Born As On Wings Of Eagles

Threesome - Sorry Sister Hardy closed her eyes

 Hi everyone. 

I sure love hearing from you. 

It raining it's pouring, the old man is snoring...I think we are in the middle of a tropical storm!! We had a great week though!! We found three new people to teach!! A couple, Wayne and Michele are on date for baptism - July 18. And Arnold, he is an older man with a lot of questions about the Plan of Salvation. His wife and youngest son died three weeks apart both suddenly and that is still very hard on him. We continue to see great progress with all those that we are working with, especially the less actives. We are focusing on getting them to read the Book of Mormon because the reason that most people go less active or just stop progressing in heir spiritual growth IS THEY HAVE SIMPLY STOPPED READING THE BOOK OF MORMON. It is the key to continuing conversion and I feel that so many people forget that. Don't ever stop reading. And if you have stopped - start again today!! We have seen great changes in those who have committed to read every day. I love being in a trio because we just have more fun!!!! We crammed the third bed in our room last Monday so now there is basically just one HUGE bed and it's fun to stay up and have deep, awesome, conversation about life and the gospel. We are getting along well though we are all very different. It seems to work. And I get to drive the big red van - so you can't miss us around town!! 

Today I want to leave you with something that has been on my mind lately. One of my favorite hymns is number 72 "Praise to the Lord, The Almighty" (I didn't know it before my mission but now it's my favorite 

These are the words of the second verse:

"Praise to the Lord! Over all things he gloriously reigneth.

Borne as on eagle wings, safely his Saints he sustaineth.

Hast thou not seen, How all thou needest hath been

Granted in what he ordaineth?" 

I would like you to think about the second line. What does it mean to be "borne as on eagle wings"? How do you think that would feel? The Lord will sustain His people. He will strengthen and uphold those who love Him. He will keep them safe from the temptations and evils of the world. 

I read a powerful, life changing talk by Sheri Dew this week. It's called, "You were born to lead, you were born for glory." She ends the talk by explaining how we can access the sustaining power of God in our lives to help us fight the last and greatest battle against the adversary --

"My dear young friends, I repeat that these are the days in which a true leader wants to live. These are days when opportunities to change lives and even destinies are nearly endless. You are running the anchor leg of the relay because you were born to lead. You were born for glory.

In conclusion, in the words of Moroni, “I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written” (Ether 12:41) so that you experience for yourself the power in Jesus Christ to strengthen you, to sanctify you, and to help you run this leg of the relay. Don’t ever underestimate the power of Jesus Christ to help you. Isaiah said it this way:

Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? . . .

He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. . . .

. . . They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. [Isaiah 40:28–31]"

Again Isaiah talks about eagle wings   

"..SEEK THIS JESUS.." It is when we put in the effort to develop a personal relationship with our Savior. Specifically through heart-felt prayer and taking the time to listen - that we access this sustaining power in our lives, divine guidance, hope. Strive to have this relationship with Him, it is so important. 

I know that though the world would bring us down, Christ can lift us higher.

I know that though we all face moral appetite and weakness, Christ can make us strong.

I know that though we all face fear and regret, Christ can forgive and keep us safe.

I know that when we face heartache and loss, Christ will bear us up - as on eagle wings. 

He won't let us faint. He won't let us fall. 

I love you all. I hope you have a happy week - you deserve it!!!

Love, Sister GG

YM and YW service project!

here is the big red van we drive!

everyone sees us coming!

The Power Is In You

green food for her "green companion"

Hi people!!!

Sounds like things are going well. Hope you are having lots of fun in the sun - we are!!!!

I don't have much time today, we are leaving in a few minutes to drive to Halifax to pick up our new companion!! We are going to be in a trio (woot woot 3X the fun!!) But I still wanted to write and give you a quick update. It has been an amazing week. I'm sorry to keep bringing up the mosquitos but we just learned that all of the bats in Nova Scotia contracted some disease or fungus and they all died. Therefore they are not here to eat twice their weight in mosquitos...therefore we get eaten ALIVE!! I can't even describe how many attack us when we are out. We were at a door and one landed on me face..the guy almost smacked it off!! Oh dear. It's itchy (I told you that my mosquito bites never itch..I lied. Stinking Canadian mosquitos).

