August 28th- Women's Conference

The TSAM Women's conference August 28, 2015

Add caption

August 28^th they had a Sisters Conference in the mission which all of us were invited to, it was a spiritual feast.  I took a few notes on the conference and they gave us a CD of pictures so I would like to tell you a few of the things that they said.

President Slaughter began by telling us that we are all beautiful.  Sometimes we don’t define beauty as the Lord but follow the world’s definition. There are three ways that God defines beauty. 

Sister Cannon, , , Sister Leiter

 

1.       Romans 10:15 How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

2.       Have you received his image in your countenance?

3.       There is beauty of holiness in women of strength.  
a.       1 Chronicles 16:29 Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

b.      Psalms 29:2 Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Sister Studevant, Sister Leslie Williams, and Sister Garff

c.       Psalms 96:9 O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth.

Sister Burrows and Sister Rowley foreground

President Slaughter told us to tell ourselves every day, “President Slaughter says I am beautiful.  I declare you today beautiful.  Don’t let the world or your inner self tell you otherwise.”

Sister Slaughter said that Missionaries are called to be missionaries to their president.  She quoted the following scriptures:

1.       Moses 1:29 And he beheld many lands; and each land was called earth, and there were inhabitants on the face thereof.

2.       2 Nephi 2  The major theme of the chapter is to have joy.  Joseph Smith was known to have joy in the midst of everything, the atonement brings joy, the plan of redemption brings joy, the plan helps us make better decisions and to accept differences and circumstances.

Sister Powell

Siblings come from the same family but come away with different perspectives.  The Lord knows our hearts and he will bless you with the joy you need.

Sister Slaughter’s mother loved roses because she said that a rose is true, it has integrity all the way through.  Even though some part dies it still looks like a rose.  She listed some of the accomplishments that the Senior Sisters had done in the eyes of their husbands and gave us each a rose. 

Sister McCombs, Sister Spencer, Sister Clark

I was surprised at all the things that Larry had said about me that were so good.  He has been upset with me more than once on this mission.  He told them that with taking care of Nathan and taking care of our grandchildren and working at the Family History Center on Wednesdays that I had fulfilled 4 missions.  I had a hard time trying to keep from crying.  They took a picture of us but it must not have turned out because it was not on the CD.

Add caption

Sister Slaughter told the story of the woman who was asked to push the boulder and she did for many years but she could not move it.  She felt that she had failed until God told her I did not ask you to move it.  By pushing on the boulder you have become stronger.  Let no trial ever dissuade you.

Sister Clawson presented on Self Doubt vs. Christ

Sister Ormsby

She talked about the way to lower the wall of Self Doubt between us and Christ.  She said that if you serve others you can forget your self-doubts.  Forget yourself and change your perspective by moving towards Christ.  Don’t tell yourself that you can’t do something.  If you tear yourself down you cannot lift yourself.  Promise God to be positive and then report at night. 

Sister McBride, , Sister Sunkees

You need to apply the doctrine to your heart.  Think of Joseph Smith’s feelings at reading James.  Love God, and Love yourself.  We are fallen mortals therefore we need to turn to Christ.  When you come to know yourself as God sees you will be able to overcome the self-doubts that you have.

Sister Garner

Sister Smith, Sister Vorwaller

Sister Rankin presented on the Actuals of Agency.  She showed in a chart that there is Agency as God intended it to be and there is it’s opposite Satan’s distortion.  She read from 2 Nephi 2: 28 where it talks about the differences between God’s plan of agency which leads to Eternal Life and the companionship of the Holy Ghost or the Light of Christ.  Satan’s plan leads to Eternal Death of the Flesh.  There is also a difference in where their power comes from.  God’s plan gets it’s power from Christ.  Satan uses his own power for his plan.  With Christ’s plan we learn to rely on him and with our knowledge of good we are free to act for ourselves.  With Satan’s plan we have only knowledge of evil and are in a fallen state where we are acted upon.  Satan tried to distort our agency.  You have the power to choose.  Because we have a loving Savior who uses his agency we can use our own agency to choose good.

Sister Greenwood spoke on Becoming.  She asked, “Who are we?”, Carnal, sensual, devilish, lost, enemies to God.  She quoted from Lesson Three of Preach my Gospel.  Repentance is forming a fresh view of ourselves.  Some of the Scriptures that can describe us after we have repented are as follows:

·         Mosiah 27:24, Righteousness, daughter of God, born again, redeemed.

·         Alma 11:45, Raised from death, spiritual, immortal.

·         3 Nephi 27, Sanctified, spotless.

·         Moroni 10:32-33, Perfected in Christ, holy, without spot.

·         Mosiah 3:19, Saints, full of Love.

Sister Pyper,,Sister Stidham

In the information in Preach my Gospel on the Plan of Salvation it tells us that as we are becoming in Moroni 7:48, We will see him(Christ) as he is.

Sister E. Smith

After this they had fourteen Sisters bear their testimonies.

Then they had a talk on improving our communication.  These are some quotes that I wrote down.

