Season 10: North Tapps. Episode 2: Good Christmas Week

 This is Starting from the left Elder Kelley, Elder Graham (my trainer), me, and Elder Chance. We are singing "Angels We Have Heard on High" tomorrow at our Christmas activities as half of a mission. We are super excited because we love to testify of Christ through song! I love singing together in a quartet! I miss doing that more often!

                         

Howdy!

Even though Christmas happened and most people are on a holiday break, Elder Nelson and I certainly weren't taking a break. We have been working hard to find more and more people to accept the restored gospel and things are happening!

We were able to have that lesson with Martha and Aida on Christmas day in the Puyallup Discovery Center (this is the website for it and the pictures on the website are of the actual room! Those arent just some random photos, those are the actual room in the church building where we had the lesson on those couches.  http://www.puyallupfamilyhistorycenter.org/discovery-room.html ).

Martha and Aida have such a funny dynamic. Martha the 8 year old is so converted and wants to be baptized. When we invited them to be baptized Aida said she wouldn't because she doesn't know it is true yet, but Martha said "I will!" Another example is we invited Aida to say the closing prayer, but she declined. Then Martha (the 9 year old :D) said she would help her mom and so AIda said the prayer with Martha whispering it into her ear. Its so great that she helps out so much and she also said an amazing prayer!

They were set for coming to church and basically to come by themselves, but we got a text about 20 minutes before saying Martha was sick so they wouldn't be able to come. Elder Nelson and I were disappointed (not discouraged. Its okay to be disappointed. Discouragement is what is the bad thing) about that, but we are so excited to teach her this coming week! Its so hard when things that you have no control over happen like that. I have that tendency to be to hard on myself and it took me a moment to slow down and think that there realistically wasn't anything more I could have done to help them stay. So my simple invitation is when things in your life happen that you cant really control, don't beat yourself up about it! Choose to be happy and focus on the good.

I love this. How can we be ungrateful when we remember all of the bounteous blessings that God has given us! If we remember what He does for us every day, we wont have to be sad or discouraged because we will naturally be happy about what we have been given. 

2015 is at its 11th hour. I can say serving a mission here in Washington has been the best year of my life so far. I know that it certainly hasn't been the easiest, but I can catalog 2015 as the year in my life where I was a full-time missionary for every last bit of it. I have grown and changed a lot and I am still not done. I still have the rest of my mission and my life to continue to become more like Our Savior. I plan on making goals to become more like Christ and progress for this next year. My simple message about goals that you make is that you need to own, care about, and remember your goals that you set. If you don't honestly care about the goals or if you don't remember them, or if you don't make a plan to achieve them these resolutions wont likely be resolved at the end of the next year. Did Astronauts ever get to the moon without first designing the vehicle that will take them there? They couldn't just wake up one morning and wing it to the moon. Make a plan of how you are going to achieve your goal and then stick to it!

I love this gospel. As I study the doctrine everyday, my testimony is renewed and strengthened. One of the most important goals that I invite you to make for this year is to firmly resolve that you will read The Book of Mormon everyday, say multiple prayers throughout the day, and attend church every Sunday possible. These 3 things make or break our testimony. I invite you to become more firm in the Faith this year and in every year continually. So if you are not, start. I promise you will be able to tell a difference. Ask yourself "Will you I do these things?" These are some of the smallest things you can do that will make the biggest differences in your life. By small and simple thing are great things come to pass!

Stay Celestial!

Elder Sumsion