Is This Seattle?

 

 

 

Hello family.

 

Hope you are all doing well. Things are going great here. This week was so cold. Seriously so, so cold. It even snowed this weekend. It was Sister Salabao's first time in the snow and she loved it. It was really fun. It snowed on Saturday night. And church was cancelled Sunday morning. Can you believe it? I've never had church cancelled before.

 

We weren't allowed to drive our cars on Sunday because of the snow so we walked everywhere. We walked so far. We had to walk to our dinner appointment. I'm not sure how far it is, I'll have to find out sometime. But it was great because we got to talk to everyone on the street. I love street contacting. I think it is fun. The family that we had dinner with drove us back to our apartment because at that time we were allowed to use our vehicles. Sister Salabao and I got in our car to go visit some less actives and our car was stuck. It wouldn't come out. So that meant two more hours of walking around outside. It was a little less fun at night. It was dark and so, so cold. And my rain boots have holes in them so even though I had tights, leggings, and socks my feet were completely soaked through. They were pretty much soaked all day long.

 

Anyway, my feet were hurting so bad and the few people that were outside (mostly smoking) would talk to as long as their cigarette was going and then as soon as it was dead they'd leave us. At one point my feet were hurting so bad and I just felt like crying. But then I told myself I needed to remember why I was here. Everyday we recite, "Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. Sister White, forget yourself and go to work!" As I said those words I became so much happier and realized that everything would be okay. There are people for me to find and share the gospel with! A little while later I was singing Count Your Blessings. The line where it says "Count your many blessings angels will attend, help and comfort give you to your journey's end" really got to me. I had been thinking about angels for a little while just with some stuff that had happened and I started praying that I'd be able to feel angels with me. I don't know, it was a neat experience but I really feel like Uncle Bruce was with me. I started talking to him and telling him how things were going and thanking him for being a good example to me even though I've never had the chance to meet him here on earth. But I've heard stories and I know he was a good kid. It was just so neat. I thanked him for helping me get through this freezing cold, exhausting night and told him that I'm excited to meet him again someday and give him a tight hug. It was just really cool.

Every Thursday we get to teach English class at the DI to these three sweet ladies. We've done it for the last two weeks and I absolutely love it. I think it so neat. It's just so cool to be able to help someone learn. When we were teaching it just felt so good. It felt right. I want to try and do something like this when I get home too. English class is always one of the highlights of my week.

We had a lesson with Pat set up for this week, but it fell through. I was really sad about that. We were going to have it over at Sister Walker's house. An older lady from our ward that lives on her street. We walked over there to tell her Pat hadn't answered and we got to visit with Sister Walker for just a little  bit. Oh my. I love her so much! She was so sweet. She reminded me a lot of Grandma Higginson. It was so fun to get to know her a little better and hear some of her mission experiences. She and her husband served a mission back east about twenty years ago. She even gave us a See's chocolate. I really just love this ward so much. The members are so kind and thoughtful. This is such a good area.

We had a miracle the other night. Every night from 5 to 7 we have Sacred Finding Time. It's where the whole mission tracts for two hours. It was 6:55 on Saturday night and it had just started to snow and we had just finished the last house on that street. I told Sister Salabao that we should try one more house before we left. So we walked up to a different street and picked a house and met someone named Jackson. He only had just a minute but we prayed with him and set up another time for us to come later this week. It was just such a miracle. It would have been so easy to go back to the car and warm up and go on to our plans at 7 o'clock. But we would have missed out on the one person who was actually interested that night.

Our ward has a ton of less actives and so we've been trying to go through the ward list and visit them. This last weekend we met three women who grew up in the church but for reason or another they're not interested in coming back .One even wants her name removed from the record. It just breaks my heart. All of them have families and children who are growing up without the blessings of the gospel in their lives. It made me realize how important it is to always do things to nourish our testimony. Because our choices don't just affect us. They affect our children and generations. It reminded me of the Conference Talk this last October from the Young Women General President. I think it was her great grandmother who worked for a rich family that wanted to adopt her but her mother said no because they weren't members. Anyway, I don't remember all of the story but you should look up the talk and read it. It's about being converted and it's so good. It's just so important that we always use our agency to make good decisions.

Read Alma 26:2. And remember to count your blessings! We all have difficult trials and challenges that we face but we also all have so many blessings. We are some of the most blessed people to have ever lived because we have the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was restored through a prophet, Joseph Smith and because of it we have made sacred covenants with our Heavenly Father. We have the priesthood power in our lives. We have a prophet who leads us today and who we get to hear from twice a year. God loves us so, so much and He wants us to be happy. And we will be happy as we focus on the positive. The good things in our lives that He has blessed us with. You are all a blessing to me. I'm so grateful for you and I love you so much!

Love,
Sister Veronica White