Purpose, and Moving to the New Territories!

This week's word was PURPOSE.

We had an amazing meeting in Kowloon about our missionary purpose: Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. 

Because I have been a Sister Training Leader, I was able to give a 15 minute training with Sister Thomson. We decided to talk about being enough. We wanted the missionaries to know that because they exist, they are enough. Life can try to fade away your knowledge of divine nature, but Jesus Christ is there to remind us of our royal origin as children of God, and of the reality of change. So we did a little skit where Sister Thomson acted really rude and vicious to me after teaching a pretend lesson. After it all the missionaries were confused why she was such a horrible companion in the skit, then we told them she actually represented my inner thoughts. We talked about how sometimes we say things to ourselves that we would never say to others. We then redid the skit but Sister Thomson represented the Savior and only read back scriptures in response to my lines. We invited them to replace negative thoughts with the Savior. We then read the hymn Where Can I Turn For Peace and had a discussion on what "Reaches my reaching," means. Then we watched the bible video of the woman with the issue of blood. How all she did was reach out and touch the hem of Jesus Christ's garment, and was made whole. There is so much meaning in that story, and too little time to explain. I just know that we are enough, and that Jesus Christ will recognize any subtle, finite, struggling, small attempt to come unto Him. He loves us. 

Also, so in Hong Kong lots of people where T shirts with nonsense English on them. Then sometimes they randomly have quotes that make sense and that are actually deep in a weird sort of way. I write my favorite ones down in my language notebook. For example...

It's Time For Change

First Deserve, then Desire

Curiosity is the Beginning of Wisdom

A Winner is a Dreamer Who Never Gives Up

Be Silent so You Can Listen

It is Not Easy, But it is Worth It

If Not Now, When?

Kindness is Key

Tomorrow is the Beginning of the Future 

Mrs. Zach Efron (hahahahaha okay this may be an exception from my thought below)

Walking the crowded streets of HK, I then ponder up a whole gospel message based around the T shirt. So, can you guys all do it? How do these random English words relate to the gospel?

Love you all! In the words of a wise MTC teacher "The gospel gives everything meaning."  We are here for a glorious purpose!

Nana's Journey

 These are all pictures from the end of June, the first time we thought Nana was going to pass away any minute. Josh was leaving for scout camp and he thought it was his last good bye, but Nana was still here when he got back, for another couple of weeks. The past two and a half years have been sweet, having Nana so close. All my kids loved going to visit her. She is always loving and happy, and you just want to be in her presence. The Villas is a really nice place. Many times, as I sunk into a computer chair in Nana's room, I thought how much I wished I lived in the beautiful villas, where someone cooked for me and I didn't have to go anywhere. Of course, we all know that being a hundred years old is no picnic. In fact, it's brutal. As agonizing as it was, this summer was also sacred, as we helped Nana day by day towards her next journey.