Be A Mountain Climber Not A River Crosser!!!

Dearest FRIENDS and FAMILY,

God is so good!

So I don't think I have ever really given a full update on the people I am teaching.

That actually might take forever so I'll just say that we have 3 people on date to be baptized. Two for this month and one in December. I am sorry I haven't mentioned this in the past. Honestly, my personal change and growth has just been so much that it is hard to even mention the people we are teaching. I have learned something great about this though:

God can do his own work! If he wanted to he could just put things in people's paths that would lead them to the church and we would have no need for missionaries. However, God is more concerned about our personal growth than just getting things done. So he calls the weak and simple 19 year old's like me to serve missions so that He can teach them more in 18 months then they ever learned in 19 years of life. He calls missionaries so that they can learn, experience new things, struggle, progress, and achieve personal growth... All while doing the greatest work that has ever been done and ever will be done--the work of SALVATION of the souls of our Heavenly Father. I never imagined how much a mission would bless my life. The blessings are so great and I still have 16 months of blessings to come.

God is so Good!

General Conference was amazing!

So...What's your scripture?... 

Mine "PONDERIZING" scripture is Alma 32:27

As a district, a few weeks before conference, we decided to memorize a scripture every week and decided it at our district meeting. God prepared us for that counsel!

I want to memorize a scripture a week for the rest of my life. Yepp! The rest of my life!

Oh our roommates have a scorpion that they got from a member which they so lovingly keep outside our apartment in a glass bowl. It is 5 inches long and quite scary... Especially at night! And we saw a coyote the other day too... Scary!

This week, was tough to start but there was something that really helped me. 

I was struggling because I felt so confused. Nothing was making sense and I didn't understand why I was here in Mesa and why things are the way they are or why I was feeling so terrible. I could talk for a long time about my confusion but we had pretty much tried everything to help me out and I had often prayed and just said "Heavenly Father, are you even there?"

After some wonderful help from my trainer She spoke by the spirit and told me so many things that only Heavenly Father would know that I needed.

One of those was this story that I pasted here. The story is about taking the hard way.

When I think about my mission call, there are a million reasons to go to other places. Like if I were to be called to Taiwan I would be speaking Chinese, learning a language, in the same mission as my Dad, experiencing a different culture and I would have a plethora of reasons why God called me to that mission. Or if I was called to serve in Brazil or somewhere else I might be able to come up with many reasons why God called me there. But here... In Mesa, Arizona there is only one reason why I am serving here ... It is put best in Moses 5:6 "I know not, save the Lord commanded me."

I have no other reasons to be here other than that God commanded me and used the spirit to whisper to me that I should serve a mission. And that' shall I need. I listened to and obeyed the Lord then... And I will listen to the Spirit and obey him now!

Enjoy this story about Moses from an email sister Child's sent a while ago:

At church on Sunday we had our lesson on Moses and the story of how the Lord told him that he couldn't go to Canaan and cross the river Jordan with everyone else after 40 years of wandering in the desert. He was commanded to climb up to the mountain where he could see Canaan and then that would basically be it. It must have been really unfair that all the people that had traveled with him for forty years and had been unrighteous were able to go to the promised land, but because of one mistake that he had made in the past he wasn't able to cross the river Jordan. It must have been unfair that instead he had to go up the mountain. However, at the top of the mountain he saw Canaan and the Lord knew of his obedience and blessed him. Moses was translated and was given one of the greatest gifts one could receive, which is much more valuable than being in the promised land. Our Ward mission leader explained that we should want to be a mountain climber and not a Jordan crosser. The blessings that come from listening to the Lord are infinitely more wonderful than what we think we deserve or what we think will bring us the greatest happiness. Example A: My mission call. I am thankful that I climbed the mountain and came to Mesa rather than crossed the river and did what I thought was better. I have learned at 19 years old the blessing of obedience and I have learned them so well that I cannot deny them. This is where I am meant to be and this is Gods way and it is the best way. I have learned lessons that have anchored me to the path of discipleship forever and they came because I climbed the mountain. I have learned that "you can't put a limit on Heavenly Father's blessings". I know I was meant to come here for many reasons, but one of the reasons was to teach me to be a mountain climber and not a river crosser.

Let's climb some mountains!

Sister Zimmerman