Week 68: “Let’s Try Again” (October 21,2019)

Sister Smith and I were driving home late one evening this week, while discussing just how good of a week it’s been. I looked at her and said, "You know, I think it is because last week we were gone a lot, and this week we got to work." She nodded and said, with the biggest grin, "I love being a missionary.”

We are both in agreeance, that being able to be a part of this great work, truly makes up all the difference. Testifying of Him is the best part of everything we do. This week brought no shortage of joys for us. Tender mercies, I'm telling ya, are everywhere. I have said it for 16 months and I will say it for the rest of my life, God is too good and the joy is all too real. 

With Halloween right around the corner (can you believe it?), we got to carve pumpkins with our favorite older people at Hunters Pointe this week, where I also was asked out on a date to the Nutcracker by our friend Merv. We got to sing in a different assisted living home later in the week, where as we were singing, "I am a Child of God", different people in the audience were mouthing the words as the hymn went on. It was a really special little miracle, to see that truth spark in so many residents faces. 

I have met some of the most amazing people while serving here in Montana... It is just incredible to realize that He is literally in charge of all of it, and know where you need to be and who you need to be with. Coming back to Helena four and a half months ago brought me to some amazing people, including the wonderful Tammy and Rick. Tammy was baptized back in July, about two weeks after I arrived. Rick is a member of the church, but does not attend with her; yet he is one of my favorite people. We got to spend part of a day getting Tammy further into her family history work, and eating lunch with the both of them. It was so sweet just to sit and visit with people who we call family, and to help connect them with other family, on both sides of the veil. 

We had our final two exchanges of the transfer this week, and on one such exchange we headed out to the Townsend area, about fourty-five minutes outside of Helena. I went past that, another fourty minutes, to the small town of White Sulpher Springs. Would you have thought that God could be behind where I was YET AGAIN and who I exchanged with? Because He sure was! 

White Sulpher Springs has a branch, with about fifty-five members in it. However, only three of those members actively attend. It needs help. So we spent the day making contacts after contacts, setting up appointment after appointment. While there, Sister Foote mentioned to me that there was a family the branch president wanted us to try to contact, and said it was a women named Shannon. After a while and a few dots were connected, I realized I knew Shannon and her whole family! I had worked with them intensely in my first few transfers in the Helena sixth ward, sixteen months ago. We stopped by, and committed them to go to church the following week. 

How amazing it is that I can plan to go on an exchange, that the sister I am exchanging with can make plans to go to a certain place, and a family I happen to have known lives there. He truly works miracles. 

These last two experiences were probably some of my favorite of the week. 

During a lesson with our friend Sara, we began discussing different moments in our lives that led to being a part of building our testimonies, and ultimately our conversions to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Elders were present at this lesson, and so we went around the circle, the Spirit building to a degree higher than that overflow room could hold. When it got to me, I looked at Sara, and shared one of the most sacred experiences I have had in my life, to a degree, with her. I made promises to her about her life, that I had no idea the Lord would use me to make. There were lots of tears shed, and hearts warmed. How grateful am I to know that the trials I have experienced, have led me to know how to succor and teach certain individuals now. 

To top off the cake, yesterday I recieved a priesthood blessing from my mission Grandpa, Brother Connole. To say the least of it all, there is no substitue for the power that flows from God in any place and in any setting. God knows me individually, He trusts me and will help me make the most out of everything - and He sends the right people to us to help us feel that. 

It strengthened my testimony of the words or Paul, which read, " Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content... I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need..

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Phil. 4:11-13)

In every setting may we be content, trusting in the ways of God to flow through us each and every day. To be endowed with His power, and to be strengthened, by the atoning sacrafice of His divine Son. May we work hard and move forward. 

There is an ice rink here in Helena, with a depiction of a Mother helping her little girl who had fallen down, back up. It is titled, "Lets Try Again". The Lord does not want to punish us, but wants to aid us in the decisions we have made and wants us to continue forward. We may stumble, and oh how we will, but at least we know that someones hand is always there, to pick us back up, and try again. 

May you all feel the joy that comes from serving Him this week, and feel the strength to stand on your own two feet, and skate. 

Sister Walstad