The Drought is a Lie and Elder Kebingot

Hello Everybody, It is Sister Dalley here. Another week has gone by. I can’t even believe that.  

Monday we did our laundry, went to Zumba and had a zone brunch because our zone won for the cleanest cars and apartments. After dinner with the sisters we went tracting. We met with the Swans. They are amazing. Sister Swan is a little over 70.  Her daughter Ava is 7 and getting baptized in March. It is a cool story. Sister Swan was her foster parent and fell in love with her and decided to keep her. It was a long adoption process because Sister Swan is older but they are the cutest. Ava is so so talented and so special. We love her.

Tuesday we went to Ann’s house. We did family history and then taught her the first lesson, the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was super great. She understood everything and loved it. When we were talking about Joseph Smith she kept saying “Why would anyone make that up?” It was great to see her level of understanding of the gospel. She has been coming to church for a long time so it is cool. We invited her to be baptized and she said, No, she has already been baptized. So now we get to talk to her about proper priesthood authority and the apostasy. I was a good lesson, it was a good time with Ann with many spiritual moments.

We are knocking doors and trying to find people to teach. We are reaching out out potentials and the whole shebang. We met with the relief society president, Sister Henry and tried to figure out who we need to visit.   

Wednesday was our temple day. Sister Ensign (yes that is her real name) drove us all to the temple. It was super great. We were there forever from like 10 to 3. We were able to do initiatories, endowments and sealings (as the children). It was really cool to go and the whole time I was in the temple I had the song “Oh My Father” playing through my mind.

1. O my Father, thou that dwellest

In the high and glorious place,

When shall I regain thy presence

And again behold thy face?

In thy holy habitation,

Did my spirit once reside?

In my first primeval childhood

Was I nurtured near thy side?

2. For a wise and glorious purpose

Thou hast placed me here on earth

And withheld the recollection

Of my former friends and birth;

Yet ofttimes a secret something

Whispered, "You're a stranger here,"

And I felt that I had wandered

From a more exalted sphere.

3. I had learned to call thee Father,

Thru thy Spirit from on high,

But, until the key of knowledge

Was restored, I knew not why.

In the heav'ns are parents single?

No, the thought makes reason stare!

Truth is reason; truth eternal

Tells me I've a mother there.

4. When I leave this frail existence,

When I lay this mortal by,

Father, Mother, may I meet you

In your royal courts on high?

Then, at length, when I've completed

All you sent me forth to do,

With your mutual approbation

Let me come and dwell with you.

I just kept thinking how special and sacred it felt to be in God’s house. I love the temple so much. That song definitely makes me think about going back to Heavenly Father when this life is over but it also makes me think about going back to the temple. We are strangers here, spiritual beings having a human experience. We belong in the presence of God, but in the temple, I never feel like a stranger, I am home. It was a beautiful experience and I am very very grateful we got to go. I love the temple.

Driving home we were in traffic for three hours. That is the one thing I do not like about California, the traffic.

When we got back we went to visit a family in Tanaja who gave us valentines. They have horses and goats and live in a beautiful area.

Thursday, Valentine’s Day! Happy Valentines Day! It was pouring rain. Everyone here talks about how dry it is. It is funny because everybody always says ‘we’re in a drought’ but the conclusion of all missionaries is the drought is a lie, so there you go.

We helped set up a wedding at the church while we were waiting for a meeting. We hung beautiful leaf chandelier things and beautiful white curtains. We went to Cafe Rio and went tracting and then we did face masks to celebrate Valentine’s day. I do wish you all a happy Valentines Day.

Friday, we went to the food pantry. They always give everyone treats but we have an ongoing thing - they every single time the people in charge give the missionaries the donut holes. The elders will offer to take them and then leave them on our car, so then we will drop them off on their doorstep, it goes on and on. We got out of there without them this time but we always find them later.

This is also the day that our world shook when we found out that we will be able to communicate with our families on Pdays via phone call, facebook, texting, skype hangouts, messengers, you name it. That’s crazy! We can do it on Pdays, holidays, father’s day mother’s day and birthdays. That’s nuts! We were really shocked but are excited to see how it will go.

Interestingly when we listened to Elder Klebingot on Saturday, he gave us a little insight into the conversation with the first presidency while they were discussing this new communication thing. Everybody was raising concerns about how it could be abused or the problems that could come up. They were all silenced when President Nelson, our prophet, stood up and said, “These are our missionaries and we will trust them.” So, I feel a little bit of pressure with that. It is really cool and I also feel very honored to be trusted by the prophet.

