Listen

Hello!                                                                                                                          February 18, 2014

This week was crazy. So much happened this week. I dont even know where to start! We have seen so many miracles, and I want to start with two that happened yesterday. On Sunday, there was a returned missionary who shared his experience of learning to decipher the promptings of the Spirit and how he learned to determine whether it was the Spirit, or his own thoughts. He said he just did all the little thoughts that came into his head, and that's how he learned which was the Spirit, and which were his own thoughts. So yesterday I did everything I could do follow all the little thoughts that would come into my head. We were planning to drop by a recent convert and so we were at the station and got on the bus to go to his house, but then I saw a guy walk past and get on the bus behind us. I just had a little thought that I should talk with him. Immediately my second thought was how inconvenient the timing was and how inconvenient it would be to get off the bus we just got on and get on a different bus. But we did it anyway! I grabbed Sister Sites and we got off the bus and jumped onto the bus with that guy on it. Sister Sites is such a good companion, because she just trusted me even though she had no idea what was going on! I didnt have time to explain it to her :) I sat by this guy and started to talk with him. It was soon apparent that he had been in contact with the church before and he had lots of questions. He doesn't have a belief in God, but wants to know if He's there. He had some time right then, so we pulled the cord, got off the bus, and went and sat down in a Tim Horton's and answered some of his questions. We gave him a Book of Mormon and a Restoration pamphlet and we're meeting with him again tonight! Small and simple things :) The other miracle was later yesterday on the bus. A couple got on the bus and sat near me and I knew I needed to talk with them. I said a little prayer and asked Heavenly Father what restored truth they needed to hear. Family History. So I pulled out two family history pass along cards and started asking about their families. The girl was SO excited! She said she is right in the thick of doing her family history and feels she is at a road block with it! I actually happened to have a blank four generation pedigree chart that I gave to her and she was super excited about that too! I explained the reason we do family history and testified of forever families, and the spirit was so strong. It was definitely an incredible experience! See? Miracles :) The Spirit truly is a still, small voice. And those who heed it, will be given more promptings and more sensitivity and courage to follow them.

I think I mentioned Onneetse before. She is our investigator that is from Botswana and we've been meeting with her for a while, but she hasn't really been progressing. And she finally came to church on Sunday! And she loved it! Most people I talk to are so distraught that we have the audacity to go to church for three hours every week! But Onneetse thinks anything less wouldn't be enough :) We met with her on Saturday to explain what church would be like and review the Restoration, and at the beginning of the lesson we asked about her Book of Mormon reading to see how it was going. She said she went to lds.org

and something on the website took her to 2 Nephi 33 :) Oh yeah! I love this chapter! It's the one that says if you don't believe in the book, believe in Christ, and if you believe in Christ you will believe these words, because THEY ARE THE WORDS OF CHRIST! She said that when she read that she felt something. That is absolutely my favorite thing. Helping people recognize and feel the spirit! We helped her talk through it and process what she felt and help her understand that the Holy Ghost was testifying to her of truth. It was so great! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! Moments like that make walking through multiple feet of snow for several hours at a time WORTH IT! So worth it. No question.

I hope you all have a great week! I know this church is true. I know it with all my heart. And I love it. Pray. Read. Pray!

Love and Prayers, Sister Felix

Quote of the week:

"Seek to know your Father in Heaven. He loves you, and He has given you the precious opportunity to draw near to Him as you pray. Your prayers, offered in humility and sincerity, are heard and answered." True to the Faith, pg 75

Phone Miracle

Hello! I hope you've all had a fantastic week!                                                                                    February 10, 2014

On Tuesday, I went on exchanges with Sister Sorensen this week! :) It was so much fun! We taught three lessons that day, and we didn't miss a beat! It's weird that we were only companions for 6 weeks, and that was about six months ago, and we taught in such unity! It was incredible. Sister Sites was really sick early this week :( So she and Sister Waldron spent most of the day at the hospital for their exchange. Sister Sites is feeling better now though. So don't worry :)

Austin is still working towards being baptized! He set his baptismal date for the February 23, so keep on praying. He's still working hard to overcome his fears with faith. Church was so good yesterday though! Everything I heard was applicable to his situation. So I hope he received the strength he needs to overcome.

On Wednesday we had a zone training meeting. One of the business items the Zone Leaders talked about was not to lose our phones or our bus passes. They understood that it's accidental, but they just wanted us to be extra careful because they are expensive to replace. So guess what happened the next day... We lost our phone. I realized it wasn't in my pocket when we went to drop by our investigator, Ben, and he told us to text him later that night. I told Sister Sites and we both were sure it was probably back at our apartment. So we went back there and searched everywhere and couldn't find it. So we said a prayer. The last time I remembered having it when when we were running to the bus stop, so we went and checked the sidewalk by the bus stop and couldn't see it. We asked our landlord if we could borrow his phone for a minute to call our phone to see if we could hear it while in our house and car, but we didn't hear it. He let us take his phone to wherever we needed to go to look! So we want and checked by Ben's house again. And went back to where the bus stop was. This was about two hours later and my faith was almost exhausted. I was role playing in my head a much dreaded conversation with the zone leaders... Although we were tired and had somewhere to be soon, we decided to check one more time on the sidewalk. So we said another prayer. Sister Sites was walking on the side walk looking around and I was driving slowly next to her on the road. As she was walking, she stopped and had a feeling that she had just passed it. She looked back and down at the snow and kicked her foot into the snow. When she brought her foot back, there was the phone! Miracle. Prayers are answered WAY to many times to be merely coincidences. They are miracles. Nothing less. It was so nice to have a simple reminder that our Father in Heaven is in charge and knows all.

