A Chance for Change

Hello Everyone!

Miracles come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and I'm so very grateful for every single one of them! I love working in and with the ward and trying to help them come closer to Christ. We have a long ways to go but something the mission has really been focusing on is growing 'grace by grace'. We can't run faster then we can walk but we can make sure that every area is better when we leave it than when we found it. There have been so many little things that have strengthened my testimony this week. We got to serve an English speaking member in the ward by helping her paint in her house. (I forgot to take pictures! I was so sad!) We got to talk to so many people, knocking on doors and talking to people who were both interested and not.

I know that there are people out there though. People who need this gospel. Sunday was so good for us. Even though in the end none of our investigators showed up the entire meeting was centered around one of my dad's favorite sayings. "It's your choice on whether or not you want to be happy." God stands with us in every moment! Sitting in that sacrament meeting with just sister Chen and I on that one pew wondering if there was more that we could have done. Something we had forgotten, or if we were just unlucky, I felt a deep sense of peace wash over me. A conviction that I don't think I've had in a long time, a knowledge that the spirit of God was in that room. That the covenants that we had just renewed with our Father were real and life changing. Something learned in district meeting came back to me and I had one of my spiritual 'clicking' moments. 

Sometimes we (myself, or investigators) when we hear the message we want that life changing moment. We hear it sometimes in testimony meeting or even just in our day to day lives. "This changed my life!" and we want that one thing to come in and turn our thoughts and actions around. We wait and sometimes that waiting turns into wasting.  

Wasting time, 

Wasting opportunities,

Wasting away. 

In saying that we want a life changing experience what many of us are saying is we want someone or something else to change us. In short we want to be acted upon. 

This is not how God works.

One of my favorite parts to share in the Plan of Salvation is the role of agency in our day to day lives and in eternity. Agency is such a big part of the plan of salvation and when we are active in using our agency we actually do make it to the end. Agency is a part of Enduring. It's choosing everyday to change a little. 

This is why we call the gospel 'life changing'. Not because it happens all at once, but because it changes all of us. Piece by piece, line upon line, precept by precept, we learn we grow and our life changes. Completely and fully. When we act on the gospel, the gospel then acts on us. 

This is how God works. 

And that is the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It's to shout from the roof tops, to sing it to the stars, that you can change! If you want a life changing event then we are here to tell you that your life changing event already happened and it's called the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The catch? You've got to use it yourself. 

So don't wait for something that has already happened. Don't waste away the preciousness of that ultimate gift. Go forward, change yourself, change others, change the world. Because Christ lived, died, and lives again we have the chance to reach the ultimate potential. 

God lives and God works miracles, Jesus is the Christ, and He is our savoir and Redeemer. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has the authority and power to administer the ordinances to be saved. The same power that created the earth is now on the earth again, and it's though the Mercy and Grace of our God that we can and do use it every day. 

His name I praise, everyday, and in His name I end my testimony, praying that He will help you and those who hear His message find their life changing event.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

-Sister Skinner