On Monday we were at a dinner appointment and because my companion is a "greenie" they fed us an ENTIRELY green meal..green water, green butter, green rolls, green coleslaw, green turnips, green mashed potatoes and green beans. The only thing that was not green was the chicken..the whole time we were eating I was thinking "mind over matter, mind over matter." My mind was saying - no one should ever eat anything this green. It was an experience!!

We found a new investigator named Korona!! She lives on base and has the cutest three year old son. She is searching for a church and realizes that so many religions today "draw near to God with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him" She is fascinated by the Book of Mormon. It has been fun teaching her. 

We had zone conference on Wednesday and I got to see Sister Curtis!!!!! That was awesome. It was an amazing meeting. The Spirit was strong. To be brief I want to share what President Leavitt testified of. He shared Doctrine and Covenants 58: 26-28  

26 For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.

 27 Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;

 28 For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.

He pointed out that the POWER IS IN US. Because of our agency we can do and be anything that we want to be. The choice is ours - we can choose Christ and become young men and women of great faith. 

I finished the Book of Mormon this morning and read this verse (Moroni 10:23) "And Christ truly said unto our fathers: If ye have faith ye can do all things which are expedient unto me." In order for us to access the power that is within us we must have faith! Faith in Christ and His promises. Faith in the power of the Atonement. Faith that Christ can turn our weaknesses into strengths. Faith that we can one day live with God again. When we have faith we can do ANYTHING! 

I love knowing that their is DIVINE POWER coursing through our veins. We have the power and freedom to choose who we will become. Our potential is limitless.

 "Choose your goals. Work towards them! Direct your thoughts. Control your emotions. Get into action, and you ordain your destiny. Daily Decisions Determine Destiny"

FINALLY I JUST WANT TO SAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACOB LANE!!! I can't believe you are 16. I'm a little freaked out that you could be driving me around when I come home...hope you know that I love you. I miss laughing with you. You're the best "little" (who is not that little) brother in the world!!! 

Also happy birthday to Camille and Nana, Chris and Christian this week!! Love you!

AND HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!! I'm writing you a letter today dad. I can't thank you enough for setting such a strong example and helping me learn who I can become. Thanks for working hard, thanks for making me laugh, thanks for cheering me on. Love you to the moon and back. 

I love you all!!!

BYE FOR NOW.

Love, Sister G 

Our apartment

Scatterbrained

My new companion Sister Hardy

Hi <3 

Hope you all had a wonderful last week of school!! 

So the transfer has begun. My new companion is Sister Hardy. She is from Billings, Montana. She has blond hair like me  she is a softball player. She doesn't like fruits or vegetables and she still can't really say my name (it's a hard one  I think she is going to teach me a lot. We will have fun together. She was very nervous when I took her out knocking for the first time. I had a flashback to 17 months ago when I was driving in the car to Fredericton with Sister Lewis..she was telling me what she had planned for the rest of the day. All I heard was, "then we are going to go knocking" and I thought, "Oh no. Seriously? We are going to go knock on a random person's door and talk to them about the gospel??" YES WE WERE! Oh if I only knew.. I WAS SO SCARED!! Haha. But those uncomfortable moments are the moments when we grow. My testimony has been strengthened with each door I have knocked on. And now I really love it. I don't think Sister Hardy likes it much right now but all things get better in time!

We saw a few amazing miracles this week. It was a sacrament meeting I hope to remember forever. We were greeting members when I noticed the less active FAMILY that we have been working with walked into the chapel!! My heart was so full. As I sat by them I felt a little bit like Alma and the sons of Mosiah when they returned from their missions and were so happy to see each other again after all that they had endured. "Now these sons of Mosiah were with Alma at the time the angel first appeared unto him; therefore Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren; and what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord; yea, and they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were men of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God." Everything just felt right. We were all supposed to be there at church together - that's where we belonged. The spirit was strong. 

