Abbey's letter January 6, 2014

I hope that everyone's 2014 has been a good one. This week has been a slower one. We had a big snow storm on Thursday and Friday. Today it is about 50 degrees and all of the snow is gone. They red dotted everyone in the mission on Thursday which meant that we were unable to drive. So a lady in our ward by the name of Sister Bare picked us up and took us to her house and we spent the day there. Luckily Thursday is our day that we do all of our planning for the week! Sister Bare loves the missionaries. We do our laundry at her house every Monday. She is a sweet lady. And her house is a home away from home. Gary is still struggling and we are very worried about him. It is hard when you cannot control someone's agency. Don is doing well. He comes to church every Sunday with his Wife and Grandson. He is the most giving person that you will ever meet. He reads everything we ask him to read and keeps all of his commitments, he even payed fast offerings this past Sunday. But he still plans on dieing catholic! Crazy guy:) He will come along soon I think! That is my dieing wish right now, to get to see him progress towards baptism. We were able to have dinner with the Devaux's this week and teach Kelly the restoration. She enjoyed the lesson and had a lot of questions for us. 

Something that I realized this week while studying the Book of Mormon is that many times when a missionary is asked if they believe that there is a God, instead of saying yes, they simply say, "thou knowest that there is a God." What a simple testimony that everything that has ever lived in this universe testifies that there is a supreme being and creator. And there is no way that we can ignore or deny the fact that he lives. 

Another thing is that in Alma chapter 11 verse 37 it talks about how we must inherit the kingdom of Heaven, and be worthy of it. How amazing it is that we have the chance and ability in this live to become like our savior Jesus Christ and be worthy of his kingdom. And that it is a very real and reachable goal. A member in our ward has this silhouette of a chair on their wall that says no empty seats. I have really come to realize that the only way we can inherit the kingdom of Heaven is by helping others to get there as well. Life is so wonderful and I know that God lives. I know that he has restored his true gospel again on this earth as he has done many times before. God is a very merciful God. I love you all and pray for you often. I hope that you all have a very good week. 

Love Sister Rushton