Monday, November 4, 2013

The Enabling/Strengthening Power Of The Atonement Eenables Us To Do Hard Things!

Hi again Family!
How is the book of Mormon reading going? I hope yall are still doing it! I loved this week reading in Alma 36 where Alma is telling his son helaman about his conversion. I loved especially, the part where Alma is saying that when he thought about standing before god that it filled his soul with inexpressible horror that he wished that he could just be destroyed both body and soul so that he didn't even have to exist to stand before god to be judged! I think that is how we feel sometimes when we have things we need to repent of and change in our lives, the thought of standing before our Heavenly Father is terrifying. but I love as we continue to read, he tells of his repentance and the forgiveness he received, and what joy filled his heart as he was able to be forgiven. Then at the end he says "... me thought I saw...God sitting upon his throne, surrounded by numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God: Yea, and my soul did long to be there." he had gone from wishing to be non existent to longing to be in the presence of God because he had been forgiven of his sins! what a great message that carries... the power of the atonement is real! Alma went from what was termed as the most vilest of sinners to someone who went on the become a great prophet and missionary! The atonement has the power to change lives I know this is true, to take a person who would otherwise shrink from the presence of the lord and transform them into a being who would be happy, comfortable and confident in the presence of their Heavenly Father! What great power! I know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is real! I have felt it and seen in my own life and I have seen it work in the lives of others... I know it is real with all my heart! We just have to accept it and be willing to change and we are promised eternal peace... how great is that! I love Alma he is such a great example of the atonement at work in a life!
I invite all of you to make a life time study of the atonement! we will never understand fully, it's power, but we will appreciate it more and more as we study and use it's redemptive power!
The atonement isn't just for the healing of sin though! there are great powers of the atonement... one in particular that I love is the enabling/strengthening power of the atonement! that enables us to do hard things!

I got this from one of my companions and I just love it!  
The six powers of the Atonement
C-cleansing power
H-healing power
R-resurrecting power
I-understand power (Christ knows how we feel) 
S-strengthening power
T-transforming power  
I could make a life long study of these powers!    

ok now onto the funny part of this week, it was another interesting week! we met a very interesting lady we call her Wendy! So we knock on her door and we introduce ourselves as representatives of Jesus Christ and she says "oh, I am too!! What church do you belong to?" so we told her and then she says "oh... the Mormons...?" yes ma'am the "Mormons" then she begins to go off about how we don't believe in Christ and how we believe in witchcraft and dark powers... yatta yatta yatta... I stopped her and I said actually ma'am you have been misinformed, our faith has absolutely NOTHING to do with such things... where did you get your information... "from the internet" so I asked her if she would mind visiting our website to see what we really believe and she looked very skeptically at the Mormon.org card that I held out and said "actually I would mind...no thank you!" she then went on to tell us about a woman who had committed a murder recently and she was Mormon and how could a person that claimed to believe in Jesus Christ do such a thing unless evil spirits were telling her to do it... I just laughed at her and said "Ma'am, there are people of ALL different faiths who do horrible things, not just Mormons... they for whatever reason have chosen not to follow Christ. She didn't really say much after that, but then she told us that there was something weird going on in our religion and that we needed to pray about it so we could make a better choice. then she asked if we as Mormons celebrated Halloween and I told her that we did participate in the festivities for the fun of it! then she began to go off on how Halloween is the devils holiday and that it was "satan's way to train lil Jonny to be a devil worshipper" I just laughed and told her to have a good day! and we left... we got a really great laugh out of it though! she was a funny lady!! We meet the most interesting people out tracting! it's fun when we get crazy stories from it! ha ha!
Last night I received a prompting to go and visit a referral that we had try contacting and he stood us up.. but I had the thought to got check on him again... so we went and stopped by his house and he and his wife were home and he invited us in and asked us to tell them about the book of Mormon... so we did an impromptu lesson on the restoration of the gospel! and at the end the guy said "now I haven't been baptized, but if I got baptized I would want my whole family to be baptized." so we explained to him that the lessons that we teach would prepare him for baptism! and he said he would like that and so we will be seeing him again on Thursday!! WOW! that was so awesome! Whitewashing an area is hard, but the lord blesses us as we are obedient to him and his commandments... as we follow promptings and do as we are asked the lord has blessings just waiting for us! I LOVE my mission!
Well family, I hope that yall are having a blessed week! I love yall so much and I will talk to yall soon!

LOVE,
Sister Dannika Nielsen

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