Sister Mary-Ashley Esplin: Miracles in Memphis

Hello everyone! Good day!

This upcoming week is going to be a week of miracles. I just know it. Do you know why? First of all, because I'm on a mission and Heavenly Father is a God of miracles. But secondly because "🎶 I'll be walkin in Memphis". If you don't know that reference, that's fine. I don't really like the song anyway. It is my first walk week in 5 months. I have to admit that with my bad ankle I am a little stressed out, but I know that walk weeks bring miracles and heaven knows that we need some miracles. Recently, Lakeland has seen some MIIIIIIIRRRRRAAAACCCCLESSSSSSSS!!!

Alright. This week was just awesome. We started out with EXCHANGES!! Sister Decker, who served in Conway as my sister training leader for three of my four transfers in

Sherwood came over to the Memphis north zone with me and is my Sister Training Leader again! She is simply amazing and I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve with her again. She is also in my district now! Yay! We recently had exchanges which were fantastic. It was a really neat experience and it was really a time of reflection for me to see much we have changed. Even in six months. I feel like I have changed a lot. I truly feel like our trials are such a blessing. I can see that the trials which have occurred in my life have been the refiners fire that I needed to truly make me who my Father in Heaven would have me be. There is so much growth that takes place when we are going through the difficult times in our lives. At least there is a lot of growth, if you turn to your Father in Heaven and ask for His help. The most comforting thing that I have in my life is that my Savior, Jesus Christ, is someone that I can always turn to in faith and ask for help. He has already suffered for our sins, our pains, our afflictions, and our sicknesses. He wants us to come to Him and ask for help. His hands are reached out still.

When we had exchanges we had an amazing lesson with a former investigator named Hope. She was awesome, we sat down and started talking to her but the weirdest thing happened. The spirit just said to stop teaching her and ask to come the next day. We stepped out of the lesson and I turned to sister Decker to apologize and she just said not to worry, that she was not in the right frame of mind anyways because she was stressed out. But she then encouraged me to invite Hope to be baptized the next lesson because she felt really strongly that Hope needed that invitation. So the next day we went over and taught her the Plan of Salvation and she was really happy to talk about it. We also talked about the temple and how we can be together with our families forever and she thought that it was really neat. She was so interested in the lesson. We then extended the invitation of baptism to her and she said she would, if she wasn't on partial bed rest for the next 3 months. NO. Oh well, she is truly being prepared and we will continue to teach her and help her to grow in the gospel.

On Thursday we had zone conference and some really cool things happened. First of all, Elder Anderson is coming!!! We get to see him in Little Rock on January 28th. So exciting! 2nd thing. We are now a skype mission. We are now allowed to skype our investigators and mission leaders. That is seriously a huge step and truly an example of how our Father in Heaven is hastening the work and truly putting everything that we have to work to bring the gospel to everyone. I don't fully know how it is all going to work, but I am excited. We had phenomenal instruction from our sister training leaders, zone leaders, and President Wakolo. President Wakolo talked about how this is a gospel of miracles. Setting goals is an act of faith. That goals are the desires of our hearts. He also talked about how high expectations and high love for ourselves/Jesus Christ/our

investigators brings miracles. Our zone leaders talked about if we don't receive the spirit we cannot teach others. We need to be teaching by the spirit. And asking what the spirit would like us to share. They also talked about how when our investigators feel the spirit and receive it, they will gladly be baptized. The STLs talked about how our name tags are just a piece of plastic. We need to have the words written on the 'fleshy tablets of our hearts' (as President Wakolo says).

This week was just a bunch of talking and preparing for miracles and I cannot wait to share with you the miracles that I am sure are going to happen this week. I know that Heavenly Father will provide a way. He has done it for me time after time. It is often after a trial of our faith though. I am so thrilled to be serving here right now. This

year we are reading the book of mormon in six months and it has been such a joy for me to do that. Here is my highlight for today. I really loved 1 Nephi 13:37. I love that I have a chance to bring forth Zion. I love this work and I love all of you! Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Esplin