Happy Fall Equinox

Hi Mama!!

It's been a great week in Kent. We saw so many miracles this week! Our investigator Nikki is progressing, and I absolutely love her. Another investigator, David, remembered learning about the Word of Wisdom from Sister Bell last year, and on Saturday he told us that he had started living it--without us even asking him to! Amazing.

Happy Fall Equinox indeed! I wore tights for the first time yesterday, and wore my hoodie running this morning. Fall is here! The leaves are beginning to turn colors, and it's already beautiful. I think it will be picture-worthy soon. :)

We also saw miracles tracting and contacting this week. We went to a farmer's market in Kent on Saturday, and I felt like we should stop and talk to a particular vendor--a girl selling home made soap. I'm so glad that we followed that impression! It turned out that the girl had met other missionaries at another market the week before, and she also had a friend in school who was a member, who told her about Kirtland. She lives near Hiram and has been to the Johnson Farm, but no one ever offered her a copy of the Book of Mormon. We offered to have missionaries bring her one, and she accepted! It was such an amazing experience. I am so grateful for the little moments of quiet assurance that Heavenly Father is with us and guiding us in His work--moments like this one, where I realize that I have been led by the Spirit. It was also a testimony builder to me that Heavenly Father truly knows us, and sends the Spirit to teach us and guide us in ways that we know and understand (See 2 Ne 31:3). At first, I wanted to talk to this girl because she was selling home made soap--and I've always liked the home made soap that Mama Rowley makes us. If it hadn't been for that, I might not have felt enough of an interest to talk to her. Every little thing prepares us for what's next! There are no coincidences. :)

This week, I'm also incredibly grateful for the power of music. Heavenly Father teaches me many, many things through musical concepts that I already know and understand as He helps me apply them to spiritual concepts and gospel knowledge. Take, for instance, Coach's constant reminder during my choir years to always "monitor and adjust" as we sing. That's the same as "practice, evaluate, and repractice" as we study and prepare to teach. Also, being in tune with the Spirit, to me, is a lot like being in tune musically in two ways. One, I have to make sure I play every note in tune on my flute--just because one note is right doesn't mean another one will be right 5 minutes down the road. Also, I have to be in tune with the conductor--to keep my focus locked on his baton so that I can play in time and be sensitive to his rubato. It's the same with the Spirit. :)

Dan is doing alright. We still haven't been able to help him move past Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon--so we backed off and are going to let him focus on studying, praying, and such for awhile. Keep praying for him though. I know he'll know it's true someday. :) We also met with Brenda this week--we are going to keep reading the Book of Mormon with her as well. She is amazing, and I can see her testimony building little by little as we meet with her. Yay. :)

Thank you for sharing your experiences, thoughts, and encouragement, and for your confidence in me. I think self-confidence is one of the hardest things for me to be consistent at. Satan works so hard to get me down! I'm grateful for spiral progression, though. Each time I come back to a challenge, I come back with a little more knowledge and experience to draw on that can help me--in this and any other situation. I'm so grateful for the gospel! In particular, I'm grateful for Elder Bednar's Mormon Message about "Patterns of Light". That helped me yesterday, when I was sitting in sacrament meeting feeling overwhelmed. I was longing to feel Heavenly Father's love and acceptance of me, and Mama, the impression that came to me was of your love and support. Thanks for the spirit hug. :) This helped me to recognize Heavenly Father's own love and support for me through you--as Elder Bednar describes in Patterns of Light (see here). I love you! Thank you for your example, and for helping me to recognize and feel the love that I needed. 

You asked for more about Elder Bowen's meeting--I'll review my notes and share more with you next week. The picture you saw was indeed of the back of my head, with Sister Bell to my left and Elder Bowen to my right. He sat with us at lunch! We are so, so lucky. :)

We're almost out of time--I love you so much! Thank you for all of the wonderful stories, experiences, greetings, news, and love. I love reading your emails every week! Please give my love to everyone, and snuggle Purrcy for me.  :) Love you!!!!!

Love,

Sister Wygant

Happy Fall!

Hi Mama!!

