Chapter 12: "Tune my heart to sing Thy grace!" - September 22, 2014

Howdy howdy family and friends!!

I honestly cannot believe it is the 12th chapter of my mission already!! Wow... well, the good, and almost unbelievable news is that I'll be staying right here in Childress with the wonderful Sister Carroll for 6 more weeks! The last 6 have already gone by SO fast! It's crazy! But, I couldn't have asked for a less stressful transfer call hahahaha

In the craziness of last week, I forgot to write about how I'm considering myself truly Texan now because I ran barefoot through the grass (filled with goatheads and all) during our missionary- branch activity last week! I got some of those little goatheads in my feet when my shoes fell off, but it turned out pretty good. :)

Also, I got to shake Elder Andersen's hand at stake conference!!! That was so cool! I'm excited for general conference coming up the first week of October, and the women's broadcast this coming Saturday! Fall really brings in the best time to learn! School is back into full swing, we are being spiritually edified, and that sun isn't so blazing hot anymore!

...which is actually really good because our AC went out this week, and our little house got into the 90s, gratefully though, my Dexter experience kept me thankful, because we didn't have a ceiling fan in New Mexico lol. 

But, even more news from this wonderful week, since we've been approved to be able to participate in more service, we've been helping move some items for the local thrift store in our area, and it's been going pretty well! They recently moved stores, so we've had a fun task of moving all their boxes in their old store, and we've found some treasures! One of which was a perfectly fitting pair of gently used cowboy boots that I was able to get for only 3 dollars! So, I'm definitely getting Texan! :P

But, the best part of the week (well, the best part of the week that's different from other weeks, because lets be honest, teaching is the BEST part of the week every week!), but yes, the best part of the week was the wonderful trip Sister Carroll and I were able to make to the temple! We got to drive down to Lubbock with Sister S, an amazing woman in the branch, the "only Mormon in Motley county"! She made the drive feel incredibly short with her life stories, and then it was incredible to get to the temple, and see a lot of familiar faces from lots of far away places! haha there were so many people there, and it was just an incredible experience. I feel very blessed that we are now able to go every transfer! :D

Two things really stood out to me on this experience. One was seeing some of the members and missionaries from old areas I've served in, I saw a sister from Monahans, and I saw a couple from Midland 1st ward who were working there, and I saw some missionaries just from around the mission (including 2 of my old companions who are now serving together!)!! There is already that special spirit in the Lord's house, and I was just filled with so much more excitement as I saw them, I thought about how that will be when we are reunited with our families when the time comes... it's only been a number of months since I'd been in contact with some of these amazing individuals, and just the joy I felt at being together again in such a Holy place brought tears to my eyes... I can't imagine being reunited for eternity, but I know it's going to happen, and it can, with God's authority.

The second experience I had that really stood out to me was as I was reading the scriptures after our session. My mind and my heart felt so full as I was standing there reading from that beautiful white book! I was reading in Chapters 12-16 of John, chapters I know and love, but for some reason they just had so much more meaning, I understood a few things better that hadn't stood out to me before, but I felt as if there was something deeper in them that  I can not yet understand... in a way like my brain was trying to remember something I'd forgotten, but I felt it, it was beautiful. :)

So this week was really just wonderful! As usual, Sunday brought everything together, and for me, this week, it came in the form of a talk by a recent convert in the branch. He bore a very tender, but raw testimony, about how he's received a considerable amount of opposition since he has joined the church. He said "I was welcomed to every church in Clarendon, but when I finally got baptized, and realized I have my hope of being able to get to going Home... everything changed..." A few weeks ago he bore his testimony about how he'd spent 70 years of his life not living until he found the fullness of the truth...

