Because I am happy!!

I cut my hair!!

I am just happy. I am happy to be a missionary. I am happy to be me. I am happy to be serving in the incredible Ohio. I am happy to be a servant of Jesus Christ. I am happy with my life. :) 

this has just been a good week. Things worked out really well for us. We had a lot of success, especially with working with the members. We got 4 new investigators this week and they were all referrals. It was awesome. The work is moving pretty well here in Cherry Grove. :) 

But yeah. I am just so grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission. Yesterday at church we had a missionary come home from Norway. She gave her homecoming talk and I was on the verge of tears. It made me realize more and more that one day that will be me. My mission will come to an end. That is a scary thought to me. This has been the BEST 11 months of my life and I will remember them forever. I will always cherish being a missionary. 

Sorry this week was not very eventful. Just remember that God loves you. Read The first great commandment by Elder Holland. It is great. "The greatest characteristic of love is loyalty." :) 

I love you all! Have a great week!

love

Sister shaw

Ether 12:6

11 months!!!

This week has been a great week. I have learned so much just this week. I think I have grown closer to my Heavenly Father this week than my entire mission/life. And the best part of it all, I grew closer because of my weaknesses. 

So this week began and ended with me read Ether 12:27 that says 

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

I have been praying for many weeks to come closer to my Heavenly Father but after reading this scripture I asked Him to show me a weakness of mine. In the middle of the week I discovered a major weakness of mine that I have had my entire life. It was hard for me to accept at first but I humbled myself I realized that this would be a chance for me to help other people. I humbled myself more and turn to the Lord and asked for help to make this become something more, something better. As the week went on I noticed that each day it was become easier, better. I was just in general happier. Now as of today, I can say that I am the closest to my Heavenly Father than I have ever been. 

I know that I am a daughter of a king. A Heavenly king who loves me and I love him. I have promised in my covenants to stand as His witness and I will never move. I know that just like it says in Docrtine and Covenants 122:7 "that all these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good." I know that these things are true. I know that Joseph Smith and Thomas S. Monson are Prophets of God. I know that Jesus Christ lives and write all of these things in His name, even Jesus Christ. Amen.

Death Bed

Hello again from Beautiful Cincinnati! :)

So... the reason I called this letter Death is because.... Get ready for this.... I thought I was going to DIE! Sister Fausett and I got FOOD POISONING! FOR 5 DAYS!!! We were out from Tuesday to Friday and had our first full day back yesterday. Holy cow it was awful. It is not fun being sick on your mission. My diet this week has been crackers, Gatorade, and tortillas. (Sorry I had to buy all of that on my personal card) haha. 

But yeah. I am actually grateful for this week though. I learned a lot. 

1. I learned that food poisoning is not fun

2. I learned that I can survive it.

3. I learned that I am not much of a complainer anymore... which is not perfect now but I am doing a lot less of it. 

4. I got a lot of great spiritual insight because we were inside so much. 

So I really want to tell you what all I learned this week. So I want to start off by talking about what I just finished reading in the Book of Mormon. I just finished Alma 26 and if you know what that is you know that it is the humility chapter, and when Ammon talks about how glorious it is to be an instrument of God. It was just so cool to see that Heavenly Father is allowing us to help Him. Heavenly Father can make things happen when He needs them to. I know this is true because this week we only met with one of our investigators once (yes, while we were sick...don't worry we didn't get sick on them though) and they still came to church! Heavenly Father lets us help Him so that we can gain experience. 

I also learned a lot about the first and great commandment. To love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, might, mind, and strength. Elder Holland had a talk on this from the October 2012 general conference that we watched. It was incredible and the quote that stuck out to me the most was, The greatest characteristic of LOVE is LOYALTY. That really hit me because all we have to do to show Heavenly Father, and each other that we love Him or each other is by being loyal. It was just a really great lesson I learned. 

But yeah. That was my week. Remember, that when life gives you lemons, or food poisoning, then make lemonade, or have spiritual experiences! :) haha. Have a great week! I love you all!

love

Sister Leslie Shaw

Miracles

Holy Cow! It has been an amazing week! I cannot believe how much it turned around in just 3 days! WOW! 

So this week we found 5 new investigators, and 2 came to church! We are teaching a family now and they are so prepared. They love the gospel and all of the family liked church. It is amazing to see Heavenly Father working in the lives of people. In Alma 16:16&17 Heavenly Father promises that he is preparing people and I have been able to see this scripture come to life right before my eyes. It is amazing how I will talk to people and they will tell me about the trials they have gone through and all of their hardships and I then have the blessed opportunity to show them how those experience brought us to them. As I testify to them I see the light of Christ come onto their face and joy fills their hearts and they are excited for us to return. 

