This week... So we had a great week. Its been kinda cold, because fall is here. Yesterday it snowed on the mountains! I still freak out when I see snow. I don't know why. My companions laugh at me.

We had lots of teaching appointments and more keep coming! The wards here are really getting excited! And our investigator is progressing. He told us that he just wants to get baptized already. But unfortunately he has to wait until his friends can come in. It amazes me how much he knows.

This week I have been reading a lot about changing ourselves and becoming what Heavenly Father wants us to become. So hopefully all of this makes sense. I was reading an article in the Ensign about this convert in Taiwan. He says, "We sometimes limit what God can make of us because we don't want to experience bad with the good."  So of course my first thought was the people that I have taught and who I am currently teaching. So many of them decide not to partake of all the blessings that Heavenly Father wants to offer us because it is too hard and they are afraid of the trials that come with it.  It is okay to be afraid, but we need to have enough faith that we can overcome our fears. They allow their fear to stop them from gaining all that the Father would give them, if they would just enter into the gate. 

This quote doesn't just relate to investigators it also relates to us, as active members of the church. In Alma chapter 5 we learn that we all need to experience a change of heart and that faith brings that change of heart. When we receive that change of heart do we keep changing and growing and building our testimony? Or is everything a check list.  I went to the temple (check) I dropped off cookies to my visiting teaching sisters (check),  like what President Uchtdorf said in the women's conference. In 2 Nephi 31:19 it says, " after we have gotten into the straight and narrow gate I would ask if all is done? I say unto Nay..." Then Nephi continues in verse 20... "For ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore if ye shall press forward feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold thus saith the Father, ye shall have eternal life." 

Its hard to keep the commandments and do all that Heavenly Father asks of us, but if we keep trying and become what Heavenly Father wants us to become we will receive all the blessings. The trials are what gives us the experience we need to become like our Heavenly Father.

So lets not limit what Heavenly Father wants us to become, and go forth with faith!

I love you all!

Sister Swain :)