This week in fotos

1: YSA family home evenings= us getting a new investigator haha. #electtrex

2. Sister Tarullo's funeral 

3. Eating leftover cuban food. Tons of rice

4. Our last day with Hunter and his family. His mom made us a cute meal to celebrate Sister Tarullo going home!

This week was a great week. A little bit slow on the finding, but good nonetheless. We know that there are YSA out there to teach for us at this time, but we are secretly excited for the school year to start up again so that all the student housing and neighborhood homes get filled again! This week the motto I adapted was "Let go and let God." Things are out of our control sometimes but we just have to give it to Him and He will provide us with new investigators as long as we do all we can. 

This week was a big learning week. I had been pondering how I could be more in tune with the Spirit. One day I was prompted to read "Always Retain a Remission of their Sins" By David A Bednar and it was EXACTLY what i needed. I was reminded that the Spirit will ALWAYS be with us if we ALWAYS remember Him, take His name upon us, and keep His commandments. So this week I am going to improve my own repentance and think of Him more often. I know that thinking more of the "why" for the work will help me think of Christ more and I will be directed more clearly. 

Our rescue Hunter has been having a bumpy road. He had started smoking cigarettes again and he was just in tears saying that he just wanted to stop. We tried to let the Spirit flow through us to say what he needed, but nothing seemed to be working. I had been praying the whole time to only say what God would have me say. Out of no where I shared my testimony of the BOM and of Captain Moroni and his battle plans to fortify their bases. At that instant we helped him create a battle plan for himself for when he comes across temptation. We included in it tangible goals for his CPR (church, prayer, reading). He felt so accomplished and he hasn't smoked a cigarette this whole week! It really strengthened my testimony of our personal study. I had read that a couple days before and the Spirit was able to draw from my remembrance for him. It was pretty cool. 

Hope you all are doing great! keep up the good work and remember who's in charge! :)

Love Sister Erickson

Went to the beach and stood on a giant fishing dock!

Hey there! How is everyone doing? Things are great here, just living the dream. Here is what happened this week:

Devin was baptized! Satan tried hard to beat him down for sure. He told his parents this week that he was getting baptized and they did not support him at all. But he told us "Satan will do whatever he can and he's working because all of this is true." it was amazing to hear that come from him and to see him stay strong. His parents ended up coming to the baptism which really meant a lot to him. He had a huge countenance change when he received the Holy Ghost. I am so happy for him.

We had an AMAZING MIRACLE happen this week. So we were going on an exchange with some sisters and while me and the sister were coming back, we saw an Eminem lookalike gangster talking to Sister Tarullo. come to find out, he was trying to sell them perfume from his backpack. Sketchy. She said no, but asked him how old he was when he said 27. So she gave him a chapel card and our information. He texted us 10 min later saying he wanted to learn more about our message. We met with him the next day in McDonald's but we had our guard up a bit because we weren't really sure how it was going to go. We began to talk about his desires and Steven explained to us that he has been on and off heroin and meth and in and out of engineering job because of his addiction. He told us he had had enough and he was ready for more of Christ in his life. We told him our purpose and began to teach the restoration. We began by asking him what he saw on the front page. He began to cry and I began to feel a deep warmth in my chest. He explained to us the feelings of the Spirit and we told him to pay attention to those feelings throughout the lesson. By the end he said he would believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet and he gave the closing prayer in which he asked if this was all true and for the Lord to give him a sign and help him recognize the truth. After the prayer, he sat there with his eyes closed for 4 minutes. We began to get a little nervous and were hoping he was breathing!! But we sat and waited. When he opened his eyes, he grabbed his face and said, "What was that?! I have never felt that before. What am I feeling? This is better than any drug I have ever had." He cried again and told us he knew this was true, that he could change, and that he would come to church. What a phenomenal experience!

We got to talk about the Spirit with recent convert Domanique and the many different ways it speaks to us. I invite you all to watch the Light series by David A Bednar on lds.org. it talks about all the ways we can feel heaven close. She told us she was bringing a surprise and showed up with chips and queso haha. she said "Queso's always good for the soul!"

Thanks for the light you all bring to my life. I'm truly grateful for you all. 

Love Sister Erickson

Giant Missionary Meeting

Devin's Baptism!

Sister Exchanges

Hurricane training ;) 

I hope everyone is having a great week :) This week was a week of words. I heard so many impactful things from many people and I just wanted to share them all with you! I hope that they touch your heart. Love you all.

