LAST UPDATE! March 16th, 2015

Dear All,

Well, this is the last email. What a journey! Most rewarding, stressful, blissful, up, down, all around, never trade for anything experience! I am excited for another chapter of my life to start and a chapter finished off with the words, "God is good!"

We had a night where all of our appointments canceled. BUT when God closes a window or door, somewhere He opens another one.This new open door came in the form of being able to update a Ward Mission Leader on whom we were teaching in his ward and he told us of an opportunity to possibly teach another individual in his ward! Also we ran into a less active that before hasn't been open to us about spiritual things but this night he did start asking us questions about God and prayer and how the Holy Ghost works. We bore our testimonies and taught him about receiving revelation and encouraged him to pray every day. He accepted and we scheduled a time to follow up as well as start teaching him! Also last week a lesson we didn't know how to approach or how it was going to go turned out great! Another one of our less actives opened up to discussion about religion more then she had! I was amazing!

Experiences like these reinforce my understanding that situations that seem like 'flops' are really moments of undiscovered and prepared opportunities! God knows our needs, He knows those around us needs, whom we can reach out to, when would be the best time to reach out to them and what they need. As we are open and willing to brush off 'failures' and look for opportunities we are blessed immensely! We bless other people lives as well! 

Fellow children of God, I know that God loves all of us. His love is evident in the fact that He speaks to us today through living prophets. His love is evident in the wonderful family and friends that support and love us. His love is evident in Him sending His Only Begotten Son to suffer for our sins and also our afflictions that He might know how to succor us. His love is evident in the fact that His prophets and the priesthood were lost for a time but were restored to the Prophet Joesph Smith in preparation for the return of Jesus Christ to the earth. We can feel His love as we turn to Him in prayer and as we keep His commandments. He lives, He loves us - These truths never change. In the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ,

Amen.

God is good~Sister Sarah Meldrom

Well, this is it.... and thank goodness I have a slow moment at work and I can pass on Sarah's last email right now! Because WHO knows how the rest of my week is going to go. =)

I know that I was not the best at passing along the emails, and I apologize. Just think, no more waiting to get an email update!!!

We are excited to be able to pick Sarah up from the STL airport Thursday night! It is crazy to think 18 months could feel so long, yet seem so short. I am just glad that it has been a blessed 18 months. Thank you for sharing it with us!

Love you all,

Beth

March 9th, 2015

Dear All,

Monday we went to our first lesson to a Sister Smith in one of our wards who wanted us to come to teach her granddaughter before her baptism because of her limited knowledge of the gospel. Turns out that the grandparents(Sister that called and set everything up and her husband) were in my Branch Presidency in the MTC and the Brother is actually the one I had an interview with when I was at the MTC. It was fun to see them and yet again another experience of 'small world!'.

Tuesday we went to a special mobile device training meeting. Brother Lee Donaldson from the Preach My Gospel videos, District 2 (who is now in the Missionary Department in Salt Lake) and Elder Don Clark (whom we had tour our mission back in December) were present and led the Training. This meeting officially kicked off the Utah Provo Mission as a now 'Implimenting' Mission for the Mobile Devices. For the past 18 months the UPM has had missionaries on Ipads where they have kept records of those whom they are teaching, been on Facebook and everything in between. The Missionary Department has learned a lot from the 30 some missions that tested the Ipads with missionaries. They have seen the great and the ugly. From what they have learned they are starting all 30 missions over as if we didn't have Ipads and starting a hundred or so others in the United States and Canada. The Ipad will have protections against most inappropriate usage but I loved that through out the training they stressed that the most important filter of all is our own personal testimonies of the Savior and the Gospel. The very first reason missionaries even have the Ipads in the first place is so that we can learn the correct usage of the Internet and technology. The Brethren said they are going to keep working with the missionaries until they understand that they need to seek after the good, not the bad. No more taking Ipads away from disobedience missionaries, but patient and hopefully progressive help in the right direction. "There is no other way to raise a generation of sin depeling young people." By how the next period of time will go they will keep learning and growing until like they said, "We get it right." They said this whole thing is riding on a lot of faith! They also said that God trusts in us! What an exciting time to be alive!

I know that my Savior loves me.I know He lives! I can not count the many times I have cried unto Him and He has helped me. He doesn't take our burdens away but lightens them. He died for all of us. He suffered all of our pain that He might have mercy and understand what we are going through. As it says at the end of a document called The Living Christ" God be thanked for the matchless gift of His Divine Son."

God is good,

Sister Sarah Meldrom