#lighttheworld - December 3, 2018

Hey everyone! This week was awesome! Some highlights include: exchanges, tea parties, scooping horse poop, an epic Christmas video, getting chased down by big guard dogs, and the Christmas devotional! I want to share a quick tender mercy with you all! On Tuesday, we were on exchanges with the Parkland sisters. I went with cute Sister Lamb who is on her first transfer! She has such a huge amount of faith and we had tons of fun together. But anyway, we had a lesson scheduled later and had planned to knock doors on a college campus before then. When we pulled up to the campus, we typed in the address for our lesson and saw that we would need to leave in 8 minutes!! Ahhh! So we hurried and said a prayer went to go talk to people for 8 minutes! It was rainy and cold and we noticed a girl walking by herself, so we sped up to talk to her. She was super elect and we were able to share the Book of Mormon with her and set up another time to meet! It was awesome, she was literally the first person we talked to! After that, our 8 minutes was almost up so we started heading back to the car, but decided to wait for the other sisters to get back. As we were waiting, some other guys walked up and we were able to teach them the whole Restoration! It turns out they're on the soccer team and they're really cool! It was amazing that when we had the desire to be diligent and use every minute that we could to share the gospel, God provided us with people to share it with! We were able to find 3 new investigators in 8 minutes! President Leishman had us read a BYU speech last week called, "Thoughts about Thoughts" by Dean L. Larsen and it was amazing! I would like to share a couple quotes: "Some modern behaviorists have indicated that the human thought process is very much like the operation of a computer where the conscious and subconscious mind is concerned. The input which we take into that process has much to do with the output in terms of attitude, mood, and behavior... as a man persists in his thinking, so he will become. There is that kind of power in thoughts." He then goes on to talk about how constructive thinking is hard. It's like exercise. You have to do lots of training and conditioning to get your mind to think constructively rather than negatively. Elder Larsen then uses a reference out of the Bible. He talks about David and how righteous he was in his early years, but then David became unwise. Elder Larsen comments, "I suspect that David had reached the point where he felt he was strong enough to indulge the entertainment of some enticing possible." I say don't even think for a second that we can let our guards down. Satan is just waiting for us to slip up! Don't let him win! Oh and listen to this awesome insight. While Elder Larsen was serving as a mission president somewhere is Texas, one of his missionaries gave this great perspective, "...that the gospel is just as true for those who reject it as it is for those those who accept it." Update on Emory: She's now on date for December 12th! While we were meeting with her on Tuesday, she gave such a sincere prayer asking when she should be baptized. Right after, she chose December 12th and the spirit was so strong! We're very excited for her (: I would appreciate if you all could continue to pray for her! We're teaching lots of Part member families right now and it's a complete miracle because with some of them, missionaries haven't been able to meet with them for a long time! But their hearts are soft and ready to hear the gospel right now! I feel so grateful to be serving in Olympia at this time! These are my people (: Love you all! P.s. send all Christmas cards to 606 Lilly Road NE #425 Olympia, WA 98506