I probably won’t call every single week. We weren’t given many rules or guidelines because of that trust. To all my friends out there, I have received a couple of messages from some of you, No, I will not be able to call you too. I do miss you and love you but will not be calling you.

We have been writing a mission rap. They asked us to perform at a talent show. I will send it when we do it. We went tracting, we call it dot smashing, it means we’re just going by different potentials. We talk to random people on the street. It is always fun. This happens the days when we don’t have any lessons planned. We just crank out the tracting.  

Saturday, hoy cow! We went to Escondido for our zone conference with Elder Kebingot of the seventy. He is from Germany and is super blunt and very bold. It was actually amazing to learn from him from 9 am to 3 pm with a break for lunch. It was amazing! We talked a lot, I have so many notes. I wish I could pour out all the amazing things I learned.

First we talked about who we are and why we are here at this time of the world. He started with the war in heaven. He compared us to the people who campaigned and put up flyers and billboards for Heavenly Father’s plan instead of the ones who just mailed in a vote. He told us during that time we were the ones going out to find our siblings and bring them back to Heavenly Father’s plan. During that time we were being watched. We were chosen to be His people. Then a war broke out and we fought the hardest. He told us we most likely had a little sit down and were introduced to Abraham and how we would be part of the covenant and gathering the tribes of Israel.

We have been sent here to earth where Satan came when he was cast out. He gave us an analogy of us being worried and Heavenly Father telling us, yes you are going there but look who I am sending with you, meaning Jesus Christ. Heavenly Father also turned to Jesus Christ and said, I know you are going to do and I know you are going there and I know it is going to be hard but look who I am sending with you, referring to all of us. He then read us the scripture that refers to us as Jesus Christ’s friends. “Greater love hath no man than this than he who laid down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends...”

I love that Christ is my friend, my best friend.

He also taught about lies distortions and half truths. That was amazing because he did not know we had just talked about that with our mission president. He also taught us about memory palaces. This man is amazing. He has all of the standard works basically memorized. He taught us how he does that and it is super cool.

We were able to ask him a bunch of questions. He shared with us his conversion story. WE did a lot of role plays. He loves spiritually creating what he wants to happen during the day or the week. He also loves inviting to act so we left there with like twenty different invitations to act. It was amazing. He told us amazing stories about being in the seventy, working with the 12 and working with the apostles and prophet and how true this church is. He had amazing stories. It was incredible to sit at his feet.

I will try to help you invision one of my favorite things he taught. He had three elders stand up with him. The elder on the left he called Justice, the elder on the right he called Mercy and he stood with the elder in the middle.  He said, Imagine I am Jesus, I am not that cool but imagine I am him. He told us if we sin, justice has a hold on us, so Justice grabbed the elder by the shoulder. Every time we repent and promise to try to do better Christ steps in. He stepped in between the elder and Justice and broke the hold; then Mercy could reach out to grab the elder. He said, why do we try to look around Christ to see justice even though Christ has interceded. We we have repented and are clean but stay stuck in the “I am not good enough” or the “I cannot change” mindset. We have a hard time feeling worthy. He asked “Why are you putting a limit on Christ, why are you putting words in His mouth.”

He referred us to the story of the prodigal son and how he was the one who after he changed and came back was the one who said I am no longer worthy to be called thy son. The father did not say that, the prodigal son did. The father said, no, you are my son and threw a party for him. He encouraged us to trust Christ’s power to break the hold of Justice and not to hold on to our mistakes but feel worthy because we have repented. This is a beautiful teaching.

He said, I am not going to tell you all I know but It is a good day to be good. He taught us that coming to God is not a negotiation but a surrender. He reminds us how King Laman is willing to give away all his kingdom to know God. He offers to give away all his sins when he prays. The one thing that God will not take from us is our Agency. King Laman offered himself and his sins, he chose to surrender to His will. We give up things to be members of this church. The world certainly sees us as giving up our freedom but we have more freedom, we have more choices because of our choice to follow God.

Sunday was ward council, church, studies, dinner with the ,tracting and rapping with the sisters.

Happy Birthday to Jenna! I love you so much and know you are killing it in Argentina!

Love you all, love you, love you, bye!

Sister Dalley

josie.dalley@missionary.org

sisterjosiedalley.blogspot.com

Happy Valentines Day!

Hi, hello everyone!

First thing is a new announcement, my missionary email is no longer josie.dalley@myldsmail.net. It is now josie.dalley@missionary.org.

They said that all my emails that are sent to my old myldsmail.net will be forwarded to my missionary.org email for a little while so no stress.  But if you want to email me, use missionary.org.

