August 26, 2013

hello hello family!!

thank you very much for the email! and the letters! after we went shopping, we stopped at our apartment for about 3 minutes. there was a letter from you bob!

this week was great again. i have been thinking a lot about the significance of christ being compared to light. i always understood that, but it just gets cooler the more i think about it. light shows you where you are going, light gives direction, light reveals truth. if you are in a dark room with a someone, they can give you a crayon and tell you it is orange. why wouldnt you believe them if you cant see it? but if you are outside in the sunlight and someone gives you a blue crayon and tells you it is orange, well. you know they are lying to you, because the light reveals truth. light gives warmth. when you are in the light, you can feel it. with darkness comes coldness. physically, the colder an environment is, the slower it is. if it is really cold, things can freeze, which prevents anything from happening. i think this is a significant metaphor. i think the farther from the light of christ we get, the colder we get, and the less productive we are, (in an eternal perspective) and progress towards salvation can even come to a stand still. 

in sacrament meeting yesterday, a man from the bedford ward talked. (yes, where i used to serve!) he talked about fear vs. faith. it was an amazing talk! i wont talk about it too much, but some funny things he said concerning negativity that i really enjoyed were "thank goodness for my pessimism, because ever since i have lost hope, i have been a lot happier" and "depression has really put a spring in my step!" it was funny, everyone laughed. but really! it was so funny the way he made it so obvious why fear is opposed to faith. hah. i loved it.

speaking of bedford, i was able to go there this week for exchanges. i saw nancy!!! remember nancy, the woman who let us in after shoveling her drive way? oh man! i was so happy to see her. she was so nice to us. she fed us lunch and desert and gave me a little candle. she said she wants to be baptized in december. i am just so happy :) i love her!

while we were on exchanges, we were teaching a man named david in the common area of his apartment building. about 3 minutes into our meeting, a woman walked by, but quickly stopped to ask us where we were from. we asked if she wanted to join us, to which she quickly responded "yes!" and ran to get something, then ran back to sit with us. ner name was rayna. she was... from somewhere spanish speaking, but she was fluent is english. we taught the restoration. her EYES!! they were so focused, so sincere. she wanted to hear and understand everything we were saying. about half way through the lesson, she told us that the night before, she was praying and she asked god for something, someone to help her and show her the way she needed to go. .... WOW!  it was so cool to hear. before we left, she said "i know god heard me.. i know god heard my prayer!" she hugged us and we went on our way. wow. it is just so amazing when prayers are answered. that was an answer to her prayers and also to our prayers. it was such a testimony builder for me. i love the lord and i am so appreciative that he hears us! 

there is another man named dave that is an investigator here in boscawen. he is great. he is always telling us that he wants to do what the lord wants him to do. he wants to follow the lord and all that. he is great. heart of gold. but it is so sad that he doesnt see his prayers being answered. we always ask him to read the book of mormon and pray about it and all that stuff. he always responds with "only if the lord asks me to. i will pray about if i should read it." yeah yeah thats great. what do you think we are here for? if we are the lord's servants, then maybe we are an answer to that prayer. unfortunately, he is only expecting the answer to his prayer to come in the form of a dream. so basically, his eyes to revelation are closed all day. it is sad to see. life would be so much easier for everyone if they could just recognize answers to prayers. i think that is something i will be working on for the rest of my life. everyone should.

ah! sorry i have to go. i love you all! thank you for everything!

love, sister buxton!

thank you for the birthday love!