Waiting Upon the Lord

Hi All!!

I hope that this past week was a fantastic week for you all! It was a really good week here. It is starting to feel more and more like fall every day so that is nice. I now have to wear a jacket when we leave in the mornings so I guess that must mean that the weather is getting hotter for you all. Also the days are noticeably shorter... I don´t really like that but it´s ok.

This week was kinda exciting. On Saturday we planned to have a baptism... ha ha planned being the chosen word. It ended up that in the middle of filling up the font hours before the baptism the church water supply ran out... yeah I am not really sure how that would happen... so we ended up having the baptism on Sunday!! Then the water was ice cold because apparently the hot water in the font doesn´t work investigator) still ended up getting baptized and she is so excited to be a member that she said even though the water was cold she just felt this warm feeling the whole time!!! After she was baptized she just started crying! I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK!!! I guess all the problems that we had to go through to get her and every other investigator into the waters of baptism are definitely worth it right?!?

So I have been reading through all the conference talks again to get ready for this next weekend! And I want to share with you all some pieces from Elder Hales talk entitled, "Waiting upon the Lord: Thy Will Be Done". He started off by talking about how many of us may question why we have to go through so many difficulties in this life, why isn´t it all easier? His response is as follows, "As we ask these questions, we realize that the purpose of our life on earth is to grow, develop, and be strengthened through our own experiences. How do we do this? The scriptures give us an answer in one simple phrase: we ´wait upon the Lord.´ Tests and trials are given to all of us. These mortal challenges allow us and our Heavenly Father to see whether we will exercise our agency to follow His Son. He already knows, and we have the opportunity to learn, that no matter how difficult our circumstances, áll these things shall be for our experience, and....our good.´ He continues that we will all have occasion in our lives to ask why we have to pass through these trials but that as we have increased faith we will answer with "thy will be done".

Elder Hales continues, "What then, does it mean to wait upon the Lord? In the scriptures, the word wait means to hope, to anticipate, and to trust. To hope and to trust in the Lord requires faith, patience, humility, meekness, long-suffering, keeping the commandments, and enduring to the end... We may no know when or how the Lord´s answers will be given, but in His time and His way, I testify, His answers will come. For some answers we may have to wait until the hereafter...Let us not give up on the Lord. His blessings are eternal, not temporary".

In closing he shares the scripture in Isaiah 40:31 "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with the wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint."

I know that this is true for all of us. As we accept the will of God in our lives and learn from our day to day experiences, God will give us the strength to not only make is through and become perfected through Christ, but to also find joy in our journey... for that is why we were sent here... to HAVE JOY!!!

Well I have to go! But I love you all! For Conference I want to give you all a special invitation to invite someone to go with you (or to go yourself if you weren´t planning on going). At the beginning of my mission I was afraid to invite people to conference because I had the fear that they would be bored.,.. I was so wrong. If anyone can bring the spirit and help others understand the gospel, you can bet it will be the living prophets and apostles that we have to help lead and
guide us in our days. I know that this is God´s true church. Now is the time to open our mouths and let others know the truth as well.

I love you all! I think about you often, pray for you always, and love you forever!

Hna Scanlon

The Humbling Experience of This Thing Called Life...

¡Hola Mi Familia y Todos los demas! :)

During this week I have thought a lot about what I would say to you all in my letter. As I look back on the week I feel like as always this week has probably been one of the weeks of biggest growth in my mission. It was super hard for me to say goodbye to Hna Pullan and even harder since she was transferred to Billinghurst with Hna Tucker!! I was SUPER jealous! But also really happy. They will have a lot of fun together. So my new companion is HERMANA JOHNSON!!! Ha ha so yup you guessed it, she is from the United States... ha ha Orem, Utah in fact. The first few days with Hna Johnson were interesting because we were also with Hna Danes, who was her trainer and also one of the hnas that I was with in the MTC. It was stressful because I had to lead them both in my area which is pretty large and I have only been here for 6 weeks but it went well and it was fun to teach with 2 other missionaries for a change.  

