Letter #21 01/26/15

In the poetic words I just accidentally read off my companion's computer screen, this week.. happened. Haha, The Lord works in such a completely interesting way and ya know, things didn't really get better this week. But in the process of still struggling, I have learned and felt so much. The Lord has been so merciful in allowing me to feel this way in order to learn more about His way. I was reading in D&C about how the Savior grew to become who He was grace by grace, and that has just stuck with me this week as I feel like it's only the tiny tender mercies and the grace of God that's keeping me from either curling up in a ball or like throwing something at a wall. Or just getting impatient with my companion. 

So here, I will compile a list of tender mercies/evidences of the Lord's grace that we've seen this week:

-Although it's often easy to forget amidst the trial and turmoil of the day to day, we have a beautiful human named Nancy on date for baptism! She is still so neat and we made her a baptismal calendar (my first) which I felt was like a cool little mission milestone. She's set on date for the 21st of February and she is such an elect human. I feel honored that we got to find her and answer the questions she's been carrying her whole life. It is through the Church of Jesus Christ, the restored gospel, that we find the answers to every question of the soul.

-I was having the worst day, complete void of desire to serve or love or anything, and God gave me rain. And then, after the rain, it was that magnificent, clear, twinkly, sunny beauty that just makes everything glow and look extra neat and I was just blown away. Like, I couldn't get over it. Every house was the most spectacular piece of architecture and I was just done for. Haha. Then we visited a house and they were playing One Direction inside as we waiting at the door and that was just really fun.

-We helped in sharing time this week and we had to draw these different ways we can show our love for Heavenly Father on the board so that the kids could guess them. So you break it down word by word, and I was trying to draw the word "nice", but couldn't figure out how.. so I just started drawing this asian lady eating 'rice' thinking that they might guess it from that, then I drew some noodles like trying to have them combine the two foods to make the word and it went on for like 5 straight minutes and one of the kids blurts out a guess of.. "We can.. be culturally sensitive!" and I was done for, haha. Mind you he's like 10. God wants us to smile and be happy amidst the hard times. He LOVES us. And he will give us happy beautiful miracles if we're only willing to look. 

Everyone do me a favor and watch, "Good Things to Come" by Elder Holland.. it's saved my life this week. 

"Don’t give up. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it—30 years of it now, and still counting. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”

Because of Jesus Christ, and through living His gospel, we really can trust in His promise that good things WILL come. There's always light ahead when we're sharing this message completely full of hope. 

#haybuenascosaquevengan

Sending so much love your way from the big VA. 

Hermana Yost

Letter #20 01/20/15

The nino love is still so strong. 

WHOA. Can't even begin to tell y'all all the craziness that has been this week. Like, okay I'll just say that this has been the single hardest week of my mission hands down. And like, I say that a lot and all weeks have their ups and downs but WHOA. Haha, who knew transfers could be so hard? I was feeling so pumped to get a new companion, destroy the area and baptize everyone.. and obviously, The Lord saw that and was like, "Wait a good second.." And, I've been sufficiently humbled and I've learned so much and I'm SO grateful. Basically, the low down is that I've got a new companion.. Hermana Thompson. She's so sweet, SO organized, and so obedient. Which is, like, exactly what Burkeville needed. But she's also been, for the last 6 months, the entirety of her mission, serving in Woodbridge aka Northern VA by Washington, DC not to mention the largest hispanic WARD that exists in the mission and.. She's been struggling a little. We all have. The work just seemed non existent this week. Which wasn't true, but Satan was making us feel that way BIG time.

I finally just made this commitment in mind that I am just going to be HAPPY. Just cheerfully do every thing that lies in my power to help the area, just love people and put everything else in the Lord's hands. I've had so many good conversations with Him and our relationship has grown so much. I'm really grateful, because that was my goal for this transfer.. haha, be careful what you wish for Hermanas y Hermanos.. 'cause, if it's in line with the Lord's will, you're totally gonna get it. But it's SO worth the hard times. At least I know it will be. 

Savin' souls or somethin'

Ya know what they say, it's always darkest before the dawn.. And it certainly was. Because we have seen the most GLORIOUS miracles these last few days. And they have all sprung from this beautiful prompting that came slowly at first but then soon grew into something like unto, "HERMANA YOST there's this beautiful town called Amelia in your area and you never work there and don't you know that I've been telling you for a million years that there's prepared hispanics there, not to mention other humans and stop spending every waking moment two miles from your home in Crewe. GO AND DO and I promise you'll see the blessings." And I was like, "Okayyyyyy!"

Okay, I love this lady so mucho! We've been through it all together. #adiosamiga

And so, we went yesterday. And started just searching the list of former hispanic investigators, and found a couple people and taught a lesson and life was fine and then, we decided to go to the Mexican Tienda (store) down the street. Like, obviously there's going to be hispanics there. So we entered and nobody is there.. like, not even somebody running the store. So we look around for a second and I loudly ask if anybody is there, and.. still nobody. Finally I just holler super loud and this lady comes out. Her name is M and she owns the store. 

