Bloxham Missionary News: Hermana Bloxham - Trip to queens and an awesome zone meeting!

Hey!

Wow, we have had an amazing week! It has been full of spiritual highs
for me and for a lot of us in the mission. On Friday we had Mission
Leadership Council as a combined meeting with the south mission and
their leaders. It was really cool! We went over to queens to meet with
them. We had some amazing trainings from both mission presidents
President Calderwood and President Morgan and their wives. It was
really cool to meet other missionaries and to learn from them. It's
crazy how we are all doing the work of The Lord here in New York but
we do it in many different ways, and we learned ways to do it that we
had never thought of before. We got a really cool idea for an APF or
area proselyting focus, where we all get together as a zone to tract,
contact, or do an activity to find new people. We have been doing some
really cool stuff, and yesterday we had one that was super awesome! I
will explain it a little bit later.
At mission leadership council we were taught about going back to the
basics. The south mission has been focusing on Preach My Gospel and
the Book of Mormon. When we all got our iPads I think we all kind of
drifted away from those two things and moved towards using conference
talks and videos and all of the amazing tools we have so accessible to
us. But I really loved how they are focusing on preach my gospel. I
definitely feel like I haven't spent enough time studying it during my
mission. It is an amazingly inspired book and we are so blessed to
have it. We also talked about humble obedience. There is a difference
in being obedient and wearing it on your chest like a badge and
strutting it around like you are so much better because you are
obedient, than if you are obedient because you have reverence for your
calling. I had never though of it that way before. It was really cool.
It had me really thinking about my obedience and what my desires are
or have been in my mission to be obedient. Why are we obedient to the
commandments?
Then, after MLC the zone leaders and sister baker and I had a little
planning session for what we wanted to focus on in zone meeting on
Monday. Elder Durham had a really cool idea to help us all get back on
track with being perfectly obedient. So on Monday we did an activity.
We had our zone meeting and then we had a council as a zone about how
we feel like we are doing with our obedience and with a few things
that President Morgan wants us to focus on as a mission. Then we had
everyone go into the chapel and we had a few scriptures written on the
board about our purpose as missionaries(D&C 58:2-7; D&C 6:22-24), what
Christ did for us(Alma 7:11-13; D&C 19:15-19), and what he asks of us
as his servants(D&C 1:31; John 14:15). So we all went in and read the
scriptures silently and all had time to recommit to being obedient. As
we walked back into the room there was a quote on the board that said,
"You are of a singular generation with exceptional potential. No
wonder satan wants to cripple that potential by tempting you to
violate the laws of God. He knows that he has no power over the
righteous individual, yet he is a master of making sin appealing to
the undecided." And under that quote said, "I choose to be perfectly
obedient", with the zone leaders names signed underneath. As we all
walked in one by one we all signed our names underneath and all chose
together as a zone to be perfectly obedient to all of the mission
rules and all of the commandments. It was a really amazingly spiritual
experience and we all were truly uplifted by the spirit in a way I
have never felt in a meeting ever before. It was amazing.

So anyway! Back to the awesome idea we had for an APF! We got the idea
from someone at MLC to do a scavenger hunt for service! So we kind of
changed the idea to a scavenger hunt for contacting. We had each
member of the zone pray for a specific person or two specific people
that we could all contact. For example, someone prayed and received a
picture of a man whose ears stuck out a little bit and looked a little
bit sad. So that was on the list, along with a lady with purple shoes,
a man with a white beard, and talking to someone you have seen before
but didn't talk to. So we had 24 potential people to contact and all
of us went out and tried to contact all of the people on the list in a
2 hour time limit. We went on splits with the English district because
there is so much Spanish here that they couldn't ever find all of the
people. Sister Hall, an English sister, and I were able to teach 7
lessons together and got some return information and potentials. It
was so sweet! It was really cool because we had all prayed for
specific people and we were really able to contact those specific
people! It was really cool and really fun! It changed my outlook on
contacting and finding!

A little update on the investigators:
Lucy, Lorraine, and Serafín are doing great! Lorraine has been sick
for a while so Lucy and Lorraine weren't able to come to church on
Sunday but Serafín was there! We had a really good fast and testimony
meeting and Serafín really liked it!
Rachel and Luisa are doing pretty well. They have kind of hit a
plateau in their progression. They are still awesome, they just need
to make the decision to get baptized so that they can progress again!
Ylaura is a new investigator we found! She is super legit! Her husband
is a member in the DR! We invited her to read the first chapter in the
BoM and when we went back she had read it and had been reading the the
true to the faith book! She is going to be soooo awesome! Well, she
already is but like she's going to progress super fast I know it! She
is so cute!

Besides that we are just workin hard and being obedient like never
before! I love you all so much and I am so thankful for all of your
support and prayers!

Love,

Hermana Jessica Bloxham