WOWZA! This week has been filled with so many miracles! We are truly seeing God's elect coming forth and it has been a blessing to see them progress. We have set up 4 return appointments this week just from calling random numbers and I want to talk about a couple of them! What a Spirit-filled week!
On Tuesday, we were able to have zone conference! Guess where?!? The Sacred Grove!! It was such an amazing experience! We drove two and a half hours to get there and we were welcomed by our AMAZING mission president and his wife, President and Sister Vest! There were about 50 missionaries with us and I was able to meet some of them which was so nice! President Vest has keys to the church history sites so we were able to go through Joseph Smith's home before we went into the grove! We had about 45 minutes to be alone in the grove just to ponder, pray, read in our scriptures and write in our journal. It was such an awesome experience and I felt the Spirit so strongly and it was so peaceful. For some reason there is this common feeling amongst people, especially missionaries, where they feel like when they go into the grove, they will be levitated off the ground and translated and visited by an angel because of how Sacred of a place it was for the prophet Joseph Smith. Wellllllll lets just say that I was one of those missionaries. I may or may not have prayed for an angel and I may or may not have seen one. Hahaha I'll just let your imagination run free oOoOOo the suspense! I'm just kidding! But seriously the Spirit was so vibrant and it was just such a calm and peaceful experience.
The Sacred Grove
After the Sacred Grove we went to the Hill Cumorah where we had our zone conference meeting. President Vest gave an amazing devotional as always and we got to hike up to the top of the Hill Cumorah to take pictures and talk with all of the other missionaries!
My companions and I on top of the Hill Cumorah
Now for the juicy stuff... soooo we were on a mission-wide training over zoom and we saw that President Vest was in his car driving and so we were wondering where he was going. Well, immediately after the training President Vest called us and we were like huh that's weird. Apparently, he had texted the old Norwich missionary number telling us he was on his way to our apartment for interviews and didn't realize that the number had changed until he was ALREADY AT OUR APARTMENT. My companions and I freaked out it was such a surprise but it was kinda funny. So I had my first ever interview with President and he is such a cool guy! We talked a lot about the mission, obedience, and plans after the mission! He is a very successful financial advisor through Edward Jones and he was able to give me some pretty good advice about college and degrees since I want to go into something very similar to that. Sister Vest was with him and she is literally the sweetest. They just sent off their oldest kid into the mission field two days before that and she was talking about how stressful it was packing for him while being in charge of 270 missionaries! She is a trooper for real! She was talking to us about traveling and future plans. It was so nice seeing them again.
My companions and I with President Vest
I am so blessed to be here in New York during this time. Even though it is starting to feel cold, I have seen so many miracles and have felt so much love from my companions, district, and zone leaders. One of my zone leaders is from Canada so you already know he is freaking hilarious and we had an awesome chat the other day.
I want to share a quote by President Vest. He said, "God sent us here to repent, it wasn't the backup plan, it was the PLAN". I know that sometimes we feel like we can't recover from our mistakes but I know that God put us on this earth to do exactly that. God knows that we are imperfect and we will fall short every time, but through the grace of God we can be made whole. God wants all of His children to live with him again. There is no way but up if we are looking up to our Heavenly Father. I want to invite all of you to ask yourself which way do you face? I know that if you keep your sights on God and Jesus Christ you will not be lost. I am so blessed to know this and I am so happy to have the opportunity to teach it. We found a new friend this week and had a lesson with him yesterday, and he told us he could feel the power of our words when we told him that God gives us second chances. If you really think about it, God gives us infinite chances. The power of the Atonement is infinite and saves us from our weaknesses and trials. Weakness is not a sin, it is part of our mortal experience and God knows that. I know that if we feel distant, we can receive more manifestations of Gods love when we pray.
I love you all! I am so grateful for this church and my testimony is strengthened every day. Missions are hard, but they are so rewarding. I hope to hear from all of you soon!!
-Elder Scown
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