Week 74 - The one with the pure testimony.

 Friends!!

This week was pretty crazy but the lights are back on and we are finally warm, haha. Yes the lights finally came on in our apartment....Saturday!! It took 8 days but it's ok ;) it definitely was an adventure living out of a suitcase but can't complain!! 

This week we did a lot of service and we found a person through it!! We are working on a follow up lesson so pray for us to have that happen! 

We also had THE COOLEST THING HAPPEN! It tops every teaching and testimony moment on my whole mission. We had zone devotional yesterday and our ZL's talked about always bearing testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ. Well 2 minutes later we did exactly that and it was so amazing...

We had a dinner with this less active family we are trying to reactivate. Their son, Mario was there and he is very in active. After dinner we had a lesson with the whole family and we watched the video and asked what everyone thought. Tomas (dad) thought it was cool that the girl in the video was an atheist and then came back to believing in Christ. Brooke (step mom) liked how she talked about how it was hard and that it was her way of seeking the truth instead of it being this perfectly framed way. We asked Mario what his thoughts on the video were and he said he had nothing and that he was on the complete other side of where we are at. He later explained that he doesn't believe in God or Jesus Christ. But the importance of work and family and being completely reliant on ones self for success. We continued on with the lesson and Mario kept expressing his opinion and then he said that he can't "do faith", in some things he needs plain evidence. He asked us why we believe and have faith. We then bore pure testimony of the existence of God and also the power of Jesus Christ and His Atonement. The spirit was so strong and Mario changed from there.  At the end that he said our testimonies where valuable and that he is considering getting back into the whole religious thing. Starting to doubt his unbelief!!!!!! We invited him to do the same thing as his parents which was to read from the Book of Mormon a few times this week. He said yes!!!! 

So that was amazing in every way. My testimony of Jesus Christ strengthened while I was bearing it. 

Something I learned this week : 

The secret of success is to be ready for opportunity when it comes. 

I love you all, have a wonderful week! 

Love,

Sister Fillmore 

Yay for service opportunities!

Service proselyting in the rain, my favorite! 

Our little suitcase for the week!

The Spanish Hermanas got to sleep over for a night before they went over to redmond. 

Week 73 - The one with the visit from Elsa!

 Friends!! 

This week has been very interesting haha! Tuesday day was perfect weather with the sun our which is good because we filmed our music video and it was BEAUTIFUL!! Thursday is when it will be posted on FB so watch for that!!

We had to drop basically all our people for different reasons, but I am hopefully and here's the reason why. Everyone was saying that an ice storm was coming this weekend and people say it can get bad here in the NW. Well my friends, it was bad and will be until Thursday. The ice storm was so bad it broke branches off and made large trees fall all around us!! This caused so many power lines to fall and get destroyed. So where I live in Woodburn and North Marion county is out of power and has been since Friday and will continue to be until Thursday most likely. But it's all good, I literally can't complain. Members are taking good care of us during the day and then we sleep with sleeping bags and a lot of blankets to warm us up in our freezing apartment. This is a blessing in a way because it's going to let us have a lot of service opportunities which let's opens people's hearts and homes. 

So ya that's basically been my week! One thing I am grateful for is Gods way to help us keep going. When we feel like we can't but keep going trusting in Gods power, He somehow helps us get through and become better from it. 

Some thing's I learned from district council earlier last week:

☆We shouldn't have to see the fruit of our labors to keep moving forward. 

☆Blessed are those who believe and not seen. 

☆Even if there isn't success in my area there is success around me and that's God's work. 

☆Success should be based off of your devotion to God. 

I love you all so so much, have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Fillmore

The day before the night storm hit.

So much destruction around us.

No power means getting creative for dinner!

All snuggled in my warm bed inside my freezing apartment.

Breakfast in my warm bed!

More broken trees.

On splits with Sister Utiu ♡♡

We love service opportunities!

Week 72- The one where I redoubled my faith

Friends!

I hope you are all doing well :) this week was a little rough in the area. But that also led me to really see the importance of continuing in faith and patience. This is a principle that I learned at the very beginning. Trust me, ask my trainer, I was an impatient greenie. 

It was pretty rough this week teaching and finding and by Friday I was so done with the week. I was so low on faith and wanted to kind of give up but I knew I couldn't. I knew and still know we are so close to seeing miracles and I didn't want to be that person who gave up right before things start happening. So after 9pm I opened my Book of Mormon and read and read and read. Guess what I read about. Faith, repentance and patience. I actually read my hope scripture I picked out at the beginning of my mission. Alma 34 : 40-41 and God gave me the understanding of not quieting and that this is what life and missionary work is. I got up and said a prayer of gratitude.  Life will give you experiences to strengthen your faith or test it. But like it says in D&C 122 it's all for our good. Now it wasn't like I woke up the next morning and everything fell in my lap but I felt peace that it would fall into place eventually. I felt more motivation to keep going and that was a definite answer to prayers. 

So though this week was tough but there were miracles! 