"Don't let others convince you that you are limited in what you can do. Believe in yourself and then live so as to reach your possibilities." - President Monson

"You cannot out-give the Lord. No matter what you give to Him, He always give you more." -Sister Fattic, institute teacher

"Esaw gave away his birthright because he was hungry. Are we giving away our inheritance from God just to satisfy physical and temporal pleasures and demands?" -Brother Rodriguez, temple prep teacher

"Go find the lost sheep- even if it's in yourself." Amanda, Relief Society teacher

"Each of us must go through certain experiences to become more like our Savior. In the school of mortality, the tutor is often pain and tribulation, but the lessons are meant to refine and bless us and strengthen us, not destroy us." Robert D Hales

"He knew that the dark veil of unbelief was being cast away from his mind, and the light which did light up his mind, which was the light of the glory of God, which was a marvelous light of his goodness—yea, this light had infused such joy into his soul, the cloud of darkness having been dispelled, and that the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul, yea, he knew that this had overcome his natural frame, and he was carried away in God—" Alma 19:6

Domanique and her cute mom

her and Hunter--> our reactivated buddy. he was SO excited for her

us her and her boyfriend Jason

Her and our branch president and his wife, the Newsomes

hello!

What a week. We have seen so many huge miracles this week. Our friend Domanique was baptized on Saturday and it was an amazing service. The second she stepped into the door, the room was filled with the Spirit and she began to cry.  Her mom raised her to never open the door to the Mormon missionaries but her mom was so excited for her to be baptized and wanted to be that support to her that she came. and felt the Spirit strongly. She came to church the next day and we gave her a book of Mormon. But It was incredible to see the countenance change with Domanique. She will be such a powerful convert and she is already planning on when she can go on a mission. She asked to give a talk after she was given the Holy Ghost and it was amazing to hear how the Lord had prepared her to find the church through amazing people. 

I will be staying here with Sister Tarullo and "killing" her! (This is her last transfer before she goes home.) I really love the area and we have some awesome plans for this next transfer so it's going to be great! 

Hope everyone is doing well. I've learned a lot this week about charity. in Moroni 7:48 it talks about how if we pray with all our heart to the Lord for this gift, that it will be given to us. God will give us opportunities to express love to others. He can enlarge our cup and give us so much more room in our heart to love. Charity is the pure love of Christ. And Christ suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and He is not puffed up, seeketh not His own, is not easily provoked, He thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, He beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, and He endureth all things. We can too. 

Have a great week!

sister Erickson

Our zone going on a nature walk! There is a giant loop in the middle of the Everglades you can go on and seeee.... Alligators! This one guy was a couple of feet away from us. pretty sweet. It is vibrant green. kinda felt like the mountains. with palm trees haha. 

Sister Smith (my previous companion!) and i on exchanges! it was raining TONS

Hey y'all!

What a week. Lots of action happening in Estero YSA.

 One of our rescues from this week named Hunter felt the Spirit so strong as we shared the Restoration with him to begin his reactivation lessons. He felt touched during the first vision and the Spirit brought to his mind a friend of his that has agreed to take the discussions!! Miracles are everywhere. 

This week we expressed the need for urgency for our investigator Domanique. She has LOVED everything that she has been learning but been a little fearful about baptism. But no worries, she has a date for the 25th! And we are going to go to the temple with her on Wednesday. She is so excited to be baptized so that she can finally pay her tithing that she has been saving up for the last month. 

I've learned a lot about faith this week from the zone training, from Domanique, from my studies, and from exchanges. I know that when we expect miracles, God manifests His hand. When you're being afraid, you're not giving God the opportunity to be powerful.

Yesterday, we went to see a kid named RJ who's mom is a member of the church but his dad is not. He hasn't been very active lately so we went to share a message with him and we ended up sharing it with him and a bunch of his siblings! We watched The Hope of God's Light (AMAZING video. All of you should watch it. https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/the-hope-of-gods-light ) RJ's cousin who is 14 watched and i couldn't help but watch him the whole time. I could tell from his expression that the message provided light and hope to whatever he was going through. Afterwards he was so happy and grateful we had come over. I learned that you never know what others are going through and it is critical to follow promptings we receive because we never know who they could help. 

Our investigator shared a quote with us this week that had a big impact on me. "If you could see the size of the blessing coming, you would understand the magnitude of the of the battle you are fighting." Isn't that great?! There are good things to come. Especially when we choose Christ. 

Other eventful things that happened this week, a truck full of frat boys drove past us as we were walking on the sidewalk. Someone yelled "Love you!" and before we knew it, there was sauce on our legs and a half eaten piece of pizza on the ground. What a waste of pizza.

Love you all. Remember to always keep your head up and don't let the flying pizza get to ya.

Sister Erickson

Exchanges! 

L to R: Sister Smith (one of my former companions!)

Me

Sister Soto- my comp for the day

Sister Tilby