Then Amanda bore her testimony about family history and the temple. She told of the experience she had had with her Grandma - how it had changed her life and helped her find her testimony again. It was such a powerful witness of the truth.

We have several lessons set up for this week - I'm pretty excited. I love it here. I have decided to focus on charity for the next six weeks. I know that if we "have not charity we are nothing" and when we love people they can feel it. Loving them makes all of the difference in their lives. As I have tried to forget about myself and just LOVE more deeply, the conversations we have are so much better. I know that these people need this. They might not know that they do but I KNOW. And even if they are hard to love, God loves them. And I love God and I know that He has called me to do His work and to be His hands and to love His children so because I love Him, I can love them also. We all have weakness, we are all trying. When "love of God and our neighbor rules the world" that's when the work moves forward. That's when our natures change and we begin to fulfill the measure of our creation. 

I have been reading and studying so many wonderful talks and I want to share ALL of them but for now I will just leave you with a few quotes..hopefully they will apply to someone somewhere..These are from Lawrence E. Corbridge

"Every challenge you face, every hard thing you confront, every bad thing that happens to you,

every unfairness, every conflict, every sadness, tragedy, every disappointment and heartache, every

temptation and every opposition happens for one purpose only: to give you opportunity to respond by

applying in your life the teachings of Jesus. As you do so you are changed to become more like Him."

"The purpose and central blessing of life is change. It is to be changed to become more like Jesus Christ. It

is to incorporate into your character, the qualities of His character. It is to move from one degree of intelligence

and capacity to the next, and from there to the next, until you see God face to face and know Him as He knows

you."

"In the end, your heart and your will is all that you have to give that the Lord does not already have. If you

give your time, two years, and your strength, you give only that which He grants to you with each beat of your

heart and each breath that you draw. If you dedicate your gifts and talents, you only return to Him what He

already has given to you. If you pay tithing you only return to Him a tenth of what he has already given to you.

Everything that you have to give to the Lord, has its origin in Him, except one thing: your will. He does not have

your heart, nor your mind, unless you give them to Him. It is the only gift you have to offer that He does not

already have. And so when you give yourself, you truly give everything to Him."

"The only wav to win is to lose. Lose yourself in the Lord's work, and you will win beyond your

wildest imaginations, for "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the

things which God hath prepared for them that love him." (I Cor 2:9)."

"It is easier to walk with the Lord than it is to labor against

Him."

This week is President and Sister Leavitt's last zone conference..and mine. I am looking forward to it.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST - HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!! I hope you have the best day!!! Thank you for being my hero. You'll never know how much I love you and how much I look up to you. I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have you as my mom. HAVE FUN AT DISNEYLAND (if your are going that day 

BYE BYE LOVE YOU ALL!

Love, Sister G

everyone in Canada has a cat!

BABY NUMBER 2

Hello - happy June 1!!

We found out about transfers! I am staying in Greenwood and training a new missionary (my baby)!!!!!!!! I could not be more excited. And I know this is a major blessing from Heavenly Father to be able to focus completely on the work for my last 6 weeks. Give everything I can to Him. Sprint through the finish. Help my companion start her mission off in the BEST way possible. We will have so much fun! 

We had a pretty eventful week. The weather has been beautiful, HOT AND HUMID. There are soooooooooooooooooo many mosquitos!!! But i can't complain because I know there are all kinds of freaky bugs out there (that other missionaries get to deal with) #countyourmanyblessings. They are just a little bit annoying because we open the door and 50 of them fly into the car and I'm trying to hit them down as I'm driving (it's distracting) then as we walk around they fly all over your face..I had a big red welt on my forehead the other day haha...lucky for me the bites don't actually itch. It's weird but awesome!! Anyway, moving on. We started teaching the cutest young mom!! She is the daughter-in-law of a less active member so on our way to find this member we met Kaitlin. She had four kids and was impressed by missionaries in the past who were so willing to offer support and help to their family. She doesn't really have a religious background but is very open to learning about the Book of Mormon. Her family is the most important thing in her life and when we told her that there is a way she can live with them forever she lit up. She has always felt that that had to be the case but was kept from the truth because she didn't know where to find it. I am so excited to teach her. 