I've just been amazed as I've been here at the firmness of the faith of the Latter-day Saints down here. Yes, there are a great number of friendly, good, Christian folks down here, but, especially in small towns, there is a lot of hate from ignorance. I mean, it's understandable for us to get rejected as missionaries, we are defiantly different, and we don't live normal lives right now, but it's not hard to see that the members of our church are incredible Christian people that have the same problems in life as anyone else...  Sitting in sacrament meeting and listening to Brother Like tell a little bit of his story just filled me with hope. I know, as missionaries we would not be able to do this if it was not true, and I know with all of my heart our wonderful members wouldn't be able to stay strong and actively involved in their faith if it was not the FULLNESS of Christ's gospel here on the earth today.

I love the Lord, and I'm just feeling so blessed to be part of His work! He really is tuning my heart one day at a time! :)

With all my heart,

Sister Heather Ann Lagrosa

Pictures:

1- Reunited with some old companions at the temple! (you know when you've had too many companions when they start getting paired up with each other!) 

2- A cutesicles little sign outside of Sweet, Sweet Childress!!

3- My $3 dollar cowboy boots! woot woot!

 

"The urge to move as my heart stirs!" - September 15, 2014

Howdy, howdy my loved family and friends!

 

It was yet another great week out here in sweet, sweet Childress!! :) Lots of learning, laughter, and love! :D

 

We had lots of learning happen this week while we taught lessons, had zone training (just a gathering of missionaries in the Amarillo area) and went to stake conference and we were able to listen to Elder Neil L. Andersen speak to us! There was SOOO much goodness in each of the sessions of Stake Conference we were able to hear (the adult session, the youth and young adult session, and the general session) :D 

 

There really was nothing that I didn’t love about Stake Conference this weekend, but what stood out to me most was said by Elder Andersen in his address to the youth at 8:30 Sunday morning. He was talking about how preparing to go to the temple is how you prepare to serve a mission, and gave 7 suggestions. The fourth was: “Pray and read your scriptures when no one is looking.” Then he continued, and asked us why it should be a secret. Everyone laughed and he further explained that as do these things on our own we really build up our personal testimonies, and that is what really carries us through hard times, not what we are forced or compelled to do. He further explained that as teenagers, you’re going to be forced to do some things and you can’t control all of your personal circumstances, but it is what you do on your own that shapes who you are. At the end of his address he said: “Be serious about your life, have fun, but be serious. No one will care about you quite as much as you can care about yourself. Our choice is what we become.”

 

The Spirit settled in really deep when I heard that. And then it settled in again at the end of conference when he said: “If we are not happy with ourselves, we need to learn to love ourselves; we will be ourselves for a very long time.”

 

I thought about how everyone in the world has circumstances they choose and those they do not choose, but it is really how we respond to our present and view the past that shape who we are and who we become… there really is a lot of struggle in the world, but we can prevail with the Lord on our side! We just need to be humble!

 

Moroni 10:32 “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all unholiness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.”

 

As I was reading this this week, the thought came to me that Christ’s grace can NEVER be sufficient unless we choose Him, unless we desire his grace to be sufficient for us in our lives, and we use our energy to love God and do His will. He is there for us, but we really have to choose Him.

 

His plan is perfect, His love is real, and His church is true!

 

With all of my heart,

Sister Heather Ann Lagrosa

 

The Struggle is REAL! - September 8, 2014

Howdy Howdy family and friends!!

It was indeed another beautiful week here in good 'ol Childress Texas! It's kind of amazing how we always seem to learn and to grow and how Heavenly Father really does prepare us very specifically for very specific trials and situations we will be put in.

The last few days have been pretty amazing, the last few weeks have just FLOWN by! It's so hard to think that I've been here in Childress for a month already! And ever since I got here we've been looking forward to stake conference (just a big gathering in our geographical area up here in the panhandle of TX) because Elder Andersen from the Quorum of the 12 Apostles is coming to speak! Now it's just a few short days away! crazy. We are all very excited though, and we fasted as a branch this Sunday so we can all have a spiritual experience this coming weekend as we listen to an apostle speak! :D

This is also getting me SO excited for general conference coming up here in a couple weeks!! There is SO much exciting stuff on the way!

