"Sneezed on the beat and the beat got sicker"

The past few weeks our mission president has been wanting us to perform around campus and use music to attract people to church. We've been crafting a repertoire and experimenting with a lot of different upbeat Christian songs, and it's been SUCH a blast! A lot of students have come up to us to ask what we're doing and it's always a great lead-in to being missionaries for the church. For zone conference our companionship gave a training on using music to invite the Spirit into lessons. It was such a fun topic to talk about and hear success stories of when a hymn totally changed the course of a lesson. We also had a musical fireside in Bloomington that we brought our investigators to, and everyone was really touched by the music that testified of the Savior. Something that Vinh has started doing is listening to church-y music while he walks to class. Out of nowhere he just started humming "I Believe in Christ" and was like "I really like that song!". He says it puts him in a good mood and helps him focus. And he did it totally on his own- we never thought to introduce him to the hymns, so we were so excited when he did it by himself! I know God made music for a reason, and it's definitely one of the ways I feel the Spirit the most! 

Also at zone conference, our mission president's wife gave an awesome training on the Holy Ghost! Something she said really resonated with me: "We can't do the Holy Ghost's job- as missionaries we are called to teach, but we can't force people to feel a certain way. The Holy Spirit is the real teacher. We can't be crushed when people don't choose to accept the gospel. Just do your best and the Holy Ghost will do the rest of the work." It's so true! It's easy to be devastated when someone chooses not to accept the gospel, especially after they've received a witness from the Spirit that it's true. But in life all we can do is make choices for ourselves and hope that other people use their agency in righteous ways. The Holy Ghost will guide our steps and help us make correct choices that will bring us lasting peace and happiness- and that's only possible through Jesus Christ!

ALSO!!!! Victor and Vinh are receiving the Aaronic Priesthood tomorrow!!! Seeing them progress so much already in the gospel is the greatest thing to ever happen. Every time they show up early to church to help set up, or bring food to an activity, or just something small that they totally don't have to do but just WANT to, teaches me so much about service and selflessness. They're AMAZING. The YSA has the best recent converts :)

Also also, our whole district got way sick. We blame Elder Chen. But the district that has nasal congestion together, stays together.

Quotes of the week: 

"Brothers and sisters, I come up here tonight covered in tears. Admittedly they're President Forbes' tears." -Elder Rulon Stacey

Sister Gotchy: "He looks like he's still in his tens."

Timmy: "You mean teens?"

Sis Gotchy: "No."

Love, Sister Brett <3