Monday, September 9, 2013

Dearest flamly and friends,

We are meeting with people more consistently and there are many people at IU who have such a strong desire to come closer to Christ. Three of our investigators came to church this week, and they loved it! A lot of people are progressing towards baptism, and it's been amazing to see people change their hearts. I am realizing how little of a role I play in this...I am simply the instrument in God's hands, and the Spirit is the true teacher. It is so humbling to be a missionary. All I have to do is be obedient so the spirit can work through me and let me know what these people need, and that is how these people can truly progress.

There is a freshman student who saw a booth for the institute building at the club fair on campus last week, and he started coming to the institute building to check it out (a lot of students come to do homework and they have some religion classes there as well.) He started hanging out there for hours at a time, and we set up a lesson with him. We were teaching someone else, and when it was his turn for his lesson he stood right outside the door and looked through the window. When it was his turn, he walked right in and sat down, ready to learn. He wants to read the Book of Mormon, he's already been to a Book of Mormon institute class, and he wants to be baptized in October. He said, "I think I've found my church." Ah!

We walked around campus last night with a girl who is studying journalism at IU, and she is doing a project for her class. She wanted to follow us around campus and observe us talking to people. She's writing an article on LDS missionaries, and if her professor likes it she will get it published. She interviewed us and was fascinated by what we do. She has a friend serving a mission and she's heard a lot of things about Mormons and missionaries, but it just fascinated her to sit down with real missionaries and hear what it is that we actually do. Really cool experience!

This week I realized, "I'm not here to invite others to come closer to me...I'm here to invite others to come closer to Christ." If I am are truly fulfilling my purpose as a missionary I am doing exactly what Christ would be doing if He were here. He was the most selfless person who ever existed, and every single thing He did was for other people. Yes, I am changing while I am a missionary, but I am not here for myself. I am here for those who need the gospel. I am here to help them find Christ.

We were teaching a member of about 2 years this last week, and in the lesson I asked, "What does Jesus Christ mean to you?" He said, "Well, I don't want to get all abstract, but I always think about how Christ is the Word. If you think of words in general they don't innately have meaning--they only have the meaning that we give them. Like if we all decided that a lamp could be called a book, then we could call it a book and it wouldn't be weird. But Jesus Christ is the Word Himself. He innately has meaning." Whoa... 

Life of a missionary is crazy, wonderful, hard, refining, incredible...I love it. And I love you all.

Love, Sister Allen 

PICTURES: 

1. Sitting next to Herman B. Wells who the IU Campus Library is named after

2. Me and Sis. Clark