OLYMPIA!!!!!!!!

Yes.....I get to stay in Olympia for another 6 weeks!

I have been so happy this week, even though there has been A LOT of road blocks-miracles are happening all over the place and I can't help but shake my head and keep smiling!

I told Pres. Weaver to pllleeeease keep me here and I was pretty sure I was staying because I was still training Sis. Brown. I think Sis. Brown was going to have a heart attack if she left, so good thing she is staying as well. She doesn't do good with change! I am so grateful I get to stay and to hopefully see our hard work pay off and see the people we are teaching progress to baptism! Please oh please oh please!!!

This week has been crazy busy! I am grateful for the work we are blessed to have and the people we have to teach.
Denisse and Rodney (denisse's husband) came to church on Sunday. I was so excited. Rodney has told us before he would come and he never came. We had been meeting with them on wed. nights because it was good for the daughter but bad for our fellowship because that was 3rd wards youth night. Anyway-we finally met on Friday and Bro and Sis. Rose came with us. Rodney and Bro. Rose connected so well and It was a reminder to me how IMPORTANT fellowship is. Because of that Rodney came to church and then got to meet so many other people. Denisse will be getting baptized in a couple weeks. we are waiting for her son to fly home from school during his spring break so he can be here :D

Peter......
He is so awesome. He calls us his angels from heaven! I am so proud of peter. He works 30-40 min away from Olympia in a town called centrailia. He had an appt. after work which was at 1 (church was at 1) therefore he couldn't make it to church. Well he found out that it was moved to 3:30 so what did he do? He went and found the church in centrailia and went to church there. He is so awesome. He text us and said he remembered us teaching him how important church was so we decided to go. :) We also through combined ward effort found Peter perfect fellowship as well.

We are still working with the Sanvigs and many others! I am so grateful for a loving heavenly father who is so aware and in tune with our lives. We pray for fellowship and many other things and to my mind it doesn't make sense, but to my surprise it turns out to be just perfect! Why do we question the Lord so much? One day I think I will get the hang of it...probably not though! I have been thinking a lot about our divine roll in this world and how truly every single person in this world came down here with a purpose. I love the scripture in Romans 8:16-17 "The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs;heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer WITH him, that we may be also glorified TOGETHER." I am so grateful that we have the knowledge that we can be glorified even as our Savior Jesus Christ and not just be "oblivious" after we die.Yes-WE HAVE A ROLE IN THIS WORLD! What is it? To "come unto Christ" by Faith, Repentance, Baptism, RECEIVING the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End or "The Gospel". We all have a divine purpose! And as we go through those dang trials, just be grateful and know that you have a loving Heavenly Father who is molding you and preparing you to be ready to return back to Him.

Thank you all for all your love and support!
God Bless!
Sister Phillips

Love and Happiness in My Heart

I truly have so much love and happiness in my heart right now. I am so
touched by the overwhelming of Love that has enveloped me right now.I want to
let you all know how much I love this Gospel. In our training last week we were
asked what is the Gospel??? We Preach His Gospel, but what exactly is it?

It is
1. Faith

2. Repentance

3. Baptizm (sacrament after baptizm)

4. Gift of the Holy Ghost and

5. Enduring to the End

That is the Gospel in which Jesus Christ wants us to spead to the entire world. So if we will just focus our lives of these 5 principles and always "remember" the promises we made-we will always be growing in our testimonies and our roots will be "rooted deep". I love preaching His
Gospel, it has brought so many blessing and miracles in my lfie that I know I would have never been able to experience otherwise.

This week Sister Brown and I have been so blessed with our investigators.
They are all struggling in there own way, but they are progressing and that is
what matters. Lori White was baptized on Saturday. It was a really neat
experience. She has been waiting patiently for a very long time for that day to
finally come. Can you believe transfers is next week already? It has gone by so
fast. I already begged president to keep here in olympia for at leaset 1 more
transfer!!!!!!

We went and did service at the Sanvigs home on saturday in the rain and we were
drenched as you can tell :/

I love you all so much,
Your in my prayers,
love,
Sister Phillips

P.S. Sorry so short!

Oh and I had the BEST Valentines Day EVER!!!!!

Lets
just say I have the best family and friends in the world

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Happy Valentines Day!

Can you believe we are half way through February???? It has flown by!

Well this last week was probably one of the busiest weeks. Sister Brown and I were running around like chickens with our heads cut off from appointment to appointment. We truly have been so blessed by the Lord. I told Sister Brown we need to start praying for members we can go ask for referrals from and she said, "What, we can't do that! I don't think I can handle anymore" lol She is a goof! She def. got thrown in during a really busy time. The rain is back officially :( The weather here plays mind games on you and I don't like it. But it is all worth is when the sun finally does come out, it is sooooo beautiful!