1.       Ephesians 4:29  Let no corrupt communication out of your mouth!

2.       Communication is so important but we have a fallen method of communication.

3.       Read the For Strength of Youth about Language.

4.       A few don’ts to consider:

a.       Don’t fuel the fire, all it takes is one person to not fight back to end an argument.

b.      Don’t sweat the small stuff

c.       Don’t play guess what’s in my head

d.      Don’t use the words always and never

e.      Don’t be offended and think before you speak

5.       Proverbs 15

6.       Apologize if you offend

7.       You are not ingrained to be a certain way, You can change because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

8.       We are agents unto ourselves

9.       If you cannot say something nice, read the Book of Mormon!!!

Sister Budke, Sister Winn,

10.   Uplift and Edify, D&C 50:23, That which does not edify is not of God.

Sister Clark,

There was a question and answer session with President Slaughter and Sister Slaughter at the end which lasted about a half hour to an hour after which we had a wonderful luncheon provided by the Relief Society of the San Antonio North Stake.  Later they had a clothing exchange and took a group picture.

Sister Rowley

Sister Jenkins, Sister Graff

One tender mercy, Sister Sturdevant has been the unofficial photographer for the mission for as long as we were there.  When she broke her arm she could not lift it.  They asked Elder Spencer if he would do it just to have someone to fill in.  It turns out that Elder Spencer has been a photography buff for a long time and had all kinds of fancy camera equipment.  The Lord knows who to ask!!!

Sister Leslie Williams, ,Sister Pito,

Sister Adair, Sister Presser

Sister Slaughter, President Slaughter

Sister Holbrook, Sister Zirkle

Sister Slaughter, President Slaughter

Sister Karen Williams

Add caption

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sister Ferguson

Add caption

 

 

 

August 26th and 27th

August 26^th, Wednesday, we worked in the office training the Spencers.  I really like Sister Spencer and we always have a good time talking about our lives together.  She is a quick learner so she would go to typing in Baptisms when I wasn’t around to help.  I seldom have to go over something twice.  She seems to be a very smart person and to grasp concepts quickly.

Elder Tufts and Elder Evans

Elder Evans had told me that they took a picture of him and Elder Tufts together when they got to the border and so he sent me one by email.  I am posting it here so you can see how much they look alike.  When Elder Evans’s papers came Elder Tuft had just gone home and we all said, “That looks like Elder Tuft.”

We took David and Maggie out to dinner with us for one last time.  If you remember we took Sammy and Issac out by themselves a few weeks ago so we still owed David and Maggie a dinner.  We went to McDonalds because we were short on money and at least Maggie likes McDonald’s.  We had a good time with them and then we took them home and took Nathan a hamburger from McDonalds after taking them to dinner.

We let Nathan know that we had decided to go home early because of my Mother’s 88^th birthday party.  He was worried that the U-Haul that he had ordered would charge him twice but we assured him that we would make sure that they didn’t.  He had agreed to pay for our car to be wired for towing and for a U-Haul to get the things to Utah that he wanted to give to his brothers and Sisters there.

Missionaries at the Dilly Texas facility

August 27^th was Thursday.  There was a lady that called during the week that is a chaplain at a facility in Dilly, Texas for women that are picked up as illegal aliens from other countries.  They are charged with helping these people to assimilate into the United State and she wanted us to give her some LDS materials that they could read in Spanish that the people could read.  I was a little reluctant because I didn’t know what she was trying to do but she called and Sister Ferguson answered the phone and she was convinced that we needed to help this lady.  So I told her that we could give her several things and that we could send missionaries out to her if that was convenient.  We called the missionaries and they took her a box of Book of Mormons and some other supplies that we got to them and then they went to find out what they had to do to be able to teach those who wanted to learn there.  The picture is one that she took of the Elders that day.  Today she came to pick up more supplies and we were able to give her a number of things that had been sent back to the office as used but still good that the missionaries did not want besides the things like Book of Mormons .  She sounded like she was converted to the church even though she is Catholic and Sister Ferguson agreed to take her on a tour outside the temple.

Isaac, Nathan, David, Sammy and Maggie at his apartment

Nathan asked me to pick up the kids and take them to his apartment for his Thursday.  He is still quite sick.  We picked the kids up and then went to the Pizza place to get a pizza and went to HEB to get some olives he wanted for Isaac and something to drink.  We had a fun night eating pizza and talking and watching movies before the kids had to go home.  I am glad that I could be here to help him this week when he is so sick.  I really worry about how he is going to survive after we leave but I just have to put my faith in Heavenly Father and his promises to me that Nathan will be okay.

August 25th

August 25^th was Tuesday.  We worked at the office again helping the Spencers to learn the jobs that we have been doing.  We were alone for a while because Sister Williams and Sister Ferguson went to the MLC to feed the missionaries at noon.

There was one sad note at Senior the dinner.  Sister Studevant fell off the edge of the curb going out and broke her wrist. She was brave and acted like nothing had happened but then they went to the emergency room and found out it was broken. We found out about it when we read our email this morning.  We were so sad about this as she has been such a stalwart in the mission and helped us a lot with Nathan and is a good friend.

We offered to take the boys to scouts but Sara did not respond.  Nathan texted us and wanted Panda because he thought that we were coming for the boys so we took it to him.  He seemed to be softening about letting us help him as we get ready to leave I think not feeling well made it so he lost that animosity and just wanted help.  He also wanted us to take some stuff to his brothers and sisters.  Heavenly Father has let me know that he was angry because of the stroke and so I have mellowed also and told him that.

Nathan had asked me if I could fix his favorite pants but I could not because the machine would not work so I took them to a seamstress that works by our mission and told her that I needed them by Friday.