Family,

Halloween is coming up this week and I will have to say I am excited. Holidays on the mission are the BEST! Last sat. we had the funnest Halloween party I have ever been too. It was our ward party and around 300 people showed up. We had a DJ, costumes, chili cook off, candy, investigators, and even a haunted house!

This week a sweet girl named, Kenya was baptized in the American Lake Ward. We met Kenya about 4 weeks ago during conference sessions. Sister Grenfell and I went outside tracting for about 45min and while we were walking around that is when we met her. She said she was interested, but she was in a hurry on her way to the library. We switched info and went on our way. We tried calling her a couple times during the week and no answer.

A few days later while talking the the American Lake Elders we found out they were teaching a girl named, Kenya! Her phone had gotten shut off for a few days and that is why we couldn't contact her. The brilliant girl she is (literally) she went on mormon.org and requested missionaries. Well sadly she was not in our area, but she was great and always wanted us to be involved in everything she was learning. :) She is so sweet. I am grateful she now has a ward family of her own. Her mom will be deployed to Afghanistan in a few weeks for a year and she will be left alone.

This Sunday at church was amazing. Steilacoom I feel like is pretty much run by recent converts. I looked over during sacrament and every person who was preparing it were all recent converts of a year :) Then the three speakers in sacrament were also returning less actives and a recent convert. It was great to see that the Gospel of Jesus Christ really does bless and change lives. Would they have lived a good life without it? Sure, but now they are living the best way of life. They don't just see this life as a part of there day anymore, they live to prepare for eternity.

This morning I was re-reading a talk that changed the course of my life, while on my mission.. It is called , "sufficient to save us" by, Brad Wilcox. He talks a lot of about grace and what that is. I always taught the definition of grace, was after all we can do, Christ will fill in the rest. But what if were not even doing all we can? That is hard and takes a lot off effort.

He teaches us that, "Jesus Christ doesn't make up the difference, He makes all the difference." Jesus Christ filled the WHOLE space. He paid our debt in full. He didn't pay just a few coins. He paid it all. He explains, "fulfilling Christ's requirements is like paying a mortgage instead of rent or like making deposits in a savings account instead of paying off a debt. You will still have to hand it over every month, but it's for a totally different reason."

"The repentant sinner must suffer for his sins, but his suffering has a different purpose than punishment or payment. It's purpose is CHANGE!"

"WE ARE NOT EARNING HEAVEN, WE ARE LEARNING HEAVEN"

How grateful I am so know that Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father love us enough to help us change, to help us learn and struggle, so we can learn valuable lesson that will prepare us to live with them again. So, when we are asked to do hard things, DO THEM! When you don't want to do it, DO IT ANYWAY. I have learned that it usually isn't the big things he asks of us to change. It is the small things. Loving more, softening your heart, giving up your pride, serving.......but also found out that those small things feel at time like mountains. The scripture in Ether (12:27) really came alive to me for the first time in my life.

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

I love you all and hope you remember to always be a missionary :D

Happy Halloween

Sister Phillips 

 

 

Nín hǎo (hello in mandarin)

 

Yes, I am speaking Chinese now! We are teaching a young man from China and he has been teaching us a little Chinese. Sometimes through out the day Sister Grenfell and I think it necessary to speak in our own Asian language. haha. Its entertaining!

 

Sister Grenfell and I have been working really hard and have had seen many blessing come this week. One of them is with a young 15 yr. old girl who we are teaching, her name is Tierra. I have talked about her a little before, but this week we were able to actually start teaching her solid lessons. On Wednesday she invited us over to her home to teach her, which was huge because her mom has not been the most convenient with all of this. We did talk to her mom for maybe a min. but hey-it was a  min that hopefully she got to see we were normal! During the lesson we invited her to be baptized and she got the biggest smile on her face. She has been going to seminary every morning, she goes to youth night, and attends church..ALL ON HER OWN! She is a special girl and I feel like I really connect with her. We are really praying that her mom will soften her heart and allow Tierra to make this next step of baptism. Pray for her!!

 

Su is the guy from China. He is the coolest Asian ever-besides Peter, but he is a close second. We met with Su on Tues. and when we met him he had a giant bag of Kit-Kat bars. He gave them to us and told us to give them to the kids at church. ha ha. It was great and plus he didn't like candy, but It was the thought that count!

