September 29

Hello!

This week was great! Zone Conference with Elder Golden from the seventy was absolutely inspiring. There was a beautiful focus on obedience and being obedient because of your love for the Lord and not just because of the sense of duty that you feel. I also appreciate the love and trust that Elder Golden showed in us. He said some pretty incredible things about our mission. We have a lot that we can improve on but it was nice to hear from a general authority that we are doing well. Another thing that I was impressed with at Zone Conference was the emphasis on goals and planning. I know that I need to work on setting more inspired rather than logical goals. The world sets goals that are logical, based on what they have already achieved. Setting inspired goals takes a lot of prayer and paying attention to the spirit. Those goals are not always logical and might even seem crazy to the rest of the world. But Heavenly Father knows what we can accomplish. The other thing that really impressed me at Zone Meeting was the Holy Ghost: being worthy of the Holy Ghost and acting on the promptings that come. This was something that I had never really thought about before. Elder Golden talked about how when we are living righteously and a thought pops into our head, it is probably from the Holy Ghost! It is the second thought that you should distrust. For example, say you are waiting for the bus, minding your own business, a thought pops into your head to text a friend. The next thought that comes into your head that says "no, she is fine, I talked to her last night." The first one was from God the second one was from Satan. WOW. MIND BLOWN. I always struggle knowing what is revelation and what is my own thoughts. Elder Golden talked about how our thoughts aren't our thoughts as much as we think they are. Isn't that absolutely amazing? I'm sure that a lot more of our thoughts are from the Holy Ghost than we realize. And it all depends on our personal worthiness. If we are doing our best to keep the commandments, we should always act on our FIRST thought. That is why President Monson is so incredible, because he "Never postpones a prompting". Zone conference was amazing and I learned so much. I was also able to see 3 of my past companions! Sister Earl, Sister DeSpain, and Sister Joseph! It was wonderful.

Wow, I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a Sister Training Leader because of the wonderful sisters that I get to know and love. Both Sister Parmer and Sister Heckel were once my Sister Training Leaders and so it is humbling to think about the way the church is organized. You are called to a calling to lift, love, and bless. When they were my Sister Training Leaders I looked to them for guidance and correction, and now as their Sister Training Leader it feels natural to lift, love, and bless them. That doesn't make any sense in the world's eyes, but it makes perfect sense in the Lord's eyes. And it is also obvious that the Lord does not call the qualified, he qualifies whom he calls.

The work in our area is really interesting right now. Our teaching pool has dropped down to almost nothing. We have tried really hard to focus on finding this week and have run into an interesting problem. Something that I have never run into before on such a consistent basis. We teach someone on the street or on their porch about the Book of Mormon or the restoration and they show interest but then won't set up a return appointment. They either tell us that they will give us a call or that we can stop by any time. It is pretty incredible though because most of them are families. We will keep trying to see them. We will continue forward. Patience and humility are being learned, that is for sure. 

I am really grateful for my wonderful companion. She has a really positive attitude and she is always working hard. She truly wants to be her best self and is always looking for ways to improve. And she is SO great at giving compliments, to everyone, all the time. She is truly amazing. Although we have had some setbacks, we have seem some true miracles with less active members. We have had two less active members come out of the wood works! One of them just showed up to church and then we had a beautiful lesson with her. The other one let us into her home for the first time since I've been here in Brunswick. 

Women's conference...That was amazing! Again, there was an emphasis on making and keeping covenants. I loved that the emphasis was on the temple. We must always be looking towards the temple. If we haven't made it to the temple, we should prepare. If we have been to the temple, we must continue to be worthy and keep the covenants that we have made. We all must be obedient to the commandments of our Heavenly Father, all of which bring us closer to Him. No sacrifice is too great to go to the temple. When we are obedient, we will be able to feel and see the blessings that Heavenly Father is Waiting to pour out upon us. We must also share the light that we have with others! As we study and learn truth and add light to our life, we can share that light and help guide others to the temple. Discipleship is sweet. We can have light, power, and joy. And of course, He loves us just the way we are, imperfections and all. Oh how blessed we are!

Have a blessed day!

Sister Kasteler