She begins to tell us that she knows who we are. She's from La Ciudad de Mexico and her mom did a lot of work on the temple construction there. She worked too much, so she couldn't go to church, but she sent M and her siblings to church with other members. She knew all about Moroni and temples and everything. If that wasn't a super cool miracle in and of itself, here it comes.. She begins to tell us that she's basically been going through a WAY hard time, that her husband just recently left their family. Her son has taken it pretty hard and has started drinking a lot. We arrived in the afternoon, and that very morning she had prayed with all the energy of her heart that someone would come and listen to her and help her. And then we showed up! I couldn't help but cry. The Lord KNOWS His children, He knows that sometimes I'm stubborn and don't follow promptings the moment I should. But He also knew that we needed to go on the day that she would ask for us so that she could recognize us as His servants. She is SO prepared and my testimony has just skyrocketed that The Lord is aware. Good things come to those who endure. He wants to help us, He loves us so much. He loves EACH and EVERY one of you! Don't you dare forget it. He sent His son Jesus Christ to the earth so that we would NEVER be alone. Not in any trial or struggle or temptation or difficulty. He understands completely! 

In the words of my bff Michael Mcclain.. "You're not aloneeee.. Even though right now, you're on your own.. He can help in ways that can't be shown, your prayers are known.. you're not alone.."

Okay, I might be going crazy. But I'm just so grateful! We're never alone. I love each and every one of ya, and am so thankful. 

LOVES. <3 Hermana Yost

Feeding his sheep

Letter #19 01/12/15

SO, just like any scripture verse, you can get at least 40 different meanings out of the subject of this email. 

First, things have been going pretty well here in La Rama Burkeville. It's absolutely nuts to look back on how things were when I first arrived here to how it is now. WHOA. Heavenly Father loves us so much, he wants to help us. Areas can change, we can change, our lives can change through him. 

Secondly, our investigator Donna told us the other day that we (Hma Clark and I) work really well together because I'm the sappy one and she's the good teacher.. uh, thanks? #sapsforlife 

Third, CHANGE. So, we got the transfer call.. and the verdict is.. I'm staying here in good ol' Burkeville, and Hermana Clark is out. So tomorrow I find out who my new comp is! The other companionship serving here in the branch are both leaving, so I guess I will be 'leading the area'.. I'm a small bit terrified, but that's life. #relyingonTheLord

Okay, so i'm trying to send photos today, per momma's request, so I'll just tell you about a few cool milagros (miracles)..

One time, I was way sick. And feeling like death. And being a tiny bit dramatic and just not feeling the work. The Lord said that it was okay to rest for a bit, so I took a tiny nap. Afterward I felt a TON better, and we went out. We decided to go to the library to print off talks for a few of our investigators. As we were walking in, we saw a girl named B. We had met her at the library previously, but we just gave her a card. But at this moment she was not okay. I guess she'd had an anxiety attack at work, and was just really struggling. We were talking to her and I had the thought that we should take her in and show her the "Come Unto Christ" music video. We did, and it was INCREDIBLE. She broke down, we taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ and the spirit was SO strong. We set her on date for baptism and she's just so awesome. She wants to change, she wants to come unto Christ, it was such a miracle and I know we were supposed to be at the library at that time. God's timing is perfect!

ALSO.. WE HAD A HISPANIC AT CHURCH. Whatwhatwhatwhatwhat. Such a miracle! Remember L? He was the miracle guy that felt prompted to come talk to us and was so prepared.. and we had totally lost him. We thought he moved, and were so bummed. BUT. Saturday night after transfers, we sent out a huge mass text telling everyone that it was Hma Clark's last week and that we'd love to see them all at church.. haha. And he called us back! He wanted to come! It was so awesome. So we got him there, and it was just incredible. During SundaySchool time we had an awesome member present a lesson with him in the relief society room and the spirit was so so powerful. He cried, and the branch just jumped on him. They all fellowshipped, even though they can't speak Spanish. And in Branch Council, the branch was talking about maybe starting a thing where we could have half the talks in english and half in spanish, like general conference! So cool! The branch is prepared now, and I KNOW that we will see miracles this transfer. I'm so stoked and grateful and happy to be staying. 

Heavenly Father hears our prayers! He grants us blessings according to our desires! He WANTS us to be happy! 

Love y'all so much. 

<3 Hermana Yost

Odd's and End's-

+ Thank you so so so much to all the wonderful humans that sent me things for Christmas. Thank you cards are coming SOON, but really.. I'm SO grateful. And blessed. LOVE. 

+ I have been feeling down in the dumps for real about my spanish, and we just visited a former investigator from the beginning of my time here last night and she said that my spanish has improved a ton! What? It is only by the grace of God that someone's spanish can improve in a place like Burkeville.