 

Su comes from a Buddhist background, so a belief in God or Jesus Christ was never something taught to him. I personally have never taught anyone who had no basic belief in who God was. He had a basic knowledge of what Christians thought of him, but he didn't know how he related to us personally. Su speaks okay English, but we were trying to find someone in our ward who could help him understand a little better. Someone spoke every other language in our ward, but no mandarin. We went to Anderson Island Friday night to have dinner with our branch pres. and some members and a new family who just moved onto the Island speaks mandarin...yay!! Brother Checkitts was sooo excited. It worked out perfectly.

 

 We taught him Sunday after stake conf. Lesson 1, the Restoration with brother Checkitts and they instantly hit it off. He had read 3 Ne. 11 in the Book of Mormon and we asked him to share with us what he thought. He said he wanted to understand more about Jesus Christ and that he had a calm feeling while reading the book :) This guy is so prepared, when we share with him the truth you see it click with him. I have LOVED seeing him feel the spirit and recognizing it for himself.

 

It only strengthens my testimony to know that we are not the teachers. We are sent here to preach the gospel and the spirit is the teacher that can work through his servants. I know that the Book of Mormon can bring that special spirit to touch the hearts of people who are truly seeking truth. I know The Book of Mormon is the most powerful source of conversion that we can use to strengthen our own testimonies. 

 

We found out this week that we can actually proselyte of Anderson Island. The sisters in the past have all told us, "No Tracting", so we never thought we could do it. But we asked the members again and they actually went and asked the Island board people and they said we could :) I feel like we get to open a new area because this island has almost 1000 people on it and 800 doors that have not been knocked on for TWO YEARS!!!! This Thurs. we are spending the whole day there and are going to give these islanders a chance to hear the restored gospel :) Lets hope it doesn't rain!!  

 

This week was stake conf. We got a new stake presidency in the Lakewood stake. It was AMAZING. Elder Gay came and gave on the the most powerful talks I have ever heard. He spoke in General Conf. about "would you sell your soul for a nickel". They really focused on the temple and evaluating our personal worthiness before the Lord. He repeated the quote from president Kimball, " If you understood the ordinances of the temple, you would crawl on your hands and knees to get there." Get to the temple, after he spoke it was 9:20pm and Sister Grenfell and I wanted to go scream on the mountain tops about the Restored Gospel. It was that moving!!

 

I know that each of us have been prepared to carry forth this work-NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE. The Lord will lead you to where you need to be. This was decided long before we came to earth. As we prepare ourselves and seek to do the Lords will we can stand confident to know that we are doing what the Lord would have us do. I know this to be true.

 

I love you all,

Sister Phillips 

Oh yes I forgot to tell you something IMPORTANT!

The Varners from Olympia went to the temple on Saturday. They got baptized a day before I got there. I had worked with them for 6 months and baptized there mom Lori. I couldn't go because I wasn't the sister who baptized them, but Eichenmiller kept me up to date on everything and then we got permission for them to come to Lakewood and see me after. It was so special!! 

This day....God Won!

Where do I even start.....

Well I feel sooo much better this Monday and I can actually type correctly. Fall is here and little Steilacoom is so beautiful.

We witnessed one of the greatest miracles this week and I will begin to try to tell you a smidge part of it. Emails just do not do enough!

Do you remember little Ben and Sid the brothers we are teaching?

They were on date for baptism on Friday and the whole week we were over there probably everyday preparing them and making sure the little details were worked out with the family and such. Thursday we took them to the church and tried on there baptism suits and taught them more about the holy ghost that they would receive on Sunday. The cool thing was that there mom came. Their mom, Brenda has been less active most of her life and had a hard time coming into church buildings, but she did it! She felt comfortable and that prepped her for there baptism the next day.

Friday:

Sister Grenfell and I both felt impressed that we should fast for them on the day of there baptism. So what happens? All day Friday we both had an odd feeling, but kept shrugging it off because we had just checked on them the night before and everything was good to go. We also didn't want to admit it because we wanted to have "Faith" so not admitting it would make it seem we were being more faithful?! haha.We couldn't quiet figure out what was going.

Around 3:30 pm we are outside knocking on doors and we get a text from Brenda that says, "The boys dad just passed out, we might not be able to have the baptism tonight." What? We rushed over to there house and Brenda was gone, so we got a little bit of the story from there sister. She told us that he went to pick sid up from school and he just passed out, so Brenda went to go pick up sid. There dad is from Elma, which is about an hour away. Brenda was not texting us back for a while, so we weren't sure what to do? Do we just cancel or wait?

The only thing we knew to do at the time was to pray. Sister Grenfell and I prayed so earnestly that we knew that whatever happened, it was in God's hands and we would be ready to do whatever he placed before us.