This week we had stake conference and Elder Brinkerhoff from the 70 came and spoke to us. He is a really neat man. He had a meeting before the conference started with all the Recent converts, less actives coming back to activity and all investigators. He had some people stand up and bear there testimony and then our stake pres. and himself shared there testimonies as well. It was a very powerful meeting. How grateful I was though to be able to have some of our investigators come and be apart of that and to feel of the pure, undeniable spirit. Right stake conf. on Sunday was going to start I was standing my the door greeting people. I was trying to stand as long as possible because my back has been bothering me and we were sitting on the hard chairs :/ But I saw this old man about 70yrs old and I shook his hand and told him it was nice to see him and asked him what ward he was in and so forth. Well after the meeting he came up to me with tears in his eyes and said, " young lady I want to thank you for greeting me earlier this morning. Today was the first day I have been back to church in over 20 years. Many people came up to me and shook my hand, but you were the only one who really meant it." He then told me the story of his life and said he should have came back a long time ago, but how grateful he was to know that a loving Father in Heaven was aware of him that day. Wow! I was overcome by the spirit. I had so much gratitude in my heart that I was in a place that the Lord could use me as a help to one of his children. I will never forget Bill Miller!

I encourage you all to look around you when you go to church on Sunday and even any meeting you attend. Go meet people who you have never seen before and tell them hello and you are happy they are there, reach your hand out to them, Because you never know if they could be a "Bill Miller". You never know the lives you can change by just being there friend!

At stake conference I heard this quote that caught my attention. Is starts:

"Never give up what you want most, for what you want in the moment."

I think about obedience when I hear that. As missionaries we are counseled to be obedient in all that we do. But what about in our everyday lives. When we are being obedient its not that we are blinded, but rather that we can see! Everything the Savior did was out of obedience to the Father. He understood the Love that our Father in Heaven had for his children. I think if we could see how much Love He has for all of us individually we would want to be obedient and like Pres. Uchtdorf said, "we would make Love our walk and our talk".

I want you all to know how much I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior Jesus Christ. I know that it is when we strive to love others, He then will pour out His love upon us. I know of that to be true with all my heart.

xoxoxox

I love you all,

Sister Phillips

Family,

This week in the beautiful city of Olympia has been a little bazaar! 50-60 degree weather ALL week and sunshine EVERYDAY!

You don't feel like you are in Washington at all. Maybe, this why so many people love it here? When the weather is good-it's really good. Sis. Brown and I even went tracting without coats on Saturday :D I guess its a nice little treat from our torture week from the ice storm. We are still doing "clean-up" a couple times a week. There are so many trees and tree branches that are still down and all over the place. If it was Christmas someone could make bank off the evergreen leaves to make wreaths lol! It's a mess. I will have to say that I don't' mind natural disasters. Especially ones that don't hurt anyone-this one was just inconvenient. But for 1. it opened peoples eyes to how prepared they were and 2. It gives members of the church and missionaries opportunities to do service. There were a few cool experiences that we had to people allowing us to help them clean up there yard. And no kidding they all came out with their wallets thinking they had to pay us :( sad. One old man that had some pretty bad damage was in tears with the help that he received. It was very heart warming and a good reminder of why we do service. It opens/softens peoples hearts to the love that there Heavenly Father has for each of them.

Besides that this week has been a zoo! I don't think I have had a busier week on my mission and poor sis. brown is trying so hard to keep up with it all. I try not to let her see me overwhelmed because I learned if she does then she gets really nervous, so I just keep that to myself now! :) It has been a lot of fun training. Its fun to remember how distraught I was when I first came out and how blind sided I was of how a mission was "really" to be. When new missionaries come out they think that they are going to have these instant connections with the people, they will be the greatest teacher, and convert everyone and anyone. Unfortunately that is not how it works. Just like anything in life you have to work at it and work hard for it. I have to remind Sister Brown that the enjoyment will come one day. She loves it here and loves her mission, but she is used to being a perfectionist and perfection will not come in a transfer on your mission. I still have no idea what I'm doing half the time haha! I have to remind her that it is when you learn to rely on the Lord in everything you do that he will change you through his grace and the atonement. I have this love for these people that is so natural and pure that I know could only come through Christ. I have learned that Grace is something that carries us everyday. It's not after all we do then grace saves us, its in everything we do.

Yesterday at church Radmilla (my serbian recent convert) all the sudden got really pale and said she couldn't breath. We were in RS and it was packed, but not really hot. We took her outside and she passed out and went totally stiff. I just broke down and started crying because I thought she was gone, it was so scary. I ran into the church and bro. Abbot, a doctor, was standing right there and came outside to help her. She finally came back to us and said she couldn't breath. After a few min. her color started coming back and her stubbornness and spunk then we knew she was going to be just fine.

Then the Sanvig family came to church!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And yes, that is how excited it truly was. I love this family way to much for some reason and when I saw them keep this commitment it was huge. And they loved it. Olivia and Noah (the kidos) both saw friends they knew horray!

We also started teaching a man named Peter. He was a referral from the elders. He says he feels like he is in his own apostasy right now and we came to give him the truth! He already knows the book of Mormon is the word of God because he feels how humble the people are. ahhh! Now why can't everyone see that?

Anyway, I am excited to teach these people. We def. can not do it without the Lord by outside. I need his help more than ever now and He always finds a way to assure me He is there!

And I promise you He will do that in every one's lives if we will just allow him too! I know the Book of Mormon is true and Jesus is real and I hope you have a wonderful week! Remember....Miracles happen everyday!

I love you all,

Sister Phillips