11/15/2014
Well hey everyone!! :) If you couldn't tell from the subject.. This week I had my first baptism!!!!! :) :) :) YAY!! Let's do a little happy dance, I mean missionary work isn't all about baptisms but let me tell you why they are so amazing.
1.It's amazing to see someone that you love so much decide to make that covenant with God. Last year at this time I spoke at my little sisters baptism about the Holy Ghost, I realized at that moment how excited and how much I knew that going on a mission was something I needed to do. I was so grateful for my little sisters choice to follow our Savior, and that from that day on she would have the Holy Ghost to guide, support, lead and comfort her. Watching someone that you teach, learn to love, and someone that you want to progress in the gospel is incredible. The feeling is indescribable.
2. Seeing how many members and people love your investigator is also amazing! Valerie became friends with the people in our ward and that's how she found the gospel. She sometimes would even set up our member present lessons! Isn't that cool? She made sure that in her program everyone that maybe had affected her in some way was a part of it. I challenge everyone to become involved in doing missionary work. Have the missionaries over for dinner, give them referalls, help them move along The Lord's work. Without the members missionaries really can't do that much. Valerie was a great example of this.
3.I have learned so much about the Atonement from teaching Valerie. she has shown to me the exact example of having real intent to follow Jesus Christ. She has grown to love the small and simple things, like praying and reading the scriptures and has helped me understand even more why they are so important. She also has taught me that everyone is important. Val has had a lot of really hard things in her life but to see here decide to follow her Savior Jesus Christ and enter the water of baptism and receive the gift of the holy ghost has been a moment that I won't soon forget. You know those chills that people talk about? Yeah, I had them the entire day.
I want to testify to you all that this gospel is true. After the baptism we taught one of our recent converts about the gospel of Jesus Christ, Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end. We are mostly all on enduring to the end. Continue to endure, I promise you that it will all work out. Life was never meant to be easy, if it was easy we would never learn. In the Book of Mormon it tells us that the greatest missionaries ever were depressed and ready to turn back, but right when they felt that way they turned to the Lord and he strengthened them. I promise that if we pray to God with full purpose of Heart, and that we do what we know we should he will bless us.
The Book of Mormon is the word of God. It helps me help others every single day. It has changed my life. READ IT!!!! :)
Love Sister Chizzy! <3
Sis Chizzy and Sis Smith sent us a cute Thanksgiving card about "feasting on the word"!
Don't you all fret though, we are working hard and having a blast while doing so! This week has been awesome, in all honesty though being a missionary is just awesome. If any of you ever get the chance to go on a mission... DO IT and to all my missionary friends, keep working hard and bringing those people to Christ! :) You are all my inspiration! So here's some awesome updates from this week!
We had a 1/3 mission conference this week and it was fantastic! Our mission leaders are called of God that is for sure. Sister Smith and I and some of the other elders and sisters in our zone had the chance to sing because I have been given much in the middle of the meeting, it was really great. We even added my favorite vs to the end, "because of thy lives mission Lord, I too will serve, I'll leave the comfort of my home to teach thy word. I'll seek thy sheep who've gone astray and those who've never known the way, I will make thy work my work today." It brought the spirit into that meeting and helped us all I think realize again why we are here and why we are missionaries. The gospel is true!
That night we taught our investigator Hunter! He is awesome, he loves the whole Light of Christ idea and wants to have the Light of Christ more fully in his life. We have seen a change in his countenance already from him reading the Book of Mormon, that book is true, and it will change your life. If you don't believe me.. Well just do it! I promise it will change your life. It has changed mine. We also had dinner that night with the Bowmans, Brother Bowman has been a MTC president and also the president of the Peru mission! He is great, I love hearing his stories.
Wednesday all 3 of our appointments canceled on us but we did get to have one appointment with Bonnie it was all on prayer, I love the scripture Alma 37:37 one of my favorites. Prayer is the way we come closer to our Heavenly Father. So then we went door knocking in the snow for like 3 hours!! It was a blast! Sister Smith and I make everything fun, I am so grateful for her as my companion. She teaches me so much! I can't believe she goes home at the end of December! Crazy stuff! We had dinner with our recent converts the Cormiers that night, they are also feeding us thanksgiving! happy day!! :) It was super delicious and Kurt he has actually met Chuck Norris! Cool stuff right? Oh the people you meet on missions. It's great! :)
Thursday at dinner one of the members told me this quote, I love it. "You can be motivated by love or you can be motivated by fear, you choose." That is something to really live by. It's amazing how much love our Heavenly Father has for us. Look for the small and simple tender mercies he gives each day. That was mine for that day! We also got to help one of our investigators set up for Christmas!! What in the world?!? is it really Christmas time already?!?! WOW!
On Saturday we got to walk in a parade!!!! That was an adventure! :) It was super douper fun! We are having this super cool nativity exhibit in a couple weeks so we got to pass our invitations and tootsie rolls for that! :) People were super nice and it was fun to be able to walk and invite people to come to the Nativity, everyone is getting super excited about it! It's going to be great! :)
Sunday was amazing as always. I learned a lot about reverence and also about how we must always stand in holy places. As we do the small and simple things we will be closer to our Savior Jesus Christ. I love this gospel. I know it's true. Life is good! :) I hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving and that you always remember to be grateful! :)
Love Sister Jenica Chisholm! <3
This is us at the parade! :)
The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway!!!!!
So in this weeks news, with Valerie things are going well there! We are now teaching her the new member lessons which is great! It's hard cuz all of our numbers went down but hey I am so glad she is baptized! The elders also had a baptism this week and that was really neat too! I played the piano! I love the piano, man it's like my release every time I get to play I LOVE it! Tell the kids they better keep playing because it's like the best talent ever, especially as a missionary!
This week we had an awesome 1/3 mission training that was so GREAT!! We sat in the chapel from 9-4 and to be honest I never thought I would love a meeting so much I learned so much and now it's all about applying it to my everyday missionary life which has been going pretty well! :) Here's some highlights from it..
My favorite part of our whole meeting was when we had a talk about being excellent, Heavenly Father didn't call us to be just great he called us to be excellent. Which I loved that, so then he actually had some missionaries read the scripture in 3 nephi 5:13 out loud, I had the chance to read it and it hit my heart so strongly. I am a representative of Jesus Christ and I am here to do his work. I loved it so much. Being a missionary is great, I am not perfect nor will I ever be but I am doing my best to become the type of missionary Heavenly Father wants me to be, that's all he asks!
So on Wednesday it was FREEZING!! It snowed all day long, like literally all day, and it was like 17 degrees all day, we had 3 appointments and they all fell through so what did we do? We went door knocking! :) So we were out door knocking and the first two doors we knocked on both people told us that our church is completely false and that prophets aren't real and that there isn't such thing as a book of Mormon, talk about anti.. but as missionaries all we can do is testify and so that's exactly what happened. It was amazing, I testified that I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God and also that Joseph Smith was a prophet. My testimony grows everyday as people anti what I know with all my heart to be true. It's so important to stand up for what we believe in. That day was actually one of my favorites this week, we didn't see tons of success but it's always great to talk to people and to share my testimony. Someone will be ready, people are prepared everywhere, we are here to harvest the seeds that have already been planted! :)
Have a great week and remember to be grateful!
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