+ Okay, ran completely out of time for pics.. NEXT WEEK WILL BE A photograph gold mine, les prometo!

Letter #18 01/05/15

THIS WEEK, though. I actually can't really remember what happened all that much at the beginning of this week, but let's just say that stinker Satan has been doing everything he can to make me crack right as it get's close to the end. These last few transfers have been pretty difficult and now that it's getting closer to the end, it's getting harder and harder to be patient and love like I should. SO, anyway, just having a harder time. But I've been learning a lot about bearing afflictions with patience and His promise to each and every one of us success if we do just that. Oh, and also, learning the true benefit of fasting because I fasted to be able to be patient, and WHOA. Yesterday was a million times easier. Prayer and fasting, ladies and gents. It's the way to go.

The neatest part of the week was, after zone meeting on Friday, I got to have Sister Jones, our newest Sister Training Leader, come to Burkeville for a 24 hour exchange with me! Sister Jones and I were meant to be pals, and we had a total blast. She is the equivalent of if Brooke Gledhill and Anna Davidson morphed into one person, so that's weird but they're really neat humans so you can imagine that we got along nicely. We got home to Crewe around like 4:00 ish and after getting everything settled, decided to head out. We had visited a few different people but nobody was home or what not (the usual), and we decided to visit a potential who lives next door to our investigator Donna. We parked down the street, prayed, and I started getting out of the car when there was suddenly this HUGE ruckus. A bunch of guys were yelling profanities at eachother, and I was like uh.. but kept on getting out of the car, and Sister Jones was like, "I do not feel good about this" and got back in the car, so I did too and I'm glad we did because right after we did it was like we were in a movie. Groups of guys start walking up from every direction, appearing out of nowhere, and it was terrifying. They were all shouting and one had a metal baseball bat and there was a huge brawl about to break out. WHAT. I had just been telling Sister J that, unlike her last super ghetto area, Crewe is relatively calm.. Apparently not! Wow. So we almost hit a guy fleeing the scene, and got further down the road where one of the mom's of some of the kids was yelling for them to come home. We talked to her for a minute, she said everything was fine, but then her teenage daughter came up and I guess the whole fight had started because some guys had been calling her really awful names. It was a tender mercy, because we got to testify to her of her worth, that it doesn't matter what those guys said because her Savior, Jesus Christ, loves her and that she is a daughter of God. I felt like I was at Oakcrest all over again, it was wonderful. 

After a couple more doors unanswered, and one successful less active visit, I remembered that I had been feeling prompted all week to knock some doors in this apartment complex. And what do you know, we were like right next door to the complex. So we drove over there, and in my prayer I prayed that we would be able to teach a lesson and find someone who is prepared. We knocked a few doors, they said we could come back, but nothing really happened. We walked over to another building where only one light was on, and knocked that door. She let us in immediately and then asked us what was wrong. We explained who we were, and that she didn't need to be afraid. She then proceeded to tell us that I have the face of a porcelain doll and that all the scary movies have creepy porcelain dolls in them, haha. What. So after I totally spooked her, we started talking to her and she was SO receptive and the spirit was so strong and she started crying as I testified about God's love for her and the atonement. I guess she has been going through a lot of hard times lately and it was the perfect time that we came. Sister Jones was even prompted to set her on date for baptism, and she accepted! So, let's talk about prepared. She's awesome. Her name's K and she's on date for the 31st of January. I was on TOP OF THE WORLD as we left her apartment. I have never felt more like a missionary. The happiness was unreal. 

And now I'm praying that we can keep the same spirit as we keep visiting her. Trust in the Lord is a difficult to keep in your heart consistently, but I know that He will help us. The children of Israel were scared to flee Israel, but Moses trusted in the Lord and they were delivered. He will help us! I know it. Grateful doesn't begin to describe it. I know that He's for real, I know that He wants to help, I know that through utilizing His atonement, we can have the courage and strength to get through ANYTHING. He is ever aware and I love it so much. 

Have a goood week, next week I will have news as to what in the world is happening to me! Yikes. But, really, not yikes because.. I have no fear- He's totally near!

Love y'all. <3

Hermana Yost

Odd's and End's:

+ Speaking of the Ghetto city of Crewe, last night we were talking to a guy about that experience and he said.. "Yeah, of course that happened over there.. All the gang members live down on Indian Oak Road.." We couldn't help but laugh. And try to hold back tears. Hahah #safeintheLord'sservice (Becca lives on Indian Oak Road!! haha)

+ So we've started this thing in the mission called "More Fit for the Kingdom", so that's hilarious. Had our first initial weigh in at Zone Meeting. I weight the same as I did at 16 on my license (which I just found for the first time since leaving on my mission this week), so all that says is that I am now completely void of any and all muscle. #lifeofamissionary