April 16,2012

Dear Family,

Thanks so much for the package this week!!! Peaches again. . . . i
think it is no small miracle that they made it in the mail all the way
from Manti to Michigan!! HA ha, What a tender mercy! We are totally
buying ice tonight so we can enjoy a lovely peach smoothie! I'm SO
EXCITED!!! :) I loved the pictures, books and food! Ha ha, some of the
oatmeal packets were slightly ripped and so there was oatmeal
everywhere! It was hilarious! (P.S. I have had blueberry waffles for
breakfast like every day this week! Thanks so much, they are
DE-LISH!!) So basically, I can't say thank you enough! You are all so
wonderful! <3 Today I also got the package of church history DVD's, so
we are way excited to be able to use those too! This week was so
SWEET!! I got 3 packages!! I felt SO LOVED!! :) So besides the 2 from
you guys, I got one from Sister Howell for the ward relief society
party! It totally made my day! Please let her (and all of the Relief
Society Sisters) know how much I appreciated their little notes of
encouragement and love! :)

This week has been such a good one! We had new missionary orientation
which of course was amazing! We talked about the importance of
obedience and letting the spirit guide us. It's something that i have
been really trying to work on, so it was a really good reminder where
i could take a few minutes to evaluate where I'm at, and set some
goals to let the spirit guide me more. Of course it is always good to
be with the other missionaries and Sister Hoopes was there so we got
to talk for a few minutes! It's so amazing how much you really come to
love people in such a short amount of time. She really feels like my
Sister, so it was SO GOOD to see her!!! Man! I Love that girl, so
much! :) It's only been about a month since they split us up, but in
that short time i can see how much I've grown and how much she has
grown! We definitely didn't want to be split up, but it was really a
testimony of how this is the Lord's work! He knows what to give us to
help us learn and grow! :) What a great meeting! :)

It's amazing to think how fast time goes! Sister Thompson and I have
been together almost a whole month!! CRAZY! I can see how she is
finding her "Missionary Self" and starting to really be more involved
with the work and love it! Her confidence has really grown and I am
learning how to let her take the lead. This week I was able to ask her
to start several lessons, the first few times were really rough, but
practice makes perfect! (I remember going through the exact same
thing!) I had to really rely on the spirit and trust that Heavenly
Father will help us. It was the most amazing experience! As I turned
the whole situation to Heavenly Father, prayed for Sister Thompson,
for the investigator and to be guided by the spirit, we were SO
blessed! WE were teaching a girl named Morgan for the first time. It
was S. Thompson's turn to start and after the prayer, she started
teaching and asking questions and i started praying even harder!! :) I
watched as S. Thompson used the how to begin teaching bullet points
that we had been practicing, how she was able to ask inspired
questions, how she laid out our expectations (and Morgan didn't even
flinch! She was totally good with everything that we were asking her
to do!!) S Thompson is turning into an AMAZING missionary!!! :) She is
going to be SO GOOD! I prayed the whole lesson and stepped in to help
teach as needed, but it was truly a tender mercy to see this wonderful
blessing! Morgan is SO prepared!! I was studying the other day about
how Angels are preparing our investigators hearts, that was plainly
manifested to me by Morgan! She was hadn't been to church since she
was like 4, so she has hardly any knowledge about spiritual things. As
we taught her about God's love for her, about prophets, apostasy, the
Restoration, the Book of Mormon and praying to know if it was true she
was like a sponge- just soaking everything up! We taught her how to
pray, and she willingly said the closing prayer. <3 As she prayed she
thanked heavenly Father for "bringing these 2 lovely ladies into my
life at a time when i so desperately needed them!" I was overwhelmed
at the feelings of love and gratitude for the gospel! For my
testimony, for being a missionary, for the angels that have prepared
Morgan and for the opportunity i have to help her at this time in her
life! Later we found out that her mom is fighting cancer, she isn't
doing very well and it has been really hard for Morgan. When she came
to church on Sunday, all 3 meetings were about God's love for all of
his children, sacrifice, and how Christ is ALWAYS there for us!
Throughout the meetings she was just kind of in awe, she would nod her
head and agree with what the speakers or teachers were saying and at
the end of the day she asked "Is that all? It's really been 3 hours! I
thought it would be much longer, but that seemed to go by so quickly!"
We are meeting with her tomorrow and I can hardly wait! She is one of
those special spirits that I really KNOW I was sent here to find,
teach and help her to feel and know of God's immense love for her!!!
It's amazing!!

This week one of our goals was to continue to talk to as many people
as we possibly could, cause when we do that we will be able to find
those that are really ready to accept the message of the restoration.
It is almost too easy sometimes to let someone walk by and make an
excuse like, "They were walking too fast. . ." or "They probably
wouldn't have been interested any ways!." So this week we made a new
rule: If one of us let someone walk by, we didn't get any ice cream
when we got home that night! But in order to redeem ourselves, if we
did let someone walk by, we had to get 2 more potentials than we had
set our goals for. Ha ha, it was rough! The ice cream has sat lonely
in the freezer this whole week, but we are determined this week that
we are going to be able to enjoy some! :) It's a good goal that really
helps us to push ourselves and each other!

One more quick story, we were invited to stop by a Christian group on
campus and share a little bit more about the Book of Mormon. Of course
nothing ever turns out the way we plan, but i guess that is why we
practice!! We only had planned on talking to a few of the guys we had
contacted into earlier in the week, but as we started teaching the
whole group turned around to listen!! We didn't have much time because
we had another appointment, but we were able to quickly share our core
message, give them Restoration pamphlets and invite them to really
study it out, pray about it and call us with any questions. We haven't
heard anything from them yet, but I know there were some good seeds
planted- we are going to see miracles!! :)

Well, family! My time is up! I love you all SO much!!! Thanks Mom Dad
and Di for your letters this week! :) Keep praying for me! <3 I need
all the help i can get! :) Thanks so much for all you do, you are all
such a huge blessing that I thank Heavenly Father for every single
day! :) Love you all the BESTEST!!

Love,
Sister Bishop