Biking Week #2 and I Am Still Awake, I swear

Another Biking week! It was like each day I had less and less energy as my muscles got tighter and tighter by Sunday. 

Our week was full of dinner appointments, and I am glad that we were fed this week;

On Wednesday, all of our appointments cancelled, and no one came to the Book of Mormon class which we decided to hold at the church. 

No investigators yet to church, and no set baptism dates. 

. . . 

I've had some thoughts during my studies this week: 

"The scriptures mention 'the brother of Jared'. Who is the brother of Jared, and why didn't they ask for his name? They mention Jared, and his brother Pagog; but they still call this other brother, 'the brother of Jared'". My companion laughed at this one. 

I also have realized that the reason why the Prophets in the Book of Mormon have received their revelation in the way they did, was because they were prophets, and they held all the Priesthood Keys in order to receive that revelation. I pondered on this because I have never received any revelation as direct and as bold as the Prophets have. My revelation might be an idea or  two, or a name of who I can help today, or what to teach a certain person, or a small whisper of the spirit such as, "wait." "stay." "Be patient." "You can do this." "so-and-so loves you." "Heavenly Father Loves you." "Jesus loves you." "Be careful, this has [food allergy] in it." Etc. But never so much revelation as the prophets. Makes sense, I guess. 

I have also realized that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have different personalities. Heavenly Father is the judge, and Jesus Christ is the Advocate. Jesus does not judge, but invites us all to come unto Him. I knew this before, but when I studied the words that both of them say and the way that they said them, really intrigued me. 

. . .  

For our mission, we are now doing a 'Walk-and-Talk' for 3 hours where we go outside and walk and talk to people, and our focus is to share the restoration of the gospel. It was really Fun. We met a lot of people, and we found 4 investigators out of it. I met a lady named Candi Barr; she really wanted to know what our religion is about, and we had a lesson with her discussing why good things happen to bad people, etc.  We talked about the plan of salvation, and how in the Pre-earth life, we accepted Heavenly Father's Plan, and how that also means that we accepted everything that we were going to face here in life. That means that we accepted all of our trials and challenges, and everything that we were going to face in life. All of our trials and challenges, and how we react to  them, prepare us for our next life. Each  trial tests us, and each trial shapes us. God sends more things are way because he knew that we could handle it, and he also wants to put us through the refiner's fire, just like what they do to purify silver. By the time we are perfected in a certain thing, He can see His reflection in us.  We accepted everything that was going to come our way, so we might as well ask ourselves, "What can I learn from this experience? How can I grow from this? What can I do so that I can get through this?" Everything we go through, is for the good, regardless if it doesn't seem that way.

We wouldn't know good, if we didn't have the bad. Therefore, we know, as human beings, because of the Fall of Adam and Eve. In the Garden, they didn't know good from evil, until they were tempted to partake of the fruit. 

...

I enjoyed the Womens Broadcast on Saturday. Even though it was an hour and a half long, I felt it was too short. I love conferences, and the General Conferences. Which is coming up, by the way! I am super excited for that!

President Uchtdorf made a great comment about how we are all worth the same, regardless of what we wear, what we do, and what we look like. No one is above anyone else, and Heavenly Father sees us and loves us all equally. I heard that has been going around Facebook and I wish I could see that. Those words are precious. 

...

Meet The Mormons is about to hit Regal, AMC, and Cinnamark Theaters in October (around the 16th, I believe). The missionaries just got to watch it early. Our Mission President Streamed it for us and we got to watch it. It has been produced by the General Authorities of the church and is a church video. It was made in the hopes that it will clear up any controversies about this church. It mentions about 10 different families and what they go through their normal lives. It even mentions a section about what we do as missionaries. There was a part that made a lot of the missionaries cry - even me, because we all went through that experience when saying goodbye to our families for 18 mos to 2 years. I recommend everyone to see it! 

It mentioned a quote by President Gordon B. Hinckley, and how Anger is a sign of weakness. 

If you go to meetthemormons.com, you can request the movie to come to your area. Please do this! It's such a great movie! 

I have a headache and I hope all of my letter made sense by the time it was through.

I would write more but I am almost out of time!

I love you all, and I hope you all are doing well. 

-Sister Marshall