Week 67: Faith and Patience......a little more inseparable than I thought

Exchanges in Newton!!!

Oh!!!!! Sarah and Stephen I am so sorry I forgot to wish you a happy birthday last week :( but happy birthday!!! I hope you had a great day!

SISTER MENDOZA IS AN STL!!!!!!!! :D!!!! Oh my heck she is such a good missionary and will help the other Sisters SOOOO much. I love her. 

Shoutout to Sister Dani Shumway and Sister Noheli Trejo who entered the MTC this week! Being a missionary is the best thing in the world. Such a privilege and a blessing. Your time is short, cherish it now and savor every moment as a representative of Christ. I LOVE YOU!!!

This week I pondered a lot about my relationship with Jesus Christ and my true motives for doing missionary work, why do I do what I do? I have been feeling a little separation from Him lately but I found so much comfort in the scriptures. Especially in 3 Nephi 22:7-8. Read it, it's AWESOME. I also read a talk called Lessons from Liberty Jail and was able to talk to Sister Furner (pictured above) a TON about the Atonement. I have been striving to use the Atonement to turn my good into better and become who the Lord needs me to be for the rest of my life. I pray I am changing to fulfill His plan! I feel like I am learning so much and experiencing so much and I love it!!!

Good news!!! Transfers are this week and I'm staying in Bel Aire with Sister Bringhurst!! We are really striving to strengthen each other's weaknesses. It's interesting because I see what she thinks are her weaknesses as strengths because they are qualities that I don't have them! Haha I know it's hard to understand, but we are going to be focusing on that a lot this transfer. 

The Lord showed us so many of His tender mercies this week. I learned that we can have so much faith in Jesus Christ and His power and His Atonement, but if we don't have the faith to be patient and trust in God's timing...we'll get real discouraged reeeeeal quick and then it's like we never had faith in the first place! 

Well, I love you so much and am grateful for your love and prayers!!!

Con todo mi amor y mi corazón,

Hermana Shumway

Bowling! Always quite the adventure, but SO worth it!!

An accidental dinner appointment. A
Cambodian soup with lots of seafood I'd
never heard of before......good thing I'm
adventurous with food!! And the thing
on the right is the dessert. It had sticky
rice on the outside and coconut on the
inside!!

Week 66: "Elders and Sisters, you are all STARS!!"

This week we spent a lot of time with part-member families. That is a
pretty self-explanatory term but it means that only part of the family
are members of the church!! We are excited to continue working with
them to help them progress towards the temple and eternal families!!
This week's goal is to introduce them to active members and get them
some solid fellowship to help them come back to reactivity!

This week was really enlightening. On Tuesday I had an awwwwesome
personal study that taught me soooo much about the character of Jesus
Christ. Elder Riddle, our district leader, invited us all to read John
15 for district meeting so I read that and I just happened to be in 3
Nephi 17 in my personal Book of Mormon study. It was incredible to
read them both together and I invite you all to do the same this
week!! I came to understand so much clearer the love and compassion of
Christ and how much He LOVES us and how He shows that love. I have
felt this week that my testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is
turning into conversion and it is truly what Lehi describes!!! Fruit
that exceeds everything in sweetness and brightness. I learned from
John 15 that we HAVE to be firmly attached to the Savior. He is the
vine, we are the branches and we cannot produce any fruit of
ourselves. Without Him we can do nothing and we will wither and die.
How can we possibly think sometimes that we don't need Him? Or His
gospel? How can we think we can survive without being firmly rooted in
Him? I know as we draw unto Him, He draws nearer unto us and we can
truly fulfill His plan.

We had Mission Leadership Council this week which is always fun :)
here's some pics of that!! The Leadership Council consists of
President and Sister Bell of course, the Assistants to the President,
then all the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders throughout the
mission! It is so fun and inspiring to be surrounded with the greatest
missionary minds once a month!!! Especially with some of my closest
friends :)

An awesome miracle from this week is that a man named Rey that I met while on exchanges with another Sister came to church now the Elders are teaching him!!!

Family and friends, I know Jesus Christ is our Redeemer. I know with more and more certainty each day that this IS His Gospel and His truth. He has restored all we need to receive eternal life. We cannot delay. There is no time to waste, there is no time to wait. That is Satan's plan! Time is running out! Let us be anxiously engaged. Let us do all we can to declare love and repentance to everyone around us, every minute of every day. There is no other way, but through Christ. Be saviors on Mount Zion!!! 

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

Con todo mi corazón y mi amor,

Hermana Shumway

Labor Day breakfast with Sister Smith!

Mission Leadership Council.

Earlier in this day we saw a man whose shirt said "You can't
block my shine" so we ran with it. Haha

Week 65: "Leon??" "WHAT?!!?!?!?!"

Hi, this is Sister Bringhurst's letter cuuuuuz I'm out of time!! I love you!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SISTER ROSELL!!!!!! I lalalalalalalovvvvve you!!!

The subject this week comes from the best dinner appointment I have
had on my mission. An older couple fed us and the elders and I just
can't explain how funny it was. I wish I recorded it.

Also, met a girl named Ariana. You think that's how you spell it?
Think again. She spells it Aureiyona. Adding that to my list of kids
names! Along with Chatauqua. Did I ever tell you about that? Probably
not... #sorry

This week was... Enlightening? Yeah. Learned a TON and I finally feel
like I turned everything over to the Savior. Took me long enough..

But really, I just decided after stake conference this weekend that I
just needed to have faith. That things WILL work because it's HIS
work, not because of anything I would do.

(Me) We learned this week that really. All you need is faith. There's
a reason it's the first principle of the gospel. We are working on
ditching the doubts and forgetting faithless phrases :) you like that?
Haha since we have been working on using the Atonement to change our
mindset, we have seen MIRACLES. The Lord has been able to do so much
more for us because we believe He will! It has been awesome to see and
expect everything to happen as the Lord promises it will.
We have found solid people to teach and the Lord is answering our prayers.

We're working with an awesome investigator named Heather! She is going
to school at WSU and is really searching for what's missing in her
life. She's doing really awesome and definitely needs prayers! She is preparing to be baptized on September 19th.

Also we had a super cool experience last night. We went to help and
talk to some people moving outside last night and one of them, Holly,
saw our name tags and like immediately started asking tons of
questions. She and her sister have gone through a lot recently. The
biggest thing was their mom passed away a few years ago and they also
lost their dad about a month ago. It was amazing to talk about the
plan of salvation and also clear up the weird things they had heard
about Mormons :) love that haha. It definitely made me realize how
incredibly grateful I am for the knowledge we have of the plan for us
and how much peace I feel about what happens after this life. We're
super excited to meet with them again and share more of the gospel
with them!

I love being a missionary!! And I love my Savior and am so grateful
for the relationship I've been able to build and strengthen with Him
this last year. The time is going by way too fast and I know I don't
have any more to waste. I hope you all are doing well! Have the best
week!

😺😺😺
Sister Bringhurst

(Me) Turn to the Savior. That's what I learned this week. Stop turning
towards myself and look to Him and live. Probably the most eternal
thing I could ever learn. Oh man, gotta love my mission :) gotta love
Kansas.

Annnnnd

Con todo mi corazón y mi amor,

Hermana Shumway