Sister Barlow,
I wanted to send you an email about the experience I had with the Book of Mormon Challenge you gave me. Even though I know that I already talked to you and thanked you at zone conference and shared a little bit about my experience I wanted to share a little more about the lessons you were able to teach me through this experience.
That challenge you gave me July 27th to read the whole Book of Mormon and to mark every referance to Jesus Christ was everything to me. That Book of Mormon you handed me my first day in the TKM has become my most prized possesion. I carry it with me always. In it you invited me to mark every single refferance to Jesus Christ, I also added and marked every verse I though would be a good “shareable” verse (this quickly turned into marking two consecutive scriptures to share for the finding flow). The lessons I’ve learned from this challengenge… I couldn’t even begin to list them all but I wanted to share a couple.
The first lesson I learned was that Christ is everywhere. As I earnestly looked for him in the Book of Mormon I found myself findng him not just in the verses in the Book of Mormon but in every aspect of my life. On every hard day I could find him (even on the days it was really hard), mainly what I’m trying to say right now is thank you for teaching me how to look for Jesus Christ in ever aspect of my life.
The second lesson I learned changed the outlook I had on my mission. The first few weeks of my mission I was questioning ALL my life decisions. The mission was nothing like I ever expected and I felt absolutly completely unprepared and I have never seriously considered throwing in the towel, but that frist week the reality that I would be doing this for the next 18 months really hit me (and not in a good way).
But because I had taken your challenge I was reading in 1 Nephi 3 and I’ve always loved verse 7 but thats not the verse that stood out to me this time. This time it was verse 15 which says, “As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father in the wilderness until we have accomplished the things which the Lord hath commanded us.” and this scripture kept me on my mission. I know that God has commanded me to be here that he has commanded me to serve here and as the Lord liveth I will not go home until I have accomplished the mission that the Lord has prepared for me.
As you were talking about grit in zone conference this scripture came into my mind again and I believe that this is the Grit that you and God has asked us to have. To keep trying to stay, to keep trying over and over again every day no matter what the “Labans” of the mission throw at us. To not go home (to our apartments or our families,) until we have finsihed the work that he has for us to do.
The last thing I wanted to share was the truth that I found in these pages. I’ve always known the Book of Mormon was true. But because of the study I did in my first two transfers, I can testify of its divinity like I never could before. And I know that the Book of Mormon is “the most correct of any book on earth…and that a man will get nearer unto God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book” because it happened to me.
So thank you for this challenge and thank you for setting me up for succes for the rest of my mission and my life. I don’t think there will ever be a point where I can thank you enough.
Love,
Sister Hall
Side note: if you want to know how many references to Christ there are I couldn’t tell you but I can tell you that I used up my whole green pen and had to get a new one around the book of Ether haha.
#TKMTenderMercies
Barlows in TKM 