As I was thinking about what to share this week some lines from one of the songs on the new Nasville Tribute CD:

" There's nothing like the kind of smile you just can't hold back,

as the truth comes alive, and believing starts a whole new life."

Those words just make my heart stir even just thinking about them!

And tying this all together with the title of this e-mail, we've been working the last few weeks a lot with this amazing man named Danny, who is preparing for baptism next week, and he's been having some struggles. The most amazing thing that I've seen these past few weeks is just how much his countenance has changed, and how he is truely lighter. He knows without a doubt that the gospel is true, and it has been restored in its fullness in these last days, and he is fighting hard to change from who he has been in the past.

Sister Carroll and I were talking about thinking again (shocker right? :P) on Saturday night, and I was trying to describe the conflict that I have in my mind sometimes, even when I know something is true, I wonder how could there be so much adversity if it really is true?? And I know Christ's path was filled with adversity, and He was perfect and true His entire life! But, to me, and I'd never thought of it like this before, but to me it just felt like a demon or something in my head that just tries to keep the negativity and not let any light in. That just kind of keeps me in a place where I was before instead of letting me move forward.

Fast forwarding to Sunday evening we met with Danny, and he's had a ROUGH day, and he very cautiously shared with us how he felt: "It's like I'm not playing with a full deck of cards, or like I've just been bad for so long, I don't know how to be good... do you think that there is just something evil in me?"

I almost started crying when he said that because I just felt the conflict he was feeling in my heart, and it sunk deep. We went to the scriptures, in Mosiah 3:19, and talked about the natural man and the spiritual man that is inside each one of us. As we went through the passage one line at a time, we discussed how it is sometimes a person's trial to be more aware of that conflict than others. I received a lot of answers to questions I hadn't realized I'd had before. And it was just really, really amazing to feel the truth in the words I spoke, that I know didn't come from me, but from the Spirit.

During the lesson I felt a little anxiety, because as missionaries we really only help people spiritually, but there are a lot of other things in the world that take our time, energy, and thought space... We continued to Matthew 6:33-34 as we addressed a temporal concern with him, and did the only thing we could do, just promise blessings. We don't know how everything works, but we do know that Christ's promises are ALWAYS kept, and as we follow His counsel, everything will work together.

This week was really and truely amazing, everything kind of came together in studies this morning I ran across this scripture in 2 Tim 3:7 - "[there are people] Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

It was right in the middle of some counsel from Paul to his son Timothy, talking about how people would turn away into apostacy, and some of the characteristics they had... and I've seen in my life that I LOVE learning, but this helped me to remember that knowledge has no purpose without truth everything is useless unless it has a purpose... so even though it's nice to know things, I need to learn with a purpose, always, the words I say need to have a purpose, always, and the steps I take in life (physically and metaphorically) need to have a purpose, always.

It's good to know that the gospel is the good news! I'm happy to have it in my life, and I'm very happy to have opportunities to share it, in its restored fullness today!

 

I love you all! Keep searching for truth, It'll light up your life! (seriously :D)

With all my heart,

Sister Heather Ann Lagrosa

Picture:

1- I've been dreaming of this picture ever since I started my mission!

Some things I love: Thundersto​rms, Country Roads, and the Spirit - September 3, 2014

Hello hello my favorite family and friends!

So today is Wednesday, we were busy labouring on labor day, and the Library was closed, AND we had zone conference yesterday, so our e-mail time came late this week! So naturally I have SO much to tell you all about!! :)

First off, I wish I could name off all the amazing things I LOVE about sweet, sweet Childress! We got rain last week! LOTS AND LOTS OF RAIN!! The thunder was so LOUD our little blue house shook! But it was an amazing week filled with miracles, and life and laughter and love! We were introduced to the new Nashville Tribute CD- Called to Serve (I think is its name), and I fell in LOVE with the track about Moms- it made me really, really grateful for the amazing mothers who have helped shaped me in my life, especially my mom! :) It's kind of interesting learning more about myself out here, has really helped me understand so much more, and appreciate so much better the goodness and influence that I have had in my life. And I know that I wouldn't be out here without that influence. We got the CD from a mom, lol, and she was talking about all the kids and going to seminary and stuff, and our little congregation's geographical area is SO HUGE (seriously, it's like 3-4 counties) that there are kids who wake up and SKYPE into seminary in the morning because they live an hour away from the church! It's amazing the sacrifices that we make individually throughout different time periods in our lives so that we can learn and grow. And it especially amazes me the sacrifices that a lot of the church members out here make to keep everything going.

