Hermana Lizzie Koch: April 7, 2014: Canyon Lakes Area: THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD

Just some of my favorite babies

It grows!!!

Funny story... the other night I came home and the wind had blown the cloth on the table and my pot of baby sunflowers onto the ground and my dear little sunny was wrapped up in the blanket and I freaked out!!! and then my prayers were answered when

Elder Anderson said that trees grow stronger with wind, fewf!!

Hola Hola Hola,

This week was good just like all the other ones because the mission is so amazing! haha

Something rather dreary to start things off haha Sunday morning right before the morning session of the most wonderful conference ever.... Hermana Jensen says to me.... hey! you have less than 8 months left!...............................................................................................................................................................................................

Elder Barney laughed and was like well that wasn't a very nice thing to say. hahah I was just standing there with my jaw dropped... haha poor thing she thought she was being nice, I love her. I was like ahhhh don't say that!! hah it's all good though. Life is moving the way it should. Damnation is stopping progression and I for sure don't want to stop moving forward.

This week was great! I love being a missionary! We had amazing miracles all week! One afternoon we tried to contact some less actives in our ward, they didn't answer there door... sad day! BUT!! THE LORD STILL PROVIDED US WITH MIRACLES LIKE HE ALWAYS DOES!! We got this fire to decide to knock like the whole other side of the culdesac.... I don't know how to spell that. So we went knocking and talked to a few people but no one was really interested. We knocked in the beginning a house and a really sweet woman opened the door and said that she was muslim and that she believed in Christ being a prophet and didn't have any interest, we thanked her for her time and that was really it! Well on our way back to our car we saw two young men and new that one of them was her son and we could have easily told ourselves that they weren't interested! But instead we talked to them!! We taught them a brief restoration lesson and talked to them more specifically how we have a living Prophet today! We established our differences, but we testified of Jesus Christ being the son of God and our Savior and redeemer. We asked them if they would be interested in learning more about how we have a living prophet today and told them about general conference! They said that is something that they definitely want to understand because they thought that no one would want to listen to a prophet in these modern days! It was a really cool experience and it really taught us to TALK TO EVERYONE!! To realize that every person has the ability, agency and need to come closer to God! I love that no matter what the gospel can relate to anything! That even when your religions are very different you can still find common ground and then testify with love of the truth that you know. It was awesome :)

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Well that's awkward I accidently sent that without being done... haha oh well! anyway!! We had some amazing stuff happening this week and conference WAS SO GOOD!! AHHHH sadly none of our investigators came :( but that is ok because hopefully a few of them decided to watch the conference on their computers! Because we can do those sorts of things!

SO I am just going to write down the lessons I learned from the Conference in case any of you missed it.. plus everyone gets different things out of it! so here goes!!

- When you defend your faith even though sometimes it seems un heard, you have stepped into the circle of nobel men and women.

- Christ- like love is the greatest need on this planet. Because righteousness comes with it.

- We all need love prayers and appreciation.

- Sometimes people mock you for being obedient, but when that happens, just remind yourself of the reason you are being obedient. For me, it's because I love my Father in Heaven.

- One of the reasons we are here on this earth is to learn how to control and manage our human bodies.

- Do we realize HOW MUCH CHRIST LOVES US?

- Challenges WILL come and your faith WILL grow stronger.

- We are infinitely more precious to God than a tree.

- If blessings appeared right away we wouldn't develop faith.

- God's laws must be our standards.

- Let your faith show.

- SERVE THE LORD FIRST

- When we love someone, they grow confident in our love and in return grow confidence in the Lord's love.

- FOCUS ON THE BASICS

- The savior cares what we are thinking.

- Men and women are equal, but DIFFERENT IN RESPONSIBILITY.

- ARE YOU SLEEPING THROUGH THE RESTORATION?

- Acts of kindness can change lives and hearts.

Ok I can't do this there are too many and I didn't even get to my favorite talks on Sunday!! haha but it was all sooo incredibly amazing! What I got for myself was
TO BE GRATEFUL, ASK MYSELF WHAT ARE MY NECESSITIES, AND LOVE MORE!

My favorite talks were all of them but I just loved W. Craig Zwick in the Saturday afternoon session and President Uchtdorfs on Sunday and Well, just all of them!! I cant pick! anyway.

I love you all and I know that the church is true.

It burns in my heart as a way of life not just a choice of religion. I know it's true and I know that I can live with my family forever. I know that we all go through trials for a reason and even though I have gone through hard trials in my life. I have to say the hardest thing I have ever gone through is being apart from my family. I have never felt a deeper love and a bigger hole in my heart being away from you all, but I know that the reason I feel that and have had this trial is so that I could truly appreciate and understand the Plan of Salvation and that I can really be with my family forever. And in turn it all goes back to how much God loves us. I know He loves me, because He has given me all I need in this life, and that is my family. I know that He loves me BECAUSE He gives me trials and wants me and gives me the opportunity to grow. Through my trials I have discovered that only the healing power of our Savior and His atonement, can the holes in our hearts be filled. I love you all so very much and so does God, don't ever doubt it because every day He gives you one more day to live.

What has He given you that tells you that He loves you?

Love,

Hermana Koch!