Happy Fall! It's starting to get dark earlier, and it's brisk in the mornings--where did the summer go? It's been an amazing week though. Elder Bowen from the Seventy came to tour our mission, and our half of the mission met with him on Tuesday. He is AMAZING. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from him! We talked a lot about knowing who we are and what we do because of it. He reminded us that we are nothing without the Lord (see Alma 26:12 and Moses 1), but inspired us to have confidence in our ever-important message of the restored gospel. How great is our calling!! I love being a missionary. :) Elder Ballard is coming to Kirtland next month for a 10-year anniversary event. That's probably what Sister Palmer was talking about. We're so excited! :)

Exciting things are happening in Kent. We started teaching 3 new investigators this past week! One is Nikki, who we found tracting. It was the last door we knocked, of course, and we almost passed it--but I felt like we should stop. I'm so grateful that we did! Nikki is so sweet, and so open and willing to learn about the gospel. I love her already. I also love the baby kitten that she just got on Saturday. When we went back for our return appointment, the little kitten slept on my lap the whole time. So cute. :) 

Our other two investigators are a Muslim couple named Hussain and Arwa. They are incredible! Sister Bell taught them last year, and we decided to go back and see if they were interested in meeting with us again. They are the kindest, most devoted people I've ever met! I've never taught anyone of the Muslim religion before, and I'm not very familiar with their beliefs, so our first lesson was so interesting for me! I'm amazed at how devout and dedicated they are to their faith. It inspires me. They don't believe that Jesus is the Christ, which is something I've never encountered before. It will be an interesting experience to teach them, I'm sure. I've never had to defend Jesus as the Savior before--but there are lots of truths that I've had to defend and testify of on my mission that I've never had to beforehand. There are so many things, simple and deep, that we believe that I took for granted before my mission. I never questioned that Joseph Smith was a prophet, or etc, or etc--but meeting people who have never heard of him before has given me the opportunity to strengthen and deepen my own testimony as I teach and testify. I have to be able to explain not only what I believe, but why I believe it. What a great blessing. :)

I'm out of time, but I love you so much! Please tell everyone hello back for me, especially "Grumpy Grandpa" and Max. :) 

Love,

Sister Wygant

A "Valley of Roses"

Dear Mum,

Hello! How was your week? Ours was BUSY. But so good. We had dinner with the Maughn family last night (from Provo/Grandview :) ), and Brother Maughn shared this touching analogy for his mission experience: Before your mission, you're on a peak, looking down on a valley of roses. But once you get there, you discover that roses have thorns--that it hurts sometimes, and the way is hard. But once you're through, and climb the peak on the other side, you'll look back and see all of the roses that were there the whole time. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary! I know that I learned and grown so much through my service as a missionary--in ways I recognize now, and hopefully many more ways that I will recognize later. I know that sometimes it's hard to recognize change or growth in yourself--have I grown in the past year? How? 

I can't believe Colby and Alicia are getting married--what a small world! That's so exciting. Please send me congratulations to them, as well as to Kelly and Zac! It sounds like they are both powerful and prepared missionaries. What wonderful talks--thank you for sharing your notes with me!

Our week was busy as usual. :) We had Zone Training Meeting on Wednesday, which was fantastic. Sister Bell and I also organized a pot luck lunch for the zone--and it actually worked out! (Phew :) ). Everyone brought an ingredient, and we made Cafe Rio-style salad. Yum. :) 

Speaking of conferences and meetings, our mission conference with Elder Bowen is tomorrow! I am SO excited. I can't wait to learn from him and from the Spirit that I know he will bring.

Also, did you get to watch the CES devotional last night? Another wonderful opportunity to hear from an Apostle of the Lord. Dan came, so we were able to watch it with him--I hope he got as much out of it as I did! I thought it was fabulous. 

Both xxx and yyy came to church yesterday--yay! yyy hasn't set a baptismal date yet, but she wants to be baptized sometime in November. She is such a joy to teach--she is amazingly prepared and accepting of the gospel principles that we teach her. I love her! 

xxx is also a great privilege to teach. I have grown so much in my gospel knowledge and teaching skills from teaching him. I'm grateful for every reminder that we need to teach simply, and teach by the Spirit. xxx is still struggling to accept Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I think he has felt spiritual witnesses, but he is so logic-minded and focused on evidence that he has a hard time accepting the spiritual confirmations he receives as answers. He has shared experiences feeling the Spirit before, but we're still trying to help him connect feeling the Spirit with recognizing this as the truth. We're going to try just focusing on reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it and Joseph Smith for the next while. Do you have any other suggestions? How can we help him accept a spiritual witness of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith in spite of it not making sense to him logically yet? We'd welcome any and all suggestions. :) 

I've been reflecting lately on how much I've learned and changed as a missionary. I'm so grateful for the increased knowledge and understanding I have been blessed with recently, especially about the Atonement. I am grateful for challenging, even sometimes painful experiences that have helped me to realize just how much I need the Atonement. It's easy to identify with Nephi's psalm sometimes--and to wonder if I will ever be able to rise above my past self, past mistakes, and present imperfections. But now I know that that's what the enabling power of the Atonement is all about--by ourselves, we could never "break the mold" and rise above our natural selves. But through the Atonement, we have hope--hope that He can "raise us up" and save us from our weaknesses, sins, mistakes, inadequacies, faults--all of it. (see Moroni 7:41).