We headed back to Brenda's and we ran into her sister to receive the news that there dad just passed away. He had a massive heart attack right in front of Sid. My heart was shattered for this family. We hurried over to tell the Stower's (there neighbors who brought them to the church and mom in primary president) and when we told them the news instantly they thought to pray. We gathered around in a circle with a big Samoan family and heard a recently returning member give one of the most heart felt, faith filled, sincere prayers I have ever heard.

Tati (the mom) said, "they need food", so she gave us all chores and left to the grocery store. One her way there she heard the spirit whisper to her, "Tati go home", so she turned her car around and came home. When she got home she heard the spirit again whisper to her, "go out the front door". This was an unusual thing because this family never used there front door. But as soon as she walked out, she saw little Ben just receive the news from his mom that his Dad had passed away. Ben ran into Tati's arms and cried. She walked over to there home and as she was talking to the mom the spirit whispered to her again, "Ask them if they still want to be baptized." She thought, no way, there is no way. Again the spirit said the same thing. Tati asked them, "do you guys still want to be baptized tonight?" Brenda said no probably not tonight, but Ben spoke up an said, "Yes, we need to." Then little Sid came around the corner not knowing what they were talking about and said with a calmness, "Ben-we still need to be baptized tonight, Dad wants us to do this."

As soon as they said that we walked up to  there door and felt this amazing spirit that was present. Then all the sudden Tati says, "Sisters does 7 pm work?" 7 pm? Yes 7 pm for the baptism? What? We were floored. I looked at Brenda and she had a smile on her face-she had this sense of hope about her. She said, if this is what the boys want, lets do it! Sister Grenfell and I frantically hurried and got everything back together. About 30 min ago we had just called and texted everyone that it was cancelled and then we had to call and text everyone again telling them its back on. It was so great, NO-it was a MIRACLE!!!! There were around 40-50 people there from the ward that changed there schedules and all came to support Ben and Sid. We had a full house! 

It was a bitter sweet baptism. The boys were so confident that this is what they needed to do. They showed me what Childlike faith was that night. They could have chosen to be bitter toward God about loosing there Dad, but instead they chose to draw closer to Him. Just the night before we had taught them the rest of the Plan of Salvation. They remembered it. They remembered that if they lived faithfully and made and lived worthy to their covenants or promises through baptism, they would see there Dad again!

 

There wasn't a dry eye during there baptism. Tati gave a very inspiring talk about the baptism and at the end of the talk she said, "TODAY, THIS DAY....GOD WON!" I get so emotional even telling this story because God truly was in EVERYTHING that day. This all happened because we listened to the small promptings of the spirit. That to me was one fo the greatest miracles that I saw that day, following the spirit. And because of it, two boy's lives were changed forever and now there mom is coming back to church :)

 

I know the Gospel is True. I know that God loves and watches over his children. Don't forget to use the special gift of the Holy Ghost that we have been given to guide our lives. We can put our full trust in him and when we do, everything works out for our good and our testimony is strengthened through the power of Christ!

I love you all, Sister Phillips 

Family & Friends,

First and foremost, I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THE ANNOUNCEMENT PRESIDENT MONSON
MADE AT CONFERANCE!!! Can you believe that? I think will be a great change
and will hasten the work even more around the world. I'm sure this will
also higher the percentage of sisters that serve now :D

This is going to be a short email because I feel like I am on my death bed.
This morning I woke up with a really bad stomach ache and didn't really
think much until It didn't go away :( I must have a flu bug or something,
but whatever it is it's not fun. I have been throwing up all morning and
every ounce of water I had in me I think is emptied out.

Last night we ate a big dinner at our ward mission leaders home and they
had us try these clams they just caught and promised us were top quality.
Well they  weren't to bad, but they weren't good either. I woke up this
morning feeling like the clams were swimming around in my stomach. Lets
just say I will never eat slimy, chewy, fishy food again.

This week Sister Grenfell and I have been working really hard. We have been
tracting at least four hours a day on top of our appt. with investigators.
We are trying to find new people we can start teaching. It's been beautiful
weather here as well. They said it isn't going to start getting to cold or
rainy until the end of Oct. Hooray! I feel like I haven't seen rain for at
least three months.