Another simple, faith-building experience happened on the bus on Friday. We got on the bus and I started talking to a man from Ukraine. He is an international student that is only here for 6 weeks. He goes home in two. I used simple terms to explain why I was talking to him and asked him what his beliefs about God are. He opened and closed his mouth several times obviously trying to translate in his mind how to express his beliefs in English. It was then that he told me to wait for a moment and he pulled out his phone. Using a translating app, he translated what he wanted to say. When he figured it out, he looked up from his phone and looked into my eyes, and said in simple english, "He is our Father." The Holy Ghost bore powerful witness to my heart that it was true. I smiled and said, "Yes He is." He got off the bus shortly after, but I was so grateful for that experience.

I know God lives and loves us unconditionally. I know that after hundreds of years of darkness and confusion, a fourteen year old boy said a prayer with a specific question. His question was answered by a personal appearance of God the Father and His Beloved Son Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith was called to be the first prophet of this dispensation. He translated the Book of Mormon, which is the keystone of our religion. I have no doubt that this happened. I came to know this through prayer. That is the only way to know spiritual truths. I'm so grateful that our Father in Heaven loves us enough to communicate with us directly. All we have to do is pray, then listen.

Have a great week and a fun valentines day! We're going to the Hudson's home for dinner :) I'm excited about that!

Love and Prayers,

Sister Felix

Quote of the Week:

"In every thing ye are enriched by him." 1 Corinthians 1:5

FEBRUARY ALREADY?!

February already?!                                                                                                                                    Feb. 3, 2014                       

 I can't believe I only have 9 months left...

I hope you have all had a great week! I surely have. I am so pumped about working with Sister Sites! This is the first time I have a companion who is the same age as me! She just turned 20 last month. She's from Twin Falls, Idaho. She's been out a year this month and is an incredible missionary! On the first day she was here, we were walking back to our apartment to eat dinner and we were talking about the huge snow piles everywhere. All of a sudden she pushed me sideways and I fell right into a huge snow drift!! Hahaha! I laid in the snow for a second, a little shocked, but then I just started laughing! She jumped in next to me and we sat there laughing for a while! I knew we were going to be good friends from that moment on :) We can also work hard together though. She's taught me so much and it's only been a week!

Austin is still working towards baptism, but Satan is working so hard! Why... Why does he want so badly for us to be bad?! It frustrates me sometimes. We've been talking a lot about faith with him lately, because that's really what it comes down to. He knows what he needs to do, he just needs the faith to do it. It's so interesting to see parallels in the lives of our investigators and my own. I feel like I learn so much for my own improvement as we study for them, teach them, and pray for them. Yesterday during the sacrament I was praying for Austin, and I just started tearing up a little bit. I want so badly for him to just take that leap of faith and see how much it will bless his life! But then I was reminded that there are leaps that I have to make too. It's so easy for me to see the blessings Austin will receive for being baptized, so then why is it so hard for me to take my own leaps of faith when I know Heavenly Father will bless me? It's a lesson learned over a lifetime.

I love fasting. So much. Austin fasted yesterday too and felt the difference. I learned something really cool in Relief Society yesterday that I want to share with you. The lesson was on being anxiously engaged, and one of the scriptures we read was in Matthew 22, about the first and great commandment. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment." I think that is what this life is about. Learning to love God, and then express that love in the way that He has asked. I was thinking about loving/worshiping God with our soul. I read under "Spirit" in the Bible Dictionary, and it says, "The spirit and the body constitute a mortal soul." So then I got thinking about expressing love to God using our spirit and our body and different commandments God has given us to show our love for Him using our body and our spirit.

When I was thinking about worshiping God with our body, I remembered an experience that I had a few years ago. All of you who know me well know how much dance is a part of my life :) I went to a performance done by BYU-I's dance company in July of 2012 and the show was called "Come What May and Love it." It was in the conference center theater in Salt Lake. A certain dance really stood out to me during that performance. It was a contemporary style, which is a really expressive kind of dance. There was a dancer in a black body bag laying in the center of the stage and the other dancers mournfully danced around her. Part way through the dance, the girl in the body bag climbed out and was dressed in all white. She went around and comforted the dancers in black. Their expressions made it obvious that they could not see her, but they were comforted by her presence. Other dancers in white entered the stage and comforted the mourning mortals during the climax of the piece. I was in tears. That was such a powerful experience for me, and I am so grateful that Heavenly Father testifies to us of the reality and divinity of His plan so frequently. And that He was able to do it in a language I understood and love. I am so grateful that we have bodies so we can become more like our Father. I am so grateful that we can use this gift to worship Him in return.

Have a great week :) The Lord loves you. He died and lived for you. Do something to show your love for Him this week. Not only this week, but every week! How about everyday? :)

Love and Prayers, Sister Felix

Here's a picture of my in a maple leaf! And this is Sister Sites :) She says hello!