So biggest piece of news: MY VISA CAME! I was suppose to fly out to
Las Vegas today for a temporary assignment but my visa came instead
and I will be in England this week!!
Mommy and daddy: flight plans: flying delta flight twelve SLC to
London. Departing at 9:55 am tomorrow and arriving at 8:25am on
Wednesday! I have to be at the mtc travel office at 4:35 am.
Cherry Morgan- I used you as an example of ministering to someone in
class today. All of those bowls of ice cream and the time you spent
with me meant a lot :) thank you for your love and time.
A thought on members of the church from Elder Bednar: "We properly
pray for the safety and success of the full-time missionaries
throughout the world. And a common element in many of our prayers is a
request that the missionaries will be led to individuals and families
who are prepared to receive the message of the Restoration. But
ultimately it is my responsibility and your responsibility to find
people for the missionaries to teach. Missionaries are full-time
teachers; you and I are full-time finders. And you and I as lifelong
missionaries should not be praying for the full-time missionaries to
do our work!"
From "Ask in Faith"
http://www.lds.org/general-
Missionaries need members help to hasten the work. I encourage all of
you to pray and ask Heavenly Father for someone you can introduce the
missionaries to. :)
I got to teach two real investigators this week! Ones name was
B and the other A . B is a BYU student who knows the
bible front to back to sideways to upward to downward. She knows the
scriptures and she knows Christ but there were certain doctrines of
the church and scriptures in the Book of Mormon she could not agree
with. She generally just wanted to have a religious discussion with us
than talk about the gospel. But she was great I gave her my email so
hopefully I can keep talking to her.
'A' is a member of the church who is from Latvia but she lives in
Ireland so we taught her via Skype. We started talking with her and
she told us that she served a mission 8 years ago in Russia and she
absolutely loved it. We shared with her John 11:35 "Jesus wept". And
discussed why it was such an important verse.
The context of this verse is that Lazarus has died and Jesus Wept. It
is so cool because who knows better than the savior the plan of
salvation? And yet he still wept. This teaches us how much the savior
truly does love us and that mourning is okay. Stifling feelings is not
the way to deal with emotions. It is okay to weep.
After our discussion we asked A if there was anything she was
struggling with that we could help her with. She told us that she
actually was inactive in the church and her testimony of the Book of
Mormon was failing. I told her of how when I was 12 my brother was
diagnosed with cancer. And the way I comforted myself was by reading
books. One of the books I also began to study was the Book of Mormon.
As I read it I was filled with comfort and peace. I got to the end of
the book and I read Moroni's promise:
3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if
it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember
how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the
creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these
things, and ponder it in your hearts.
4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye
would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these
things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with
real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it
unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
Moroni 10:3-5
http://www.lds.org/scriptures/
I decided I when I read this that I was going to find out for myself.
So when I finished reading, it was a late December night, I was all by
myself in my room, the house was quiet, and I decided to ask God if
the Book of Mormon is true. I began to pray, essentially saying,
"Heavenly Father I want to know if the Book of Mormon is true. Please
tell me if it is". I prayed and prayed and prayed begging Heavenly
Father to give me a witness and I started to get upset because I
wasn't feeling anything. But I calmed myself down and in that quiet
moment a feeling of peace and calm and clarity washed over me and I
had the thought: "you already know. You already know it's true." And
it caught me off guard because it was not at all the feeling I had
been expecting but it was still undeniable.
'A ' told us after the lesson that she had felt the spirit burn in
her heart. Isn't that amazing? We were teaching her via Skype. We were
sitting at a computer in Utah and she was at a computer in Ireland and
the spirit transcended the distance between us. Heavenly Father is
amazing. I got her email too. Maybe she'll come visit me in England:)
There is a price to pay to receive a witness if the Book of Mormon is
true. You can't just read it and halfheartedly ask God if it's true
and expect a confirmation. You must study and pray with a desire to
really really know if it's true. And then after you have received a
witness you must continue to apply it and abide by its precepts in
order for that testimony to continue to burn. Following the fire
analogy, if there's one thing I learned from being a camp counselor
this summer is that if you don't feed a fire, it dies. It must be
consistently fueled.
I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know it because I have studied it
for myself and have received a personal witness from God of the truth
of it. "We invite all men (and women) everywhere to read the Book of
Mormon, to ponder in their hearts the message it contains, and then to
ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ if the book is
true. Those who pursue this course and ask in faith will gain a
testimony of its truth and divinity by the power of the Holy Ghost.
(See Moroni 10:3–5.) Those who gain this divine witness from the Holy
Spirit will also come to know by the same power that Jesus Christ is
the Savior of the world, that Joseph Smith is His revelator and
prophet in these last days, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints is the Lord’s kingdom once again established on the
earth, preparatory to the Second Coming of the Messiah."
Talk to you soon from England!!
Love, Sister Coleman
London
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