all been waiting for. And, as my father said, I will be serving in the Colorado Denver North mission and I enter the Provo Missionary Training Center on January 22.
         
So, I want to talk a little bit about why I am serving a mission. It all began on a chilly, October morning. I was at college so I turned on General Conference on my computer next to me.

President Thomas S. Monson, our current living prophet of God

       
President Monson made an announcement concerning the lowering of the age requirement for boys to serve missions and I was like, whoa, can he do that? Then I figured, yes he can, because he is a prophet of God and all. Then he started talking about sister missionaries. Then, of course, right then, my Internet stopped working and I freaked out. Maybe he was going to lower the age for women? My heart was racing. I clicked refresh and I was freaking out! By the time the video reloaded, he had already made the announcement so I had to rewind a whole 10 seconds back just to hear the part I missed. It was a real first world problem.