Hi mom and dad and everyone!
Congratulations to Sam on his mission call! That is so neat. And I'm stoked to hear about Alice! Where is Brielle headed?
I'm learning that the real goal of a mission (and of life in general) is to have your heart changed. We can change our actions all we want, but the real goal is to have our hearts changed through Jesus Christ. It's a lifelong pursuit and I'm just experiencing little bits of it here.
This week Sestra Kanell and I are trying to balance the sadness and frustration we feel when people that we love choose to walk away from something that we know will bring them greater joy and peace than anything else with having positive and hopeful attitudes as we go about this work. I'm trying to just have joy in Jesus Christ and not let other people's agency and choices bring me down. It's hard!
We had a miracle along the river this week. We had one of our appointments fall through, so we went contacting along the river. We began talking with someone who went on to tell us that they had sat on that bench so many times and would always see the missionaries and always wanted to talk to them, but the missionaries had merely said hello. Someone had been WANTING to talk with us! We shared about God's plan for his children, that God loves us and that we matter to him. That's true for every single one of us. It was so neat to see how our Heavenly Father will guide and direct each of us to be his hands in serving one another. He really wants to bless us. He really wants to comfort us. He really wants to help us to feel his love. And if we listen to the spirit - feelings and thoughts in our minds and hearts which lead us to do good - Heavenly Father will use each of us to lift those around us. You are my hands.
I believe in a God who works miracles! I see miracles every day here and I'm just now realizing that I had them every day of my life before the mission as well. I just didn't open my eyes to see them. Our Heavenly Father loves us so much and I know that he wants to bless us. Choose to have a grateful heart and to see the miracles that God works in your life. Choose to recognize God's love for you.
Great idea about Find your Family classes, mom! I actually had a similar idea. There's only one computer in the church, so that doesn't really work for a group of people. What we're trying to figure out is whether or not we could reserve the computer room in the library for an hour a week to have a family history class! I’m crossing my fingers that the library will allow it.
Please pray for those we find that will be able to recognize that The Book of Mormon is the word of God. That it is evidence that God loves his children.
We are really working to find more people to teach.
Please pray that I will have the Gift of Tongues and that I will begin to understand more of what people are saying and that I will have courage to speak.
Sister Higley is coming from Ljubljana and she's spent her entire mission in Croatia so far, so she speaks about as much Slovene as I do, but I still believe that the Lord can and will work miracles.
We just learned that we have district conference, so we'll be in Ljubljana. We'll be there a LOT this week actually. Wednesday is zone conference in Ljubljana. then we're going on exchanges, so S. Kanell will be in Ljubljana for a few days. Then we have district (district of Slovenia, not mission district) in Ljubljana.
I love you both!
Sestra Brown
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