This coming Wednesday we are going to the temple! I'm going to God's house and so excited.

Monday we did laundry and then we went to Zumba - super fun and different.  We're trying always to find different ways to exercise.

For P-day we went to a guy’s house and we played a bunch of games as a Zone. He has a bunch of old games that have been around for a long time or there's like only a couple of them in the world. It was really cool. We had a blast.

When we came home we received a text from a guy, Dan, asking if we’d give him a call. We called Dan on the phone and he started talking about how he had met with sisters in the past. We asked if he’d ever been to church. Dan was like “I've been to many churches.” We taught him a lesson why it is important to come to our church. It was awesome and really interesting. By the time we got done with our lesson with Dan on the phone he committed to come to church.

We did a prepare to learn because a seventy is coming here, Elder Klebingat from Germany. We're having a special Zone conference even though we've already had one this transfer.

Then we had our president interviews. He invited us to bring a lie, a half truth and a distortion satan tells us. He also invited us to bring our scriptures. He asked us to share with him our lie, half truth and distortion and we looked up doctrine in the scriptures to disprove these and find what was keeping us from being our best. I looked in my scriptures and he looked in his and we both came up with doctrine proving it wrong. It is a really cool experience and everyone needs to learn how to do this because there are so many half-truth lies and distortions that Satan tells all of us every single day.

As an example. My half truth was that every day I get back home I worry I am not doing enough even though I am working super hard. I worry I did not testify enough, invite enough, search enough. We get home exhausted and do a lot of amazing things as a missionary but I worry I could have done something more. I shared this with President and he asked me, “sister Dalley you've been out for a year , right?” I answered yes and he asked, “how exhausted are you?”  I answered, “I'm dead tired.” He said, “dead but still bouncy!”

We went on a scripture hunt together and we both ended up finding the same scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants 10:4 which says, ”do not run faster or labor more than you have strength” and it also says “but be diligent unto the end.” President said, “It is a great problem to have to always want to do more. I am not telling you to not want to do more. I am just telling you not to kill yourself. Have you ever thought you have done enough?” I answered “no, I guess I always tell myself it is not enough but to do more.” He told me to be proud of myself and realize how much God appreciates what I do.

It was a really powerful experience. He suggested every time we find these lies we should write them down and then find all the doctrine that counters them in the scriptures. I want to invite all of you to do this. It is powerful and unique and not a hard thing to do.

I love President, he is amazing.

Later, we went over to this Senior Living Center and and we painted nails. The sweet old lady whose nails I painted did not know English and only spoke Spanish. It was fun trying to talk to her cuz my Spanish skills are really rusty recently.

We went tracting and knocked on a door and started talking to a lady who is Born Again Christian. We discussed the differences in our religions. She knew we believe that the family is really important and are of God and she did not believe that. This made me sad because you guys, my family, are the most important thing to me. You are my rock. My religion is the most important thing but it teaches of the importance of family. I am so happy I know the truth.

She told us we believed in the wrong Jesus and were going to hell. Even though I get told that multiple times everyday, for some reason it struck us as funny. We could not compose ourselves and ended up just getting off her porch because we could not stop laughing. We did not want to disrespect her but ya, that happened.

We as missionaries are here to invite people to come unto Christ and the Come Follow Me is perfect because we are all invited to follow Christ. Some inactive members who  haven’t been as open to talking about religion are willing to go through it with us.

We went to froyo to celebrate Sister Brigg’s little cousin Rory, who passed away about a year ago. It was her birthday on February 6th along with Evan. Evan, happy birthday, you're awesome. Keep killing it in Nevada.

February 7th Happy birthday, Sadee! I can't believe you been married almost 4 years and have an infant. What the heck! Also, happy birthday to my uncle's Jace and Uncle Mike - all the birthday buddies!

We went to service at cultivating inclusion where we are basically working on an orchard and Garden. The garden is really beautiful and I love it because it reminds me of my dad. We cleaned up branches that we had cut down the week before. We met two girls Kyla and Veronica, and talked to them and ended up giving them a copy of the book Mormon and inviting them to read it and then getting their numbers.

I love how natural it is to talk about the gospel, like how easy it is. I just love it. Then there's this kid, Braxton, he's 18 and I talked about him a couple weeks ago. He came too and we ended up giving him a Book of Mormon because he was asking us so many questions about being missionaries.