COUNTRY ROADS! This morning we went for a run, a pretty long one for our early morning missionary work outs, it was a little over 3 miles, and there is just something amazing about watching the sky slowly fill with light as you're running down a road that never ends! Okay, let's be honest, this is me we're talking about it was more of a nice jog, except when I realized that there were some dogs that weren't leashed and I turned around and sprinted away pretty quick :P but, overall, it was amazing. As I was talking with my lovely companion after our run, we realized that we both have very different experiences in our heads while we're going. Where she thinks of anything and everything in the world so she doesn't have to think about how she's running, my mind kind of goes blank, kind of like the feeling you get right before you take a test and you forgot everything- but it's not anxiety-inducing, just relaxing, because normally I feel like it's going 1001 miles/hour in 379 different directions. I'm pretty lucky to have a good soundtrack just going in my head, but there are some little things cross into the blank-ness sometimes, like how the temperature is cooler when we're in one of the little valleys between the hills, or how it's almost indiscernible, but the light really does gradually increase before you see the sun rise over the horizon! Upon further reflection, I kind of likened it to a little analogy that was used in a conference recently: how we learn truth/see light comes in 1 of 2 ways:

1- like turning on a lightswitch = immediate answers

2- like watching the sun rise = gradual progression

And I thought of how we're all kind of running down this road we can't see the end of, except it's like an ALL day process! haha, but we can kind of start in the dark, and then the first bits of light show us where the horizon is, and kind of give us a little more motivation to go towards it, even though we can't see the best of what's in front of us. But as we go up and down the hills, moving forward, slowly the path in front of us gets a little lighter and we can see a little more. And then we get some more light, and realize, wow, we have a long way to go! But, we keep going, and it feels awesome! :D

I'll end today with a little bit on the Spirit, because that was a HUGE focus during our Zone Conference yesterday, and I know that 18-26 children would not be able to be out here serving teaching the gospel without it! :P 

President Heap is such a powerful speaker, and we were being taught a lot about how we need to teach by the Spirit, and to other's needs, show them we love them, because that's what the Savior did, that is the ONLY reason He ministered, was because of love! After he called each of us by name he said: "I know each of you by name because I love you, and I need you." The Spirit was so strong in the room, I can't describe to you the peace and sincerity that was in that man's words. He talked just a little bit more about how we are teaching and preaching repentance, a lot of people know the Savior down here, but they don't fully understand that the Atonement changes you. That was very bold, and both of my eyebrows went up, but I knew his words were true, and I realized, I'd have to be learning repentance, and the atonement for the rest of my life too. It only gets harder and hotter with that sun rising in my life, but it's a beautiful thing to be able to walk (or run) by faith while we're here on earth, because that road I travel, it's celestial. :)

With all my heart,

Sister Heather Ann Lagrosa

p.s. check out davidandmaryheap.blogspot.com for more fun TLM mission news!! :D

PICTURES!!
1- I LOVE ME SOME CHILDRESS!! (also, getting on that wall was an adventure :P)

2- This is why we need to go running every morning! Everything is BIGGER in Texas!

3- Bike day in the rain! (Don't worry, we were about 4.528 seconds from a DOWNPOUR, and 4.326 seconds from a member's home, the thunders was shaking the streets in this picture!)

4- awesome missionary foot blister :P

5- EPIC!

6- After a run on the front porch of our cutesicles little blue house :D

7- Zone Conference = old companion reunions! :D