I feel like I am really at an interesting point in my mission right now. I guess that I thought that at some point I would "arrive" or in other words feel like I was the perfect missionary. Maybe that happens for others but that is definitely not my story. I feel the more I learn, the more I know that there is so much more I need to learn. I was truly very discouraged for a few days. Then I had the chance to talk with one of the Hnas before she left to go to her house. (Interesting side note, all the Hermanas stay with us for their last few days in the mission field, ha ha it´s really fun and interesting.) She also related to me that she had felt more or less the same way. She told me that I needed to let the Atonement work in my life and that at the close of her mission she looked back and realized that although for much of the time she felt like she was failing, indeed she had not been. When she told me that I realized that I didn´t want to feel this way until the end of my mission and prayed to Heavenly Father to help me know if what I am doing is right and what I need to do to change and be better so that I can still work to be the missionary that I want to be. 

As I have worked the rest of this week the sweet power of the Atonement has worked in my life and I have felt the sweet assurance that although I am not perfect, I am doing all I can to serve my Heavenly Father and He loves me. I think the biggest thing that I have learned on my mission is that of following the spirit and that was pointed out to me this week as almost every question that Hna Johnson asked me my reply was, "well Hna, we need to listen to the spirit". As I was lost in my own insecurities I forgot how wise Heavenly Father really is. He doesn´t give us all the answers, because if He did we wouldn´t need to ask Him anymore. He gives us piece by piece, and line upon line. And even though I feel as though I should know everything, I am beginning to see that the more I learn, the more I see that I don´t know anything and need to depend on the Lord even more.

(An ad for Energizer... yes this did actually work...)

I really feel that this is a grand life lesson that I have learned that really can be applied to all. That I think that we might never in this life, well at least in the near future, feel that we have really "arrived" but that we have the loving promise of a kind Heavenly Father and a humble older Brother that as we do all that we can, they will make up the rest. If we knew everything, 1. we wouldn´t need the Atonement or Christ in our lives and 2. we wouldn´t still be here, we would be translated!!! I love the humbling experience of this life!!!

My favorite scripture of the week: 2 Nefi 28:30... even when you feel like you are going backwards just keep going!!!

30 For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon ^aprecept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn^bwisdom; for unto him that ^creceiveth I will give ^dmore; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.

I think about you often, pray for you always, and love you forever!

Hna Scanlon

All Mormons Are Men

¡Hi All!

Wow we are already at Wednesday of this week... So crazy! So the big news of this week is that my comp is leaving! We are going to have our transfer meeting at 3 o´clock so we are not sure where she is going or who I am going to receive.... Always an adventure in the mission. We went by this morning to say goodbye to a few investigators... she and they both cried... and so did I. It is amazing how fast we get close to people when our sole purpose is to help them come unto Christ, especially our companions. I will miss her a lot but had a feeling that we would´t be together the next transfer, it really was just too good to be true. :)

So the title of my email is pretty interesting right?!? That was probably the funniest quote of the week. We passed by to talk to a reference that we recieved and the sister of the reference just happened to be there as well. The sister started out telling us that she is a Jehovah´s Witness and then said, "But wait... I thought that only men were mormons?!?" It was hilarious... I had the hardest time not laughing when she said that. I guess that just goes to show that we have a lot of work to go in sharing the gospel right and especially our message about eternal FAMILIES!!!

A few weeks ago the ward here went to Uruguay to go to the temple because this temple is closed and one of the recent converts here, Andres, who always goes with us to teach, got the opportunity to go to the temple for the first time. While he was gone we visited his family (most of whom are not yet members) and his mom expressed concerned that she should have made a little tag to put in his close with his name and address on it in case he got lost... the funny part about this is that Andres is like 60 years old!!! It was so incredible when he got back though. It has been a little difficult since he bears his testimony with EVERYONE about baptisms for the dead.. which is kinda hard to explain in a first contact in the street... but his does it with such a strong spirit that I just let him continue to do it because it means so much to him.

