Sister Abby Fillmore - Oregon, Salem Mission: Week 27

Friends!!

It's been a good week and I am grateful!

Nothing big happened this week but I had a lot of cool learning experiences. One thing that we have done to get creative with sharing the Gospel is to go LIVE on Facebook! You can check out our Facebook Lives every Sunday(3pm) & Wednesday(5 or 6pm) PST! We love doing them and we would love your comments and questions so hop on and join us!

Funny & random stuff:

* When we go outside for a walk we have to be 6ft apart- it's so weird!

* We love putting together puzzles and coloring in coloring books while we listen to conference talks. (Even we feel like little school girls but we are happy as can be!)

*We now get 1 hour to workout and and 1 1/2 hours of personal study...especially happy about that!

*Our little page "Milk and Honey Daily" Facebook page has been a huge success! If you haven't seen it go and take a look! We post every day and it ranges from inspirational stories, talks, videos, quotes and insights. It's been so fun and such a beautiful way Sister Hair and I have been able to share our testimonies and share the things that inspire us each week. Don't worry - we will continue to post daily even after we are transferred!

Finding new people to teach has been hard but teaching those we already were in contact with has been good. It's been slow but hey it's still going and we are sure happy about that! We are still teaching Alanna and that's been awesome. We invited her to watch General Conference and she was totally excited for that! She told us that her mom Lynn, said the next time we are on a call with Alanna that she would like to join. We were BEYOND happy about that! Even though we aren't meeting with her any more I feel like we all still need a message if peace and hope so it makes sense that she would want to join in. We were so so excited and grateful!

Dave has been so awesome! It's been a while since I have talked about him in my email but he is the one where we were walking down the street and we stopped to talk and he said "you are sent from God. I just got done filling out my divorce papers..." he had moved and he has said it's all because of us.....its actually because of God ;) but we are grateful anyway! It has taken him the whole time of us meeting and the deadline to get out of his house to finally find a house to live in. He gave us a call last night and said he would like to continue to talk and when he gets settled he would like the missionaries over where he lives to contact him. He is definitely Golden and a blessing. He is someone who is completely humble and wants to hear from his Father in Heaven. He his open to reading in the Book of Mormon and we are excited for him!

We have been doing a lot of member lesson and that has been a huge blessing. The lessons have been amazing and we have great discussions with them!

We will be getting transfer calls this Thursday and if we have to leave it will be on Friday morning. That's not much time, we will see what happens. We have at least 60 missionaries that have either gone home or will be soon. Each week we will start to see reassigned missionaries coming in....so we will see what happens. Our mission president is under alot of stress so all the prayers to him and his family would be much appreciated!!

Like I have said before I have been able to learn a lot of wonderful things during all my new study time. I have seen my self improve so much and that has been a blessing in of its self.

I have said this multiple times in our FB live but I have been studying the topic of, Grace, because that has been a topic I have never understood really well before. To be honest it's a hard concept to grasp. My parents gave me the called "Changed through His Grace" by Brad Wilcox. I highly recommend it!

I have learned that God wants us to come as we are but to not expect to stay there.
It's the divine help to get us to the divine being he knows we can become.
We are all weak, it's our human nature but because of Gods grace we are able to become stronger through him. It's a covenant relationship!

One part of the book that I would like to share helped me understand it so well.

"Brent Fillmore (not related - I don't think) teaches at the institute of religion at USU. When he speaks to his classes of the covenant relationship, he talks about a stalactite hanging from the top of a cave dripping water on the floor below. In the water are minerals that soon start building up until they create a stalagmite reaching up towards the stalactite above. In time the two join and create a column or pillar...The receiver reaches up as the giver reaches down. The stalagmite is not self-sufficient. Without the stalactite, no growth is possible. Brother Fillmore says, 'The droplets from above contain within them the elements and minerals of the stalactite through which they have passed. Those minerals fall on the stalagmite-drop by drop, line upon time-and help it grow like what is above in until they become one.' He asked his students to stop running around just be still like a stalagmite. Just let yourselves get dropped on from above!'"

Isn't that awesome?! That totally helped me understand how Grace works because we see stalagmite and stalactites when we hike Minnetonka Cave up in the Bear Lake area and so visually this is the perfect example to help me understand. We have the time right now to stand still and let heaven drop grace on us to become better!

I Love this work, I Love being a missionary. My heart is humbled being able to still be out when so many are being sent home. I love my Savior and my Heavenly Father! They help and edify me in everything I do!

I love you guys!

Love,

Sister Fillmore

We didn't take many pics because....we are inside but here are some of my FAVORITE pictures/paintings of Christ to brighten your day :) ENJOY!