 It reminds me of one of my favorite songs from the Ark--"Lift me up, take me home; Life me up and help me to stand. Lift me up, and carry me in the cup of Thy hand." The soothing balm of Gilead is what flows from the infinite sacrifice of the Savior--and that is what I want, more than anything, to share with the people of Ohio. We've been struggling to find lately, and this week we've decided to focus our prayers on asking for people's hearts to be softened, and to focus our studies on finding and teaching skills. Please pray for the people of Ohio! I know that they need the gospel of Jesus Christ just as much as I do--but it's very challenging to light fires under people who don't recognize the need for it. I'm guilty of that myself, in the past! I'm so grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission, and to see my heart be changed and my eyes opened, and be blessed with greater understanding of and passion for living the gospel. I don't understand it all, and I can explain even less--but I know that we have been called by a prophet of God to share what we know to be true. And I love doing it. :) We're out of time, but I love you, and I love everyone at home! Please pass on my love and my gratitude to everyone for their prayers and well wishes. Talk to you next week! 

Love,

Sister Wygant

Happy Labor Day

Hi Mama!

We didn't get to go email yesterday since the libraries were closed...and I have just a few minutes today. Thank you for your wonderful thoughts! We are so busy lately, and it's really easy to feel like we're drowning in life's situations. Thank you for reminding me that our Lifeguard walks on water. :) 

We've had such a great week. We had a really good lesson with David, and he came to church! He was even fasting--without us even asking him to! He is great. We also had a lovely lesson with Brenda. I love her so much. She is so sweet. She still doesn't feel comfortable coming to church, but I hope that as we continue to pray and study with her that we will be able to find and resolve her concerns. 

Kent State started classes last week, and we go once a week to sit at an information table for the LDSSA club and talk to people about mormon.org. It is so fun. :) Anna, a freshman who just moved into the YSA Branch, sat with us, and she was so good at greeting people and talking to them!! She's a natural. :) We were also on exchanges that day, so I was working with Sister Owens from the Tallmadge North area...busy busy busy!

Let's see...Mission Leadership Council was today! I got to lead a discussion on one of our mission study topics for Elder Bowen's visit next week. It was fun and intimidating at the same time. I love Mission Council, and learning so much from the wisdom and experience of President Vellinga and the other missionaries. We're busy preparing for Elder Bowen's mission tour next week--our zone and 3 other zones will get to meet with him next Tuesday. I'm so excited! His conference talks and the things he's asked us to study have helped me learn SO much. I'm so excited to learn even more from him!

I'm so glad the recording of our musical number worked for you. Please feel free to share it if possible! Our weekend at Kirtland was great. We had more visitors than I expected--the numbers are starting to die down now that the summer rush is over. We had a wonderful training meeting on Friday, where we talked about the Atonement, and shared hymns/verses of hymns that have helped us feel the Savior's love and the power of the Atonement. I love music. It was such a powerful witness and help to me. :)

Speaking of the summer rush being over, the leaves in Ohio started changing color almost a month ago--and they're already falling, in some places! What? It can't be fall yet! That's crazy. I can't believe the summer went so fast....but September means that General Conference is only a month away! That's a very exciting thought. I LOVE Conference. :)

I'm so glad that you got to meet Sister Palmer! She is amazing, and I love her so much. She emailed me and said that she loved meeting you. :) 

This has definitely been a "roller coaster" week...full of ups and downs. But all in all, life is good. I'm grateful that Heavenly Father loves me enough to give me hard things to work through, and to also be with me every step of the way. We've been talking with our investigator Dan about grace lately...and I can testify of the reality of both enabling grace and saving grace. There is so much that I can't do, and sometimes, it threatens to overwhelm me...but when I muster the courage to put one step forward, I somehow find the power to do so, every time. I know that comes from the Savior. I love Him, and I love you!!! Thanks to all of you for your continued love, prayers, and support. The Church is true!

Love,

Sister Wygant

Sisters Palmer, Wygant and Ellsworth