Sister Cinci-Mattie: TENACITY!

Greetings from the Promise Land!!!

I have been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to email!! Free Holies! God is so real.

Justin is officially a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! His baptism was a little unique. haha!! The font has a tendency to leak water..... so it was a little low... Justin missed the tiled wall by a good centimeter! haha! I had this aweful visual of his head bursting opening and blood oozing... BUT he did it! His girlfriend's dad baptized him-- Jeanette and Justin are talking marriage. Every principle of the gospel directly relates to Sealing somehow... ;) it is so hilarious-- we literally choke on their sappiness. LOOOVE IT!! He shaved his beard for church and Jeanette bought him a white shirt-- He looked... MORMON! Woot woot!!

We also had our monthly Mission Leadership Council at the mission home this week! It was a tad overwhelming. Every training was on things that I personally needed to work on- which created lots of action items and Repentance! :)

Love these thoughts about Tenacity- How tenacious am I as an individual? Companionship? Council? etc. When do I bail out? If we bail before grace has occurred its too soon-- "Anytime I quit, I fail" When Moroni lost a city to the Lamanites he didn't fail- he kept moving, pushing until he saw grace. He never quit. President spoke of President Packer. He is suffering from the effects of childhood Polio. He is in a wheelchair at 89 year old. Yet he goes to work every. single. day. He may go home early or take a nap but he always works.

Being Tired is an attribute, its not something to be sympathetic about. If your not tired your not doing something right- you're not magnifying what you have been given. He taught us that this will never change- we will be exhausted until the day we die and then the real work starts! Ha ha! there is no rest even in the Spirit world- too much to accomplish! My Tenacity affects the Salvation of others. Every account in the scriptures where the people were delivered from some type of danger/hardship came from tenacity.

Don't fall apart when the problems come. It's time for a miracle!! Ammon when he was protecting the herds of the king. He co-workers cried and fled when the enemy came and what did Ammon say "YAY! This is awesome! Watch this!" (swing swing. chop chop. fling... pow!) Every problem is an opportunity to invoke God's grace.

Remember begging doesn't move people. We must pray and study to teach with God's convincing power. SO when others heard- they cannot say it isn't true. They cannot disbelieve our words.

Speaking of grace.... we totally forgot to make breakfast for investigators (which is a big no no in the mission esp. for leadership) so right after our ward coordination meeting at our WML's house we slipped home (15 minutes til Ward Council begins) to get something together. ORANGES! we had oranges... sliced them up. Ran over to our only potential church attendee.... knock knock. Door opens.

Sister watts: Hey Ashley... uh... we brought you oranges. Do you like oranges?

Ashley: No.

Sister Watts: Oh wow. well, does your family like oranges?

Ashley: I don't know.

Sister Watts: Well, these are for you! Shove toward her general direction* Wanna come to church today?

Yeah. She didn't come. and she cancelled her appointment Sunday evening.

Moral of the story: Stick with Cinamon rolls.

BUT heres the grace-- after another 2 hrs of meetings we walk into Sacrament meeting late awaiting zero investigators at church. We look to the left (of the gigantic cross in the from of the sanctuary) and see JOE!!!! Ahsley brought her husband! It turned out we had 3 at church. Yeah. All we have to do it our best. Do all in our power to make things happen and God fills in the rest.

We were meeting with our amazingly awesome brothers (aka Zone Leaders) to plan outour Zone meeting after church and Bishop came in and taught us life changing doctrines. God is so good- he surrounds us with people who will teach us the very thing God wants us to hear. (we didn't get to plan but we did get edified from the Spirit... couldn't pass that up) He taught: Powerful Leaders come from understanding the Atonement. We must pray to see God's heart-- once we accept who we are in God's eyes we will be powerful beyond measure. We believe in Jesus but do we Believe Jesus? Once we accept who we are, we will have greater desire to work and serve. We will be tenacious! We must rediscover our testimony every single day. (manna during the Exodus)

I love you so much family! Pray for our area-- we dropped all our investigators this week and baptized our only progress investigator. Whenever problems arise-- it is time for a miracle!!! Never loose sight of who you are and what we are here to accomplish!

Love

Sister Watts