Atonement

MONDAY NOVEMBER 2

Ehhh oh family and friends :)

You ready for a weekly update coming at you from Sister Bee? Okay I
invite you to be excited.. Because we had a great great week out here
in the mission field! Well to start off, we'll talk about one of my works that's in continual
progress.. Patience! There is a quote I love by President Uchtdorf
which says: "Without patience we cannot please God; we cannot become perfect.
Indeed, patience is a purifying process that refines understanding,
deepens happiness, focuses action, and offers hope for peace."
Patience is sometimes very hard, but I loved that quote because it
helped me see how important patience is. Sometimes when I don't see
good things or results happen immediately, I can get a little
impatient, but I do know the Lord was just helping be to be a more
patient person. But these past few weeks as I've strived to be
patient and to trust in God, I've been able to see that the Lord has
really poured out His blessing upon my companion and I. I think a big
part of patience is us having to have trust in His timing. As we've
been researching for people to teach this week we were able to find two
solid people ready to learn! One being named Jessica, total
sweetheart! We show up at her door, she lets us in because it was late
and dark outside, and there was the awkwardest moment of my life..That
morning we had ran out of Book Of Mormons. Anywho, we show up at
Jessica's door and she is so happy to see Mormons and she tells us, "I
really want a Book Of Mormon!." (What! We don't have a Book Of Mormon,
and some one is actually asking for one... What is this!?) My
companion and I both begin to laugh a little and begin to tell her we
had ran out this morning. She than breaks into this huge laugh, saying
"there are Mormons on her doorstep without the Book Of Mormon..." Haha
total hand to the forehead moment, but hey it gave us a good excuse
to go back the next day with a Book Of Mormon, and gave us something
to laugh about to break the ice. I see great potential in her. 

We then were blessed with finding wonderful Linda, she is a sweet little mom,
her family has just had a sad death in her family, so it was a great
thing to be able to teach her about the great plan of happiness. She
told us that this may be just what her and her family needs right now.
Her husband works really weird hours, and we really were wanting to
be able to find a time to catch him home, well last night we decided
to leave cookies on their doorstep and run. Well come to find out the
husband had just gotten home and was sitting in the apartment
buildings parking lot and watched the whole thing, so he jumped out
and we were able to have a great talk with him about faith and the
after life. There is honestly no such things as coincidences, I know
without a doubt that Gods hand is in every detail and moment of our
life. We have lessons scheduled with both of them, so we're
praying that things go great there!

         We had a good Halloween here! Our ward had a trunk
or treat party, it was pretty fun :) we helped set up for it. Us
missionaries were over games, and Sister Hallam and I were over
pumpkin bowling! Quite messy, but still very fun. I absolutely loved
seeing all the kids show up in their cute outfits. On Halloween day we
had a good lesson with our investigator Pauline. The spirit was very
strong, and I could feel the love that the Lord has for her so
strongly. I am so grateful for each opportunity I have to share the
restored gospel with someone. We visited some other people, and
delivered some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies we had made to some of
the ward members. We had great plans for Halloween night. Our mission
President wanted us in and safe at 5 on Halloween where it's not a
safe night to be out here. He called it "deep clean Halloween" haha..
Yippee ;) Halloween morning we put in some pork in the crock pot and
we're going to have a good dinner, sweet pork sandwiches, we had
planned to build a fort and watch some Mormon messages. But sadly my
companion and I both got a little flu bug, luckily it was just 24
hours! So we cleaned the bathroom and kitchen, laid on the floor, and
finally made it to our beds and were to bed by 7:30. Haha so
nothing too exciting here on that night. Thanks for the fun Halloween
pictures. Cam looked so cute as dash, and Brin looked darling as a
little lion, I can't believe how big they are getting!

         This week I was thinking about just how great the Atonement
really is, as I sat there and thought about it I had a strong desire
to better understand it. I am eternally grateful for it, but I do know
there are a lot of things I just can't quite comprehend about the
Atonement, and I possibly won't have a full understanding of it in
this life. As I kneeled down that night to pray, I asked Heavenly
Father with a very sincere heart to help me understand the Atonement
better. The next day we woke up with a voicemail telling us we needed
to study two general conference talks to prepare for our upcoming zone
conference on November 7th. I'm really excited for it, it is up in
Charron Vermont at The Joseph Smith Memorial of where he was born!!
In preparation our mission President asked us to study two talks by
Elder Bednar about the Atonement. I know this was an answer to my
prayer to understand the Atonement more fully. I've only had the
chance to study one talk so far and it's "Bear Up Their Burdens With
Ease" by a Elder Bednar. If you get sometime this week you should
definitely read it. I know my heart was very touched and it made me
reflect what our Savior has done for all of us.  "Thus, the Savior has 
suffered not just for our sins and iniquities--but also for our physical pains 
and anguish, ourweaknesses and shortcomings, our fears and frustrations, our
disappointments and discouragement, our regrets and remorse, our
despair and desperation, the injustices and inequities we experience,
and the emotional distresses that beset us.
        There is no physical pain, no spiritual wound, no anguish of soul or
heartache, no infirmity or weakness you or I ever confront in
mortality that the Savior did not experience first. In a moment of
weakness we may cry out, “No one knows what it is like. No one
understands.” But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for
He has felt and borne our individual burdens. And because of His
infinite and eternal sacrifice (see Alma 34:14), He has perfect
empathy and can extend to us His arm of mercy. He can reach out,
touch, succor, heal, and strengthen us to be more than we could ever
be and help us to do that which we could never do relying only upon
our own power. Indeed, His yoke is easy and His burden is light.
        I know God answers prayers, ask in faith and trust in his
timing. Patience and persistence is key in life. I also know that the
Atonement is for us. I'm grateful to be doing this marvelous work. I
know without a doubt that Christ leads this church today, there are to
many miracles and wonderful things about this church for God not to be
in charge. I know that as we try to understand the Atonement better we
can know Christ on a more personal level. I wish I could express the
gratitude I have in my heart for our Literal Father that's in Heaven,
and for Him sending His Son, our brother and Savior Jesus Christ. I'm
grateful for the enabling power of the Atonement in my life.

Love you all very very much! Have a great great week.
Xoxo
Sister Bee

PS: No more I-messaging on Mondays..SAD... I know!! Just back to
emailing for now. I was bummed, but I am sure grateful for the time we
were able to use it!
OH! And my apologies... My address is really
33 Croteau ct. Apt 1F. Manchester New Hampshire 03104
I totally gave the wrong one out the first email I sent out. Lol