February 9th We went to clean the church with our youth and some of the presidencies Elder’s quorum and Relief Society. It was really fun super awesome the kids are great. We did our studies and then we went to work contacting and meeting people. It is really interesting, we knocked on 20 houses and only two people answered. We were able to have really good conversations with those two people. One of them was a girl who is 17 and she is on the National Water Polo team. She was really cool and talked about religion. She told us that her the way her family works with religion is - each of them decide. Her dad and her twin read the bible everyday and she doesn’t. She said, “I just haven't found something that works for me” and we were like hey let us introduce you to this.

We met Gary who opened up the garage and pulled out his copy of the Book of Mormon and showed us all the signatures are missionaries that had to come by and talk to him in the past.  We don't know why he hasn't been baptized but he was really cool. While we were there he actually taught us how to make bullets. It is really cool and he let us make a couple and keep them. They are not full of powder so it will not ever go off.

We went to dinner with the Williams. They're a super cool family/ They're so funny. We were able to eat with them and get to know them better. They lived in Brigham City Utah so we talked a lot about Utah. She's so sweet, she made homemade chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles which was so good.

I just got on in District correlation it was up to me to what I wanted to talk about and so I prepared a discussion based on power and authority. When you look at the scriptures, all over the Book of Mormon, it talks about how they taught with power and authority. Elder Holland says missionaries seldom teach with power or authority. It comes with inviting people.

A scripture in Helaman 5:18 says,

18 And it came to pass that Nephi and Lehi did preach unto the Lamanites with such great power and authority, for they had power and authority given unto them that they might aspeak, and they also had what they should speak given unto them—

 19 Therefore they did speak unto the great astonishment of the Lamanites, to the convincing them, insomuch that there were eight thousand of the Lamanites who were in the land of Zarahemla and round about abaptized unto repentance, and were convinced of the bwickedness of the ctraditions of their fathers.

Something that we discussed I was the fact that much of the book Alma and Helaman wasvthem fighting over this land. There were so many years and so many wars and so much carnage and bloodshed going on. Yet after Nephi and Lehi taught with Power and Authority, in the last verse of this chapter, it says “and it came to pass that they did yeild up to the Nephites the lands of their possession.”

So I thought it was super amazing that what the sword couldn't do in in years, the word of God and the gospel changed these people. So that's what can happen when we teach with power and authority.

February 10th Sunday was ward conference. It's really cool cuz we were able to sustain the prophet and the first presidency and all of our leaders. I love our leaders of the church.

We had a linger longer Munch and mingle donut social thing I got to meet a lot of the members and talk to them. We went to Smedley's and they gave us oranges and bananas and grapefruit. We got a call from a member her house had flooded and they had found out that she was living in mold. She called us and said, “I am kind of desperate I need to move out of my house today.” So we helped and a pack of her house and move her into her new house on Sunday. We were really tired but after that.

So that was my week. It was really great week with great experiences and lots of things happening.

I hope you all had a fantastic week yourselves and doing good things!

Hannah, State Swim! I'm so proud of you!

I thought that was the sweetest thing about about wearing Cole’s name on on your shoulders. That made me cry. Congrats boys for winning again! That is so great! I'm so proud of you all! And the girls taking second! You are all amazing! Also, Boyd, I hear you got your Mission call to Texas, super excited for you! Congratulations!

I love you all so much and am super proud of you!

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you have a great week.

Love you love you bye

Sister Dalley

josie.dalley@missionary.org

sisterjosiedalley.blogspot.com

Feb 4 Email

Hello everybody!

January 31st was Lexi’s birthday! Happy Birthday Sister Bradshaw!

The missions around us are combining/dissolving in June. Depending on where we are at the end of our missions (June 8th) we could potentially have a three week transfer our last transfer so I could be home as early as July 23rd or as late as August 8. Regardless it it earlier than I expected :/

It was really cool. Sister Briggs and I were driving down the road, praying silently. She suggested we go to the Santorian’s home. The nonmember husband swung open the door and said “Oh it’s the girls!” He escorted us in and we were actually able to teach the first couple of principles on the restoration which was really cool because apparently he has not been very open to learning before. We are actually going back there next Tuesday to help them do a weekly Come Follow Me lesson. It was awesome. We got to see how much God guides us.

Brad Wilcox spoke to our relief society conference. It was so good. He talked to us a lot about Grace and how when we accept and utilize His grace, he gives us more. It was such a good conference. He uses the analogy of being  on a bus when he was younger. If you lose, you have to go to the back of the bus. If you are winning you are at the front of the bust. It is a constant cycle of progression and digression but the bus is always going home, so stay on the bus.

Super Bowl Sunday, literally no one was happy to see us. We called a few people and some wanted us to call them back.

