PERSONAL REVELATION ABOUT THE SABBATH DAY

Hey! Didn't know if you knew about this...because I sure didn't! haha There is a mission blog! arkansasbentonvillemission-loveland.weebly.com And a facebook page! Arkansas Bentonville Mission 2015-2018 Any way, there ya go. Don't know if you knew or not but now you do for sure :) Ok, so I am still in Siloame Springs Arkansas for at least another week and a half. Transfer calls are this Saturday so we will find out what will be happening for my final transfer at that point. I hope I stay here, but we shall see. My companion right now is Sister Millett. She is awesome and we are having a great time together doing missionary work for the first time in what seems like ages! It's been awesome! We have already been able to see some pretty awesome miracles as we have been out and working and it has been so cool to see! I don't have a whole ton of time to write though so I am going to just tell you about Sunday :) We had made a bunch of grand plans to get 11 lessons and by so doing hit the standard. That was the plan. So after church we headed out to Gentry to contact some referrals visit some less actives and potentials and do some tracting. Our first stop was a referral that wasn't home. No big deal (actually in my head it was kind of a big deal. The referral, her name is Shannon, lives in a really run down trailer house with a car in front that looks like it hasn't moved in a about a year. We've gone over twice and both times it looked exactly the same and there was no answer. For some reason whenever I am in those types of circumstances I have this unreasonable fear that the person is old and sickly and is now dead inside their home with no one around to check on them and so no one to know that they have kicked the bucket. I don't know why I have that fear, but I do. haha). So we head off to find a good place to tract and as we go we text one of our potentials to see if we can come by. Well, I found a neighborhood and stopped the car and then we just sat there for a few minutes. I eventually said "is is just me or does this not feel right?" Sister Millett agreed with me. We didn't think we were supposed to go tracting. So we decided to go try and see the Hurts, less actives. Ok cool. We didn't feel totally sold on that idea either, but it was better than nothing so we headed off to their house only to find that they were not home. Our potential had not texted us back yet, so we decided to go OTM at a park near by. So off we went to the park and then when we got there we sat in the car feeling not right about it! What the heck! We decided to say a prayer asking what Heavenly Father wanted us to do. So we bowed our heads and asked for guidance and then just sat there again, thinking. Nothing. Ok, cool. We got out of the car and started walking around just so we could at least be out and doing SOMETHING even if it wasn't really anything. As we walked we talked. One of the things that we had discussed in our weekly planning was how we could do a better job at keeping the Sabbath day holy. As we walked we talked about the possibility that maybe Heavenly Father did not want us to be stressing about numbers on His holy day of rest. As we talked about that possibility I said "wouldn't it be nice if we could make sure that every week we had hit the standard by Saturday night. That way we wouldn't be worried about numbers on Sunday. Anything we got would be a bonus." As I voiced that thought, we both felt so good about it! Just think of that! If the standard was hit by Saturday night Sunday could be spent literally however Heavenly Father wanted us to spend it! To visit the sick or lonely, to make cookies for active and less active members and deliver them, to spend time with the people in nursing homes, or to do anything else that the spirit directs! We were so excited! We jumped back into the car and drove back to our apartment where we spent the next couple hours making cookies. It felt so good! I was surprised! We had planned to have 11 lessons that day and we got 1, but we felt good about the revelation we received and we were ok with it :) Sometimes Heavenly Father answers your prayers in ways that you really don't expect! Like telling you not to work on a Sunday! haha And it took us a bit to get to that conclusion, but we got there! Gosh revelation is so cool! Prayer is so cool! I just love the gospel!!! So we are excited to see what the upcoming Sunday will look like :) We have the goal to have the standard met by Saturday (20 lessons total, 60% member present, 2 new investigators, 1 investigator with a baptism date, and 4 referrals contacted). If you could pray for us, that we are able to do it, that would be awesome! Well, I think that is pretty much all my news :) Oh, the only other thing is that I have decided that I need a bucket list. We were talking to a girl the on Sunday at the Pattersons house (they fed us a dinner of black eyed peas and hog jaw) and she lived on a sailboat for about 2 years. What the heck! Me and Sister Patterson looked at each other and Sister Patterson said, "Sometimes I feel like such a loser! I have such a boring life!" haha So we decided together that I need to have some adventures in my life before I get too old! haha What could I put on my list? I was thinking getting my divers license would be a good start. Maybe live in England for a little while, study abroad or something. I want to take a cooking class :) That's not exactly high adventure I know, but I helped Nate Patterson make Chinese dumplings the other day and it was so fun and for whatever reason got me wanting to take a cooking class! haha Any other ideas of what I could do? ;) Any way, I gotta go now! But hey, this email is a lot longer than I though it would be so... :) Hope y'all have a great week! Love you! Sister Cryer P.S. You know something? My testimony has grown a lot as a missionary. I really truly believe the things that I teach.The more I learn the more I believe, and even to the point where people's arguments against the church serve to strengthen and fortify my faith rather than weaken it! I just love it so much! I had a testimony before I came out, but now I have a stronger one :) The gospel is true! P.S.S. I have been studying about spiritual gifts lately :) Do you know what the difference between the gifts of discernment and the diversities of operations is? They both seem to deal with knowing if something is good and comes from God or not. I am trying to identify one of my spiritual gifts this week. :)