9/16/19 "Oh, a boat! I didn't think about boats!"

Wow, so many miracles this week! 

The first miracle for me was at Zone Conference, when Sister Ensign talked to us about EXACTLY what I'd been praying to learn. I couldn't help but tear up after as I was thanking her for it, because there could have been no way that her talk could have been so perfectly made for me unless my Heavenly Father knew what I needed and helped make that possible.

The work has felt a little stagnant the last couple of weeks and we've been trying desperately to figure out how to better work with members or help those we're teaching progress or find more people to teach and it's felt like nothing has been working. But this week we had a breakthrough in all of those areas!

Saturday was Social Media Splits. That means we got to have members sign up to have us do service or go teaching with them and then they post about it online to show their friends and family members what Missionaries do. We got to meet and get to know members so much more, and it was such a blessing to us because we were able to learn of so many more ways that we can offer service to the members in our ward and strengthen our relationship with them. Our day was so booked that we didn't even get a break for lunch! The next miracle happened when one social media split felt through and we finally got to go home and take a break when I felt like I might pass out. Non-stop service is hard, but it's worth it!

Our next breakthrough was only a slight break though, but it was with the people we're teaching! Brittney and Jen are the best and they both told us they feel like they're actually getting stuff out of The Book of Mormon and wanting to read rather than just reading to get through the chapter. We were so excited to hear, because The Book of Mormon is such a blessing. And later, when having a lesson with Paul he finally brought up how he was feeling that gave us a clearer understanding of why he keeps pushing off baptism! It's been about two months of us feeling lost and confused with no idea of what was stopping him. But we finally got a good conversation in and have an idea of what lessons to give in the future to help him better progress towards baptism!

As for being unable to find new people to teach, we got an amazing referral this week! Alice referred herself because she recently made a lot of changes in her life and lost a lot of friends because of it so she wanted Missionaries to come by because she needs to be surrounded by good Christian people. She's the sweetest lady and super open to everything we had to say and to reading The Book of Mormon. At one point she mentioned "I just don't get how [the people in The Book of Mormon] got to America if they didn't have planes. Did they just walk across the water?" and when we explained Nephi being commanded to build a boat she laughed and couldn't stop talking about boats. "Oh, a boat! I didn't think about boats! Boats existed back then." 

Ultimately, it was a really great week as far as the work goes. I'm so grateful for my Heavenly Father and all the help he's given me this last week 

I love Alma 37:6

"...by small and simple things are great things brought to pass..."

I know that even by just improving in small ways we can become so much greater over time. We don't have to be perfect all at once. It's the small things that really matter!

Hope y'all have a great week!

Love, Sister Bliss

Pictures!

*lots of pictures of us making cookies, cards and mats for Social Media Splits on Saturday. I had fun getting to use the small amount of calligraphy I started learning right before my mission for the cards we made.

*Sister Christensen and I in front of the Little Miami River, which goes into the Ohio River. Halfway through the river is where our area ends.

*And my favorite picture is one I didn't even take, but that one of the Elders sent us all after Zone Conference. As part of one of the trainings, the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders used a story from The Book of Mormon as an example. So they had our mission president, President Ensign, read it to us from the children's Book of Mormon as a bedtime story.