I hope you have a great week and do a lot of amazing things. Love you, love you, bye.

A Great Week!

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic week and are making great things happen.

A sister in our ward wanted to take pictures of our district. Here are some.

During our sacred finding time on Tuesday we ran into a man. We told him we were sister missionaries and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and he went into basher mode. That is always super fun. He started quoting scriptures at me and asking me questions. I hate bashing but I will stand up for my religion. He asked, “who created the earth?” I just recently finished memorizing The Living Christ with Sister Walters. It was cool because I could answer, “Under the direction of His Father, he (Jesus Christ) was the creator of the earth.” He asked, “do you have a scriptural reference for that?” I answered, “Yes it is in John, All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” He kept going off on all this deep doctrine. I said, “You know, we understand that you are very well learned and that you probably went to a lot of school for what you know. We are just 19 and 20 year olds out trying to Jesus Christ and the gospel. Thanks for what you do. What was your name?” He answered, “I am Pastor Grant.” My awesome companion spoke up and said, “Thanks, Pastor Grant, just so we know we don’t have any bad feelings, can we leave with a prayer?” He looked so surprised. He said, “Oh, well ya.” In the prayer she said things like, “Help them to be open minded and come to understand.” He also prayed for us. It was an interesting confrontation. The intent of bashers is try to disprove our beliefs but I always walk away with a stronger testimony. No matter what they try to say I know what I feel and I know it is true. Hopefully he has a better idea of who we are and what we believe.

During district council we talked a lot about developing faith to find. We switched up our companions and went to certain streets in one area. People were kind and gave us referrals which never really happens. Know your neighbors because we are supposed to love our neighbors. Our blitz was point based for different interactions. We were able to get six people with interest, pass out four copies of the Book of Mormon, contact 50 people, one soft baptism invite and find pick up one new person to teach. We did all that in the space of 25 minutes.It gave us increased faith to find.

We had a lesson with a returning member. She is really sweet. She knows what she should be doing but is just not doing it.

We have a night called to the rescue night where we meet with the ward missionaries. We brainstorm names and then go visit them.

This week is my year mark of becoming a sister missionary. I went into the MTC one year ago on January 24th. Huzzah! It is crazy because I feel like I just started all this Jazz.

  Some interesting things, the entire time I have been on a mission, 365 days, I have never bought new shampoo and conditioner.

I feel like the woman who was asked to give her everything and gave her all she had to feed the prophet and her cruze of oil and flour never ran out in a couple of ways. One, because my amazing never ending shampoo -  but more importantly, two, every day I am able to give all I’ve got. I feel like I might die at the end of the day. I fall into bed at the end of every day completely drained and exhausted from the days work. But every single time I am able to wake up the next morning and to hop out of bed and be excited for the day. I am suddenly refilled. I am refilled with energy and with the spirit and life and light and joy. Every single day I am able to spend completely all my energy, all my time and be completely dry by the end of the day. The next morning I get to wake up and be completely filled.

Thank you all for your amazing support this past year. You are the best!

We talked to a guy who was helping with special needs kids who recently moved here, without friends, fresh out of rehab. We taught him principles. We told him about the YSA and the opportunity learn about Jesus Christ and he is interested in the support and wants to learn.

January 25th was Hannah’s birthday! Hannah is 18! I can’t get over that. She was 16 when I left (granted she turned 17 the day after I left). It is the weirdest thing to me. Happy Birthday, Hannah! I love you very much.

We worked at the methodist food pantry like we do every week. We get to be around awesome people and make people’s days better. We helped a returning member whose floor was flooded. We moved her furniture and tore up the floors. Some Elders were with us too.

I went on an exchange to the Murietta YSA.

We picked up a potential Noah who was playing basketball. We showed him a one minute video about Jesus Christ and why we believe what we believe. We offered another guy service who said no. He waved us down on the way back and said, “you asked me if I need anything, does anyone ever ask you if  you need anything?” It was so sweet. We found a guy, Amy’s (a member) husband as a new person to teach. We went to game night with the YSA and got to meet some cool people who are not members but just came to have fun! It was really cool.

We get fresh produce from the Smedley’s. Mom, you would be jealous, I have been eating fresh California grapefruit and oranges everyday for breakfast. We went to the Olsen, the Brandts, the Andersons who are super cool missionary minded families.

We are working hard and having fun. Pray for us, help us find people to teach. I love you so much! Have a great week. Good job girlies for kickin booty at region, I am so proud of you.

Love you love you, bye!

Sister Dalley

josie.dalley@myldsmail.net

sisterjosiedalley.blogspot.com