We also had the privilege of attending the temple on Saturday with a recent convert, Anne and another member that we have been working with, Amanda. Both of them had prepared family names and it was incredible to see the Spirit of Elijah working in their lives. Amanda had a particularly profound experience. She had been struggling for awhile with different things. She knew the branch temple trip as coming up and we encouraged her to begin her family history. She was baptized just over a year ago and none of her family members are in the church so she thought it would be hard to get the information and permission that she needed. But she moved forward with faith. She talked to her great aunt and received enough information to begin. When she entered in the dates of her great grandma, tears came to her eyes and the Spirit flooded through her body. She knew Vivienne was waiting for her work to be done. As she contacted more relatives she accessed more information and found one of her lines went back to 209 AD!!!!!!!!!!! She was so excited that she was hardly sleeping. I won't forget the Spirit that attended us in the temple that day as she was baptized and confirmed for Vivienne. We all felt her there. After that, Sister Tegge and I were able to participate in some sealings which was another wonderful experience. This week my testimony of eternal families, family history and the joy of the temple was strengthened immensely. There is no better work in the world than the work of Salvation - and as Latter-day Saints we get to be a part of it!!!

We have also been working with a cute family who are struggling in their church attendance. They had us over for dinner and they told us that their 8 your old son wanted to take the missionary lessons to prepare him for baptism. It was a sweet spiritual experience as we taught the simple doctrines of the restoration. I felt like the Spirit touched each of our hearts and they are excited to have us come back for the next lesson. They sent us away with a whole carton of eggs from their chickens, jam, home-made bread and leftovers from dinner!! MOM I AM NOT GOING HUNGRY. 

I wanted to tell you something that an amazing missionary told me last Monday. She wrote and said, "The thought I want to share stems from my relief society lesson yesterday. I realized that the one thing that if humans would NOT DO then self esteem, self worth, self confidence, self competence etc would flourish is DON'T COMPARE. Comparing ourselves to others is poison. I don't struggle with this overall but I know the second I allow comparison to creep in I feel like garbage. With that realization I can sort of imagine how people who struggle with it daily feel. Wow! Of course, it's often easier said than done BUT if we CAN avoid comparing ourselves to others then "happy are we, happy are we!" I encourage all of you this week to recognize those things where Satan sneakily slips thoughts of comparing into your life and learn to shun it and him at the onset. I truly believe if we can do this our self confidence and self esteem etc will soar!" She is so right. This is a lesson that I feel is important for each of us to be reminded of. I have learned form personal experience that comparison is the thief of joy. God made you YOU for a reason. He loves you - weaknesses, imperfections and all as long as you are trying. I think that we need to love who we are and work hard to become more like Christ. Comparing ourselves to others is selfish and miserable. As I have tried to work on this throughout my mission (though it is sometimes hard and I am far from perfect at it) I have found it easier to have confidence in myself and my Savior. When we compare WE TURN IN. The Savior's way is to always TURN OUT!! I hope you will all think about this - it helped me. 

I have a testimony that God answers prayers. I have a testimony that life is what you make it. I have a testimony of the divinity of my Savior and His work. I know that when we put God first in our lives - when we focus on people - when we live the first 2 great commandments LOVE GOD AND LOVE YOU NEIGHBOUR - life is better.

I DO LOVE YOU ALL!! And I will see you soon.

Love, Sister G 

PS - Happy happy birthday to grandma g this week! I am thinking about you and hope you know that I love you. You are a light in my life. And happy graduation LUCE!! I wish I could be there but know that I'm proud of you. Hope you have an unforgettable week!!