Because of this week I have been able to see that Heavenly Father truly has a plan for everyone and every choice that we make has a consequence. This week I was talking with my Bishop's wife and she was saying that she firmly believes that if we make a decision based on what we think the Spirit is telling us, Heavenly Father will consecrate that and use it to bless people. So ALWAYS do what you think the Spirit is telling you and you will be blessed :) 

I want everyone to know that I love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I know that I am a choice daughter of God. He has a plan and a happily ever after for me. I know that I am blessed to be apart of the gospel of Jesus Christ and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I want everyone to know that I know that is Christ's church. He leads and guides it through our prophet Thomas S. Monson. I know these things to be true. "I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dare I do it;" (Joseph Smith- History 1:25)

I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Love

Sister Shaw

3 Nephi 5:13

Good afternoon everybody! :) 

So this has been a trial of my faith week. We did not have as much success as we were hoping for. But the good news is... we get to stay here for another 6 weeks together! No one in our ward is getting tranferred :) That is 3 companionships! I am so excited. 

But yeah. We had to drop one of our investigators this week because he was being kinda interesting... He is a 71 year old man who calls sister Fausett "Preacher" because she whips out scriptures all the time and calls me "Angel" because I have a glow about me? He is different... :) 

So we have about 2 investigators right now and we are hoping to find a lot more this week. 

Heavenly Father likes to give me trials of my faith. That trial is in not finding people to teach and everyone dropping us in one week. It is fun... Sometimes. haha. With all of these trials I know I can last a little longer than the last time. I am going on 2 weeks now. That is longer than I have lasted yet. haha. So I think I can do this. 

I hope you can keep exercising your faith. If we aren't working to act on our testimonies then they won't last long. Keep going forward. There is no growing in a comfort zone and their is no comfort in a growing zone. That is our missions saying at the moment. 

Oh, ps. One of my investigators from Kettering in getting baptized this weekend! I am so happy. It is going to be awesome! :) 

Hope you all have a great week! I hope you are having a fun vacation mom and dad. 

love

sister shaw

Happy Happy

Good afternoon fam-bam :) 

I hope you are all doing well. I don't ever miss you of course. It has been a fun week. I am learning so much from my mission. I am so grateful to be here especially with President Porter as my mission President. He is AWESOME! I am learning so much from him. 

So we have been working really hard and it paid off a little. We are finding, trying to teach, and we want to baptize. We are working a lot on our faith which I am so happy about because I need more of that. I am so excited. I have been reading my patriarchal blessing a lot and I have been trying to figure out how to become that person and I think I am getting that chance by being here. 

So this week we have been having fun. We had exchanges this week and I actually was with Sister fox this time. So funny story about Sister fox. We are facebook friends. We became friends after we both had our mission calls. She was Ryley Peabody's FHE sister and he remembered that that is where I was going so we kind of knew each other before our missions. Small world moment :) But yeah. 

I am trying to think of what happened this week and the only thing I can think about is Faith. That has been the center of my week. Everything that I have done has come by to that one thing. I am learning that faith is more than I thought but easier also. Faith is a thing hoped for but not seen. Hope is believing and expecting something to happen. So if I want faith in baptizing I have to believe it is possible and then expect it to happen . So simple but yet so hard haha. I am learning how to develop that more though :) 

Well, I hope you all have a great week! I love you! 

love

Sister Shaw

Wait What??

o this has been an interesting week haha. 

The main reason is because of what happened on Wednesday. At about 5 in the evening we got a call for our zone leaders and it kinda went like this:

Elder Price: "Hey Sisters, are you ok?"

Me: "Um... yeah.... why?"

Elder Price: "There was a tornado that was between Mt. Washington and Batvia."

Me: "Wait What?"

Elder Price: "Yeah, you didn't know?"

Me: "No, we didn't heard sirens or anything... but I guess that explains the crazy weather..."

Elder Price: "haha. Ok. Well be careful, we have to go and call the other sisters."

Me: "We will try..."

haha. It was so crazy! There was tornado that hit our ward! It hit out in the middle of no where I guess though. It was a funny phone call though ahah. 

Well... other than that... nothing exciting has happened. We have been doing well. A lot of hard work but we have an investigator looking to get baptized at the end of the month :) I am learning so much. I am learning how to submit myself to Heavenly Father! It is so cool. I know that as I hit my hard parts I will have success. Heavenly Father is with us in our afflictions (Mosiah 23:10). 

I wish I had more to say but I just want to say, I know that Heavenly Father has a plan for us. I know that Christ walks with us. I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the Lord's kingdom once again on the earth and that he leads and guides the church through our prophet Thomas S. Monson. 

I love you!

Love

Sister Shaw