Happy Valentine's Day (2/9)

As I've mentioned before holidays don't really mean much for missionaries, but this week I am looking forward to heart-attacking some people and delivering lots of yummy treats to our investigators and the other families we're working with!

We recently received texting on our phones... and it is awesome! Just another tool to help the work along! When Elder Evans (of the Seventy) came to visit he told us that Elder Scott has said we are doing missionary work in the twenty-first century with nineteenth century methods! He's the oldest living apostle, and he's the one fighting to get us up to date! There's so many new things available with the updates on mormon.org and new commercials, etc. We can already see how it's all positively affecting missionary work.

For example... last week we were at a lesson with our investigator Ryan and we start to look up a scripture. Ryan pulled out his phone and in seconds had accessed the verse we were going to read. Ok, so I've seen plenty of members with scriptures on their phones/ipads, but never someone we are teaching! He has all of the scriptures, plus the gospel principles book, and with access to the church website he has access to the gospel (and the spirit) at his fingertips 24/7. Awesome!

I heard a story this week from a lady that lives in Hawaii... She talked about her friend that came to visit her and wanted to go seashell hunting on the beach. She wandered along the shoreline looking for large seashells (which have mostly disappeared because of other tourists like her!). Another friend, who was a native Hawaiian, began to dig in the sand, and ended up finding some of the most valuable (but tiny) seashells that exist in the world. She made the point that we need to not miss the small and valuable things in our search for something bigger (kind of like the parable of the marshmallow.)

It made me think... but THEN... last night we were teaching a lady that would basically not let us share the lesson we had in mind because she was stuck on the meaning of a scripture in Revelations. Normally I'm all about answering their questions and teaching to their needs, but it was frustrating because we spent the entire time talking about the symbolism of white horses, etc. and didn't get to share with her the beautiful message of the plan of salvation. When we left we were talking with the member that was with us (Bernice - recent convert). We decided that she was getting too caught up on little details, and was missing the big picture of the entire plan of salvation and knowledge that we have of these things because of the restoration of the gospel.

I was thinking about this last night and thought how these two stories, or ideas are somewhat contradictory. They both speak of perspective and how we need to not miss the little things... but also don't forget about the big picture. OK... so where do we focus? I decided that BOTH ideas are equally important. We have to have not just perspective, but the appropriate perspective based on the situation. As we go to our Father in Heaven in prayer He will guide us and show us how to view what lies in front of us. I know that as we follow the spirit we will not miss one important detail as we look at the whole big picture of life.

Have a love-ly week. :)

Love,

Hermana Richelle Ouellette