[30] Time Speeds By, Helping Hands, and Speaking in Sacrament Meeting:)

Good Morning Everyone!

Time Speeds By

I feel like this year is speeding by too fast already. Speaking of which, yesterday someone asked when I started my mission and I realized I was at exactly the seven month mark, 11th, yesterday and I'm wishing time would slow down a little.  It still feels like I was just in the amazing MTC, some what lost and confused:)    I still feel like that sometimes too haha!) But I have learned a lot and experienced a lot these past few months and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Being on a mission for me has been a huge blessing and I know I'm where I am at for a reason and it's a great feeling. I am so grateful to be here. 

Helping Hands

We did a lot of Service again this week! It's kept Sister Clark and I busy every day and we really feel happy and useful when that happens.  Some of it wasn't planned and that seemed to add to the fun of service.   Like one morning as we were going out we saw a family moving into our apartment complex/building.  We asked if we could help, and we were told that would be just what they needed, if we didn't mind the trouble.  And we told them no trouble!:) So we spent our morning helping them move in. It was great! (Plus good exercise:)

Getting A Priesthood Blessing is a Blessing

Unfortunately I still have been getting headaches off and on.  I am trying to prevent them.  I am drinking lots of water and taking medicine and trying to get to sleep as soon as I go to bed at night.  It's interesting how basic things like sleep and water help our bodies.  Just like prayer and reading the scriptures help our spirit:)  I received another blessing this week so I have Faith that it will all get better soon :) Sister Clark has been helping a lot too.  I could not have gotten a more caring missionary companion. I love her so much!

Missionaries Speak in Sacrament Meeting

We were asked to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting with the Elders in our ward. Each of us were given a different topic relating to missionary work. Mine was 'The Rescue'. The whole theme of my talk was nautical and it was a real blessing how everything fit together. 

As I worked on my talk at first I had so many things to say, but I didn't have a clear idea on how it would all work together. But during my scripture studies after I said a little prayer, I sat down to write and it all just flowed and I was able to include everything I wanted to. I wish I could explain what a tender mercy it was.  It made me feel good to know that my Heavenly Father loves us enough to care about what we are doing and going to say. I am grateful that He would have the Spirit help me organize my random thoughts:)

I started by reading the words to the hymn "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy"(pg.335).  It paints a picture in my mind similar to the one our prophet, President Thomas S. Monson mentions in a talk he gave in General Conference.   He describes a masterpiece he saw in London, and he says, "Amid the storms of life, danger lurks. Men and women, boys and girls, find themselves stranded and facing destruction." He then asks, "Who will guide the lifeboats, leaving behind the comforts of home and family, and go to the rescue?" The answer is us! 

In the hymn it says Heavenly Father gives us "the keeping of the lights along the shore".  

"Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy"

1 Brightly Beams our Father's Mercy

From His lighthouse evermore, 
But to us He gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.

Chorus:
Let the lower lights be burning!
Send a gleam across the wave!
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
You may rescue, you may save.

2 Dark the night of sin has settled,
Loud the angry billows roar;
Eager eyes are watching, longing,
For the lights along the shore. (Chorus)

3 Trim your feeble lamp, my brother;
Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor,
In the darkness may be lost. (Chorus)
 

As I started reading those words it made me feel even more like it was part of all of our missions as members of our church, to be a light to others and to guide them closer to Christ. He is the light of the world, the lighthouse shining in the darkness. Because of Him we can return to shore, or the loving home with our Heavenly Father. I ended my talk with this poem that I found at a kind member's home: 

Once I was lost upon the sea

It seemed all hope was gone

My ship was drifting helplessly

Battered by the storms

But then I saw a brilliant light 

Shining brighter than the day

It seemed to beckon 'come to me'

I will light the way

Now my ship is in the harbor

Anchored firmly near the shore

IN the shadow of the lighthouse

Safe forevermore

Often times I wonder

Just where that I would be

If the lighthouse, Jesus Christ the Lord,

Had not rescued me

I love my Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ and I know they love us too and want us all to return to live with them again some day.

Let your light shine!

Love you all,

Sister Karissa :)