Hi Sweet Family!! And Friends!
I surely miss you and love you!
This week Helaman 5:12 came true for me! Sister Cannon and I literally felt the shafts in the whirlwind and mighty hail beating on us, trying to tear down our foundation of Jesus Christ and why we out here on a mission. Thankfully, I was born of goodly parents who helped me have a sure foundation of the Doctrine of Christ. 🙂 I shared a spiritual thought in District Meeting about how we are all like houses who need foundations. Heavenly Father is the only one who has the blueprint, so sometimes it’s frustrating when a wall is getting torn down and getting built differently when we thought the house was doing just fine before! 🙂 He is making our houses into temples! And we sometimes have leaky roofs, and other cracks (weaknesses) that are painful to fix! But thankfully, He gives us SO much comfort and help through Faith, Repentance, and covenants so that our foundation of our house never crumbles! 🙂
But I don’t really want to mention the bad things that happened! 🙂 I will start off with how blessed I am to be in the Oskaloosa Zone right now! We won a “friendly competition” to see which zones could find the most new investigators and our zone won! Yay! So we all got to travel together to the temple this week!! WHAT A NEAT EXPERIENCE AND BLESSING!!!!!!!! Sister Cannon and I were the only sisters with 20 Elders. It was really powerful to be there with President and Sister Jergensen for their last time at the temple. They took us out to Custard afterwards. I prayed really hard for a spiritual experience to happen while I was there and lots of them happened!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
We all got to go to the very top of the Nauvoo temple and touch the golden bell! Ahhh!! Neat huh?! We’re so blessed! And then when I got out of the temple and standing outside the Custard shop, I heard this familliar voice screaming, “SISTER TOBIAS!!! OH MY GOODNESS YOU’RE HERE!!!!!!!!” haha I turned my head and there is Sister Crespo running at me full speed ahead! She was the Relief Society President in the Peoria Zone! She said she heard me at the temple ( uh oh!) And she was so sad that I wasn’t there when she came out. But when she got into her car, she almost crashed trying to pull over fast enough to catch me before I left!! She said that she misses me and that people haven’t forgotten about me in Peoria. SHE WAS MY ANGEL CHEERING ME UP!!! Aww It was the cutest moment!! Heavenly Father definitely works through people to spread His love! 🙂
The next day we had exchanges and an amazing moment happened with this Less-Active lady from Mexico. Our exchange was with the Spanish Hermanas, so they could really understand and teach her. She opened up so much and told us that she doesn’t learn or feel like praying because she has so much hatred in her heart. We opened up the Book of Mormon, and she told us how she wants to be better and this book makes her feel better. 🙂 🙂 🙂 THAT IS SO TRUE PEOPLE!! So even if she is the only spanish person in our branch…being able to take the sacrament will help her feel the spirit that she so desperately needs right now!!! 🙂
Pella at the Park on Thursday Nights is so much fun! We get a lot of contacting done there! AND THIS WEEK WE FOUND “GOLDEN ROD!!!” He was sitting in a wheelchair, and he told us how he should be dead right now, but Heavenly Father kept him alive. We set up an appointment with members on Saturday and He loved the part of the message of the Restoration. HE CAME TO CHURCH ON SUNDAY!!! He’s so happy all of the time, despite having epilepsy and being paralyzed. We love him!! 🙂 🙂
Okay, Here’s a sad story now…an amazing District Leader in our Zone, named Elder Dallin Dutson was in a terrible car accident on Saturday night helping someone in our branch with their barn. They were T-boned by a truck going 50 mph and He was life-flighted to Des Moines. 🙁 His companion ended up in the hospital in Chariton, but He is doing fine. Two hours before this accident happened, our new mission president arrived! President Jensen!!!! So they spent the first 48 hours in the hospital with Him. Then when our Assistant to the President came in to see him, He fainted and got a concussion and ended up in the ER too!! haha ooo noo!!!
Yesterday Our zone got to go see him, and he didn’t open his eyes for anyone until Sister Cannon and I went in… He grabbed our hands and then gave us a thumbs up. We started talking to him and we wanted to bawl. He didn’t look anything like Himself! He has 3 huge gashes on his head and his brain is swollen. Everyone in our mission is praying for Him! Please keep him in your prayers. It’s a miracle he is still alive. We just love this Elder!
i WISH I HAD MORE TIME TO TELL YOU ALL THE MIRACLES AND HOW WONDERFUL OUR NEW MISSION PRESIDENT IS!!! HE IS SO ADORABLE! Yesterday’s Zone Conference was one of the best conferences ever! HE’S FUNNY, AND HE HAS THE WORD, “COMPASSIONATE” WRITTEN ALL OVER HIS FACE!!! iN His training, he was saying how he is getting old and one of his hairs fell out so he said, “Well, See ya in the resurrection!!”
We all got to bare a one minute testimony! Mine went kind of like this, “My name is Sister Stephanie Tobias and I LOVE being here right now to hear all of these incredible testimonies. I want to echo what everyone else has said! I LOVe Being a missionary!! The biggest blessing I have right now is the authority to call people to repentance! (I wasn’t expecting EVERYONE to laugh at that…;)but they did! haha) Because they get to feel the spirit so much more strongly in their life as they apply the atonement into their lives. There truly is nothing better than seeing that light spark up in someone’s eyes! 🙂 I love Jesus Christ and I’m constantly amazed at how much He forgives me for all of the horrible mistakes I’ve made. I know Heavenly Father loves me and He knows my heart. No matter how many times I’ve made mistakes, He continues to trust me! It blows my mind, but I know It happens.” 🙂
Anyways! I strongly encourage you to share a one minute testimony to someone you know this week! It will make their day so much more hopeful. Share the gospel with your friends-believers or not! They will feel nothing but love from you if you do it with the spirit. 🙂
I love you all so much and I’m SOOO grateful for this mission! This week was really dark at times, but the spirit always gave me light to help push me through! 🙂
Sister Tobias