Sister Abby Fillmore - Oregon, Salem Mission: Week 81 - The one with the ministering of angels

Friends!!

Wow what a week and it's been full of faith strengthening experiences. From ice cream with Lily, to a beautiful lesson with Dinah. An inspired zone conference to ending our week in the ER (more on that later ;))

My heart is full and tender today as I am just breathing in every last second as a missionary. One of my dear friends that I met up here in Oregon, Yvonne, once said that a lot of the time experiences need to be taken second by second. These last few days I am doing just that. I love who I have become as a disciple of Jesus Christ with a missionary purpose! I have seen myself grow and stretch in a way I didn't know I could, but had full confidence that my Heavenly Father knew. Isn't it crazy how that happens? I don't like the phrase "God will not give you more then you can't handle." Because He definitely pushes you to the breaking point, making you think you can't but then, through his Atoning power, help you know that you can. He shows you that you can do more than your mind thinks it can. I have seen that throughout my whole mission!

Well, here is how my final week on the mission has gone:

We had a wonderful time with Lily on Tuesday. She showed us her Book of Mormon study journal and gosh that women is amazing!

We also had such a cool lesson with Dinah! We went thinking we were going to do service for her and then a lesson but she just wanted us to teach her! We taught her about the Book of Mormon and the spirit was so strong and lead the whole lesson. We read the Intro and afterwards I asked her what she thought and she said "its reasonable...and more!" Gosh that was music to my ears! She was so excited when we gave her her own copy.

She is such a wonderful women and a blessing!!

We had a wonderful last zone conference and I am so grateful for everything that happened and I am so happy I got to train again one last time with my wonderful companion Sister Johansen!

Ok now the story you have been waiting for! So Saturday we got our COVID vaccine and it was pretty fast but man it felt like some one just slugged you in the arm! You have to wait 15 minutes after to see if there is any side effects. While we were sitting there, there was this man who basically had a small seizure in his chair so that was MEGA scary! The rest of the day was good until after dinner around 6pm. As we left our dinner with members there was a cold wind. We got into the car and Sister Johansen was shivering, which makes sense. But then it kept going for basically and hour and a half. I asked if she was ok but she said she was fine and so we drove to our lesson. When we got there she said that she couldn't breath and started panicking and crying. I told her we can go home and so we left and that whole time driving she was shivering really bad!! We got home and she got so panicked and started hyperventilating pretty bad and so we called our mission nurse and she could tell she was having a shortness of breath and was shivering hard! Sis. Johansen gets major anxiety when it comes to hospitals and so when our nurse told us to go to the ER she started getting more panicked and we are trying to tell her to breath. We had to leave our mission area because that's the only one that's closer then 30 minutes away.

We got there and by this time she is fully shaking and breathing super fast! We got her into a small room and they made her breath into one of those blue bags and her air ways were clear but her heart rate was at 130 when we got there so she was pretty bad!! It took 10 more minutes for her to calm down. They did some blood tests and a CT scan and everything took way longer then it should have, so we got out at about 2:30am. Now it was scary...definitely more for Sister Johansen then for me. But like any hard trial it can also be looked at as a learning experience! We had many spiritual experiences while we were there. Our nurse was so unbelievably kind to us. She luckily had a friend who was a member so she very respectful of us in every way.

Sister Johansen asked me to read Moroni 7 and it talked all about ministering of Angel's. I knew angel's were with us and I asked Maddie specifically to be there. But today I was thinking more about it and there were many more angel's and they were the nurses! Jax our nurse was so kind and loving towards Sister Johansen because of how scared she was. Everyone who came in to help her were understanding and kind to us when we told them who we were. We said many prayers for the people who were next to us on the other side of the curtain because of hearing their circumstances. Our Mission President came and gave her a blessing and then drove us home at 2:30am...literally waited for like 4 hours, BLESS HIM AND HIS WIFE!!

God is our Heavenly Father! It is a literal fact and I witnessed it this weekend. He knows us, He knows what we need and who we need and he never leaves us. Even though it wasn't fun, I am so grateful for the experiences we had this week that have taught me this once again!!

I finished the Book of Mormon this morning and it was so amazing! I know is true and it is a gift from our Heavenly Father.

I have felt the Joy of Christ during my mission and I know my Savior very intimately! I am grateful for all the experiences that I have had to learn and grow to become the disciple He wants me to be. I am definitely scared/uncertain about coming home, but by and by I will become more and more what God wants me to become. Now I just have to figure out life as a changed person. I know the messages I have shared for the past 81 weeks is true. The church is true. I know that God's plan of happiness is given to us as a gift. It's how we can find true happiness in a world of chaos. I have seen it in the the people I have served and taught and more importantly in my own life. I am extremely humbled and grateful to have served my Father in Heaven for the last 18 months and can't wait to serve Him the rest of my life!

I love you and will see you soon! ;)

Love,

Sister Fillmore