We decided to go check up on a former investigator named Kevin. He
lives  in the coolest/ crazies place I have ever seen. It's a house that a
man constructed into a bunch of little studio appt. for temporary army
soldiers , its actually really nice and over looks the sound. We knocked on
the door and Kevin was home! He said that we came at perfect timing and
that he had just started to pray again and think about coming back to
church. He also has a new neighbor that just moved in and he is MORMON and
very active in the church!!  Kevin ended up coming to conference on Sunday
and he also brought a friend with him named, Louie! Louie is here temporary
with the army, his family lives in San Antonio, TX and will be going home
in November. But while they were listening to c conference I had a big
prayer in my heart that something that was said would prick there heart and
stir them up to remembrance. After conference they both asked us when the
next time we could meet, because they had many questions. We then invited
them over for dinner at the McCormick's and they both accepted. It was a
great night. We had a lot of good conversation and a very powerful message
at the end. We are excited to see where Kevin and Louie go and are excited
to teach them about the Restoration of the Gospel!

This week we also got to go to Anderson Island and I rode my very first
fairy-that I remember anyway. There is a little branch of about twenty
members that live there, but the hard thing is  there is no proselyting. So
the only work we can do is through members, and that is sparse as well.
One of the members invited us to come to the Thurs. girls craft day  and of
course Sister Grenfell and I jumped all over that. We learned how to
crochet a dish cloth.

Well I am going to pass out of the computer. But i love you all
Sister Phillips

FAREWELL THE BLESSED LAND OF TACOMA!

Good Morning,

I can't believe I'm not in Tacoma anymore-I just went a hop and skip away to the land of Lakewood. I am in the Steilacoom ward and it is a very beautiful area. SO different from my last, but I think I will really like it here. The ward seems to be on top of most things and we just got a new bishop, RS pres, and Elders quorum pres. last week. So I'm not the only new one :)

We live in a cute apt. that is small but perfect. While we were running this morning we even found a new decoration to put in it....a Mitt Romney campaign sign that was laying on our running path, he he. We ran with it in our arms the whole way home and some people in our ward were on their way to school and were all honking at us, it was fun!

I was a little nervous to leave Tacoma because my transition from Olympia to Tacoma was really hard for me. It was almost like a breaking up from a boy, but even worse ha ha. The Lord blessed me with a lot of peace this week and the transition was great. I love this place, I love the people, and the little town of Steilacoom is so cute. You can see McNeil Island where the big prison is for high security people and Anderson Island, which we are over!! We will only go there once a month because they have a really small branch and it is closed off to all proselytizing...boo!

The first day I came to Steilacoom I was hit really hard with a 24 hour bug. My throat swelled up really big and I could hardly swallow, I had really odd stomach pains, I was light headed and had hot and cold spells. I tried so hard to keep going because the Lord always blesses us with a miracle if you don't give up. We went to our six o'clock appt. with this amazing 15yr. old girl named Tiarra. I could not teach at all, in fact I laid my head on the table and sat there while my new comp. taught the whole Restoration :( At the end of the lesson we asked Tierra to say our closing prayer. She said the most heart felt prayers I have heard that almost brought me to tears. She pleaded with Heavenly Father to please help Sister Phillips get better, so she can continue finding people who will hear your word. Even though I was miserable my heart was swelling inside of me and was very humbled my this little girls prayer to her

Then as soon as we were about to leave the zone leaders pulled into our church because they had a meeting that just cancelled. They asked me if they could give me a blessing and I willingly accepted!

The next morning my throat was healed and I felt a much better, still weak, but good enough that I could work. The bad thing was that Sister Grenfell woke up Sick. :( So all this week we have been taking care of each other and pushing each other along! Nothing better to to help our comp unity!!

We also had two baptisms this week, Niki and Megan Malm. This family is amazing. They truly are who the Lord calls the elect. She has had a friend in the church for over 5 years. Niki always would make jokes and fun at her because she was Mormon, but little did she know that all of those small conversations about the church were preparing her heart. They are moving to Tennessee because her husband is in the army, but they are already planning on members helping them move it out there :) So, never think that the small and simple things we do to share the gospel are pointless. Niki is living proof that they are not. The gospel has changed her life forever and now she will be eternally blessed with her family because her friend never gave up on her!

  I love you all and most of all I love my Savior Jesus Christ. Don't forget about conference this weekend. We have a very special opportunity for the Lord to speak personally to us through a prophet of God.

Scripture 3 Nephi 12:1And it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words unto Nephi, and to those who had been called, (Now the number of them who had been called, and received power and authority to baptize, was twelve) And behold, he stretched forth his hand unto the multitude, and cried unto them, saying: Blessed are ye if ye shall give heed unto the words of these twelve whom I have chosen...

I love you,
Sister Phillips