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| From left: Sisters Rogers, Yamada, Eguchi, Shimoji, and Ishihara |
We feasted on the spirit, on words of inspiration and wisdom from President and Sister Baird.
She talked about the spirit, and how blessed we are to feel it in our lives. She shared a story that Sister Holland told. She was living in a big city and was called to work as a stake missionary. It was scary for her. One day she finished reading the Book of Mormon while she was riding on a bus. She felt such love for it and felt the influence of the spirit as she completed the book. There was a man sitting next to her, and she just looked at him and said, "This book is so true." He asked what it was, and as she told him about it, he wanted to read it. He ended up joining the Church.
Elder Ellsworth and Elder Ito taught us that when we prepare to teach people, our goal is to help them feel the spirit. And for practice, we thought about the good traits of our companions and asked what we could do to help our companion feel the spirit. True conversion comes through the spirit. Through the spirit, we can know the things our investigators (and companions) need.
Sister Baird gave one of the sisters a timer and asked her to set it for 7 minutes. She could then share one thing that had changed her life for good on her mission, or a favorite teaching moment, or one of the greatest tests she had on her mission and how she overcame it. We then enjoyed 7 minutes for each sister there to share her heart and testimony. It was wonderful.
Then Sister Baird shared her testimony of how the mission has changed her life and what a blessing it has been to her. She has had many experiences that have confirmed to her the love of the Lord.
President Baird then taught us, about faith in Christ, about what John meant when he said "I have need to be baptized of thee," about covenants and the Atonement. He taught us the doctrine of Christ. And he left us with his testimony: "I love this Jesus. For his complete obedience, example, sacrifice, patience, because he first loved me and loves me continually. ....Our purpose for being here is to bring others to Him (Alma 18:8)." And we felt the truth in his words.
We feasted on each others love, joy and friendship, and sharing our hearts,
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| Sisters Adachi, Hunt, and West |
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| Sisters Fujisawa, Stott, Takatsu, Eguchi, Thayne, and West |
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| Sister Urano and Sister Barney |
We feasted on being creative and visiting while we created. Tables set up in the dining room were loaded with everything one could possibly want to decorate cards, scrapbooks, bookmarks, and photo albums. We all brought our photos and went to work. But that was just filler between the great conversation and love that was shared among the sisters.
And we feasted on delicious food.
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| Around table from left: Sister Fujisawa, Ishihara, Shimoji, and coming back on right, Sisters Adachi, Thayne, and Eguchi |
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| Again from left: Sisters Matsuhashi, Rogers, Thayne, Stott, Takatsu, Baird, Silva, West, Hunt, and Yamada |
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| Sisters Silva, Hunt, West, Yamada, Urano, Barney, Matsuhashi, Rogers, Thayne, and Stott |
It was wonderful and, as you can see, a bit of fun, too.
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| Seated in front from left: Sisters Hunt, Adachi, and Thayne Seated on sofa: Sisters Eguchi, Thayne (maybe), Yamada, Rogers (we are pretty sure that's her), Takatsu, and Hunt Standing: Sisters Ishihara, Shimoji, Fujisawa, Baird, Stott, Silva, Barney and Matsuhashi |