Last night we had the opportunity to have one of the new sisters that arrived stay in our apartment. It was really interesting because she was asking me for a ton of advice about the mission. I felt like telling her, "I don´t know, I´m still new!" Then I realized that I really am not... wow. But my point in telling you this is that the biggest thing I could tell her was that I really learned on my mission the importance of prayer. In the DVD that we show everyone about the first vision it shares a scripture that you can find both in the Book of Mormon but also in the Bible. In the Book of Mormon it is in 3 Nephi 14: 7-11. Also a talk but Elder Scott about the infinite power of prayer is INCREDIBLE and has impacted my own personal prayers a ton. How incredible is it that Heavenly Father has all power and can control everything and knows what it going on in our lives BUT He still wants to hear about it from us. And Him, being perfect, wants to give us everything, but He is waiting in most cases for us to ask. We have to have that desire. For example, with Joseph Smith, we can read that the first vision happened after his FIRST attempt to pray vocally... Heavenly Father was waiting for his desire to turn into action. I have found that as I have made my prayers more specific and more personal, basically a conversation with my Father about what happened in my day, I have found more answers to my prayers and more guidance in my life. As Heavenly Father sees our righteous actions He blesses us openly and abundantly. Sorry this is probably the shortest discussion on prayer but I hope that is somewhat makes sense and helps someone out there!

Ok I have to go! But I love you all TONS!!!

Think about you often, pray for you always, and love you forever!

Hna Scanlon 

Eternally Right

¡Hola Mi Familia!

As I am writing this to you right now it is raining like crazy
outside. I still cannot believe the deafening sound of the thunder and
how it seems like the lightning is going to strike right next to me.
It's really cool though... especially when I don´t have to be walking
around in it!!! :)

This next week we will be having transfers again!!! Crazy I know... so
I won´t be emailing you on Monday but on Wednesday instead, just an
FYI.

I hope that all is going well with you. I can´t believe that it is
practically winter still there. But from the sounds of it, it was a
pretty mild winter. It is still pretty hot here. Well really it
depends on the day but for the most part it is about in the 90´s. My
comp and I go basically from house to house begging for water because
we are almost always dying of thirst. It´s pretty great and definitely
makes for FANTASTIC memories.

This past week we had the opportunity to go to the hospital to give a
lady a blessing. She was the mother of the girlfriend of a member of
the ward. No one in her family is a member but they had heard about
priesthood blessings and wanted their mother to receive one. She had
leukimia in a very advanced stage. The bishop and the member gave this
lady a blessing and then we had the opportunity to share a scripture
with her and let her know just how much her father in heaven loves
her. It was a very special moment and became even more so when later
on in the week we found out that she had passed away. It was somehow
very fitting that I recieved a letter from Beth this week that
included a quote from her gospel doctrine class. It says, "Please
remember this one thing: If our lives and our faith are centered upon
Jesus Christ and His restored gospel, nothing can ever go permanently
wrong. On the other hand, if our lives are not centered on the Savior
and his teachings, no other success can ever be permanently right."
-Howard W. Hunter. I would only make one change to that quote and that
would be to change the word of permanently to eternally... I know that
as we turn all that we all over to the Lord He will make up the rest
and we can be at peace and happy in our lives. I know that this is the
true church of Jesus Christ that it has the power to make everything
in our lives ETERNALLY right.

I love you all tons! I am sooooo eternally grateful that we are a
forever family! Cali sent me a picture of a plaque this week that had
the definition of a missionary on it that I loved. It said,
"Missionary: a person who leaves their family for a while, so others
can be with their families forever". I know that I can only be apart
from you right now because we are a FOREVER family and I want others
to have that as well. I miss you all tons... p.s. if you want to know
how many DAYS I have left you can just ask Cade (it was really me, 
but we'll let him take the blame!... thanks for that btw... :) DON¨T START GETTING TRUNKY ON ME!!!!

I think about you often, I pray for you always, and I love you forever!

Hna Scanlon