First, Sister Porter and I became closer. This experience is crazy weird but so awesome. We were supposed to have exchanges on Wednesday and that morning we prayed to see if the plan we set was still good. We prayed and we both said ok and went on with the morning. Well throughout that whole morning I had a weird unsettling feeling about it that kept coming up. I knew it was the Spirit. I told Sister Porter about it and asked her to think about making the change I was suggesting. We got ready for the day and had personal study. We were supposed to leave for exchanges at 11 and by 10:15 and we still couldn't make up a firm answer to where they should go. We talked about it and other things came up that needed to be talked about, about our companionship. This truly helped me to see what the Character of Christ is. Turning out when I want to turn inward. God showed me it mega clear in this conversation. We became so close. Well the feeling in the apartment still felt weird and Sister Porter said she didn't even want to do the exchange that day. Truly, it wouldn't be fair to be on exchanges and not give it our all. So we reschedule the exchange. Literally 45 minutes later we receive a call from our wonderful sisters we serve with and they asked if we could talk. For the next few hours we helped them with some troubles they were having. If it wasn't for the spirit pressing on my mind and heart this morning we would be on exchanges and not have been able to help these sweet sisters.  We won't always know why the spirit is making us do something but brothers and sisters we NEED TO follow through with those prompting. They are for a reason!! 

Second, We were able to talk with people....it was so nice! Nothing really happened but we had solid street contacts 

Third, I GOT TO SING! Watch out for a video sooooon!! So much healing while singing with Hermana Seegmiller ♡

Fourth,I was calling formers and I called this number and it wasn't a person number...it was the school district office, haha. It was a Saturday but this lady picked up and so I kept talking to her. I told her we were missionaries and asked if she had a belief and she said yes. I asked her how it has helped her through this year and she explained. After she said thank you and that she really needed that. I said of course and asked if we could share a scripture so we did and shared Ether 12 : 4...she loved it so much and thought it was from the Bible. We told her it was from the Book of Mormon and asked if we could get her one. She said YES!! So we are having one of our members who work with her give her one! So cool!!

I am grateful for this mission. Its shaping me, its allowing me to touch people's lives in ways I don't always understand .... but I know it is pure love and goodness of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Please be kind. Do service and ask God to change your nature. It's amazing! 

Have a wonderful week! Look out for miracles because they are everywhere. 

Love, 

Sister Fillmore

Exchanges with South Marion Sisters.

Week 71- The one with becoming like Christ.

 Friends!!

This week was full of patience, hard work and growing - all with smiles on our faces! It doesn't matter how long you will be out on your mission. If you are humble then God will continue to teach you. That's what happened with me this week.

Tuesday we had MLC and the meeting was awesome. I am excited to incorporate these new practices in the missionary work here in North Marion.
☆IT SNOWED!!☆
It was so weird to see snow again but it was a fun surprise :) the roads were pretty bad so Sister Wilde had the APs drive some of us sisters home. It was a fun little road trip!

We had interviews with President this week and it was much needed. He gave me some good council with how to balance out the mission and everything that comes with it and the process I am going through with grieving/healing. It has been a battle I deal with every day. But He gave me good advice and gave me a talk to read called, "The Character of Christ." by Elder Bednar. It's something missionaries get to watch when they go into the MTC. I read it today and WOW my mission president is an inspired man because there is a lot in there that I am excited to apply. I learned that the character of Christ is to turn outwards when the natural man wants to turn inwards. Which happens a lot more than we think. Basically it means to find ways to serve. When we serve we turn outward and we are able to feel the love of God when we serve his children. I am really going to apply that this week so I will get back to you on how it goes next week!

We also did a FB LIVE!! It was so much fun and super cool to see how many people watched it from around the world. It touched me and I hope I will get to do it again!
If you want to watch go to, "Your favorite guys with white shirt and ties" on FB!

We had a good lesson with Angel this week. It was just her which ended up being really good. We can tell she is retaining information which is always a good sign and also wanting to learn more. We are going to put her on date so I am excited for this week.

We did exchanges this week and that was super fun and of course, full of miracles!! In MLC we talked a lot about what makes a good exchange and so Sister Porter and I really tried to apply that and man did we see miracles. Hermana Wiltbank came with me to North Marion and gosh she is such a wonderful person. We talked to 3 wonderful people and got their numbers and it was just a wonderful time together. We talked about goals and we tried to review them the whole day and we both were able to achieve our them. I love her example of love and wanting to be better.

I learned a lot about the phrase, "Trust in God." Some times I had to learn the hard way but I can tell you when you just trust in Him it saves a lot of stress and worry. Another goal this week is to not stress so much about the small stuff. Its been a bad habit that I am trying to break.

Saturday night was so cool. We were having a lesson with Devin, a recent convert and we wanted to talk about getting him to the temple since its been a little over a year, close to 2. I didn't really want to since the last 2 times we spoke with him we had a hard time helping him understand the importance of the temple covenants. Well the spirit humbled me and told me that it was a good idea to attempt once again. Glad I listened because he picked a date and SISTER PORTER AND I WILL GET TO GO!! Devin is already a spiritual power house and the spirit was preparing him for this lesson. We held the meeting at Brother Pippert's house and he gave a beautiful testimony and was a great support to Devin. Honestly baptism is essential but the main goal is for God to have His children make promises with Him in the temple. I am so HAPPY for Devin!!

Remember, "It is wisdom in me." God knows what to do!

I love you all so so much!
Have a wonderful week.
Love,
Sister Fillmore

The Daily Joy, a good read!

Pizza Pizza!

Haha so we went to a monastery today for P-day and got to see a couple of monks. It was cool and interesting but they had beautiful buildings.
Sister Yorgason and I might have been singing Sound of Music the whole time ;)

Exchanges with Hermana Wiltbank.