The gospel makes everyone better!

Dear Everyone:

The Topsham ward had the annual Pioneer Day breakfast on Saturday, and since the members who gave us a ride to the church had to be there early, Sister Keigley and I were early as well.

So we got recruited to flip pancakes. 12 boxes of pancake mix later, we had enough flapjacks to feed a small army. It was great!

We also had Zone Conference this week. My last one ever. It was sooo good. We spent the first hour going through 2 Nephi chapter 31 verse by verse.

If you haven't read that chapter recently, go read it. It's amazing! This chapter pretty much contains all you really need to know in order to gain eternal salvation. Everything else we learn in the gospel just builds upon the knowledge found in this chapter!

I especially like verse 20: Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.

Seriously you guys. Is there any better promise or reward than that? And really, it's easy. The gospel is simple. It's the world that makes it sound complicated.

I love this bible video, Go and Sin No More, about the woman taken in adultery. I think it really shows the difference between the gospel and the world - aka Satan. The world is always out to get people, to keep them beneath their true potential, to keep them doing things that won't really bring them true happiness. The gospel - aka Christ - is about helping us to become better than we are. To help us find and keep true happiness, that lasts not only in this life, but for forever! There's a quote by President David O. McKay that I think I've shared before, but I'm sharing it again: "The purpose of the gospel is to make bad men good and good men better."

I love it. The gospel, the Atonement, applies to all of us. No matter who we are! It can help us all!

I don't have a ton of time today, because we're leaving to go to Yarmouth in a few minutes, for district P-Day. We were supposed to go to the beach, but it's pouring rain, so who know what we'll do. But it'll be fun.

Love you all! Go out and become better!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

CS Lewis would have made a great general authority.

Dear Everyone:

Here in the New Hampshire Manchester mission, we have a scripture memorization program. Everyday we work to try and memorize a new scripture/quote. President Stoker, my mission president, will spend days selecting scriptures and quotes to go on the list, and we memorize a specific verse everyday.

Unfortunately, I'm terrible at memorization.

However, there was one quote from this week that I remember. Mostly because I like it a lot. It was a quote from CS Lewis - "We are what we believe we are."

I know I talked all about change last week, but this week it's hope. And faith. And charity.

Because those are the big three. If you've got those three things, you're golden. You've got it all. Best starting lineup ever.

However, if you're anything like me, it's frustrating. Because just saying you need to develop faith, hope, and charity is kind of vague. Faith in what? Hope for what?

Here's the answer:

Faith in Christ, hope in yourself, and charity for others. That's it.

Now how does this relate to my CS Lewis quote? 

Mostly because of hope and charity. Faith is the basis for everything, so I'm just going to assume everyone reading this has faith in Christ. (If you don't, feel free to go here, fill out the information, and hit submit. In a couple days you'll probably get a visit by two very nice young men both named 'Elder' or two very nice young women, both named 'Sister'. They can help you.)

CS Lewis' quote perfectly fits having hoping in yourself and charity for others. And if there is anything that I've really learned on my mission, it is that not only are we what we believe we are, but others become what we think of them. Companions, friends, strangers on the street, etc.

If I think my companion is lazy and sloppy, all I'm going to notice about them is that they do more stretching than jumping jacks in the morning and that they never make their bed. I'm never going to notice how much they love others or how well they answer questions.

If I walk up to someone thinking that there's no way they would ever be interested in the gospel because they have 'REBEL' tattooed across their forehead, I wouldn't see them as Christ sees them. I would just be thinking about how painful it must be to get a tattoo on your forehead, which would make it hard to go by the Spirit, considering I wouldn't be listening to Him.

See why hope and charity are important? They affect every aspect of your life. What you do, how you interact with others, how others perceive you. It goes back to the whole 'love thy neighbor as thyself' scripture. If you don't love yourself, how can you expect to feel love for others?

So that's my message for everyone this week. Love yourself! Love others! See the good in yourself, and have hope for how much better you can be!

I guess that's how faith ties in with today's e-mail, more than just being the basis. Faith in so vital because if you have faith, you have a purpose. And you know you have all the help you need to accomplish that purpose. Because you know and love the Savior. And the more you get to know Him, the more faith you have, the more hope and charity comes naturally.

Today, I just want to close with a scripture from Moroni, the last prophet who wrote in the Book of Mormon. We've shared this scripture with a lot of people lately, and I just love it.

It's in Moroni, chapter 7, verse 48:

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified, even as he is pure. Amen.

Zone Conference is tomorrow. It'll be my last one ever. I'm stoked!

3 weeks left!

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

Redeeming the past, changing the future.

Dear Everyone:

When I got to Topsham I found a nice little quote on the back of the mirror in the bathroom.

"What you do in the present redeems the past and thereby changes the future."

I love it.

That sums up a mission pretty perfectly. How it applies to my life, the lives of those around me and those we work with. It doesn't matter what we've done previously in life. Who we WERE can be completely and totally changed by what we DO today. And that changes who we BECOME.

That's the whole purpose of the Gospel. To help us know what to choose today, to become better than we were, and to reach our full potential of what we can become.

I know I've shared this video before, but I really love it. Waiting on Our Road to Damascus totally fits this quote. Saul was a terrible person. He was imprisoning and killing Christians mercilessly. Yet, because of one miraculous experience, he changed. And because of that change, he changed his future - he became Paul and eventually became the kind of man who gave one of the greatest teachings on charity ever!

Alma the Younger was the same. He was also a terrible, terrible person, and he eventually became one of the greatest prophets in the Book of Mormon! He taught on faith, the Plan of Salvation, and so many other amazing things!

Both these examples are kind of unique, because they had pretty extreme moments of change. But guess what.

You can too. And you can make it happen.

All it takes is 20 seconds of extreme courage everyday to change the world. Serious. Try it.

And it's even easier when it's YOUR world you're trying to change.

The Gospel brings happiness. I see it all day, everyday. It really works!

We just have to let it.

It's scary. It's hard.

IT'S WORTH IT.

The world today is all about 'bigger and better'. So why not go for the BEST - eternal salvation?

That's my spill for the week. Nothing too exciting has been happening here. Sister Keigley has a few health problems that keep us from going out sometimes, so we've been struggling finding new people to teach. It's mostly due to a lack of effort on our part though, so hopefully we'll be able to figure out a way to do more.

Life is going good.

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg

I like to ride my bicycle, I like to ride my bike.

Dear Everyone:

 

So I've been transferred to Topsham, Maine. It's about an hour north of Saco.

And my companion is Sister Keigley - the same Sister Keigley who was my companion in the MTC!

Anyone who says God doesn't have a sense of humor hasn't served a mission.

Anyway, in this area we are in a car share with the Elders. Which means that we get the car Monday thru Thursday, and they get the car Friday thru Sunday. So, on the weekends, we get their bikes.

I was told by a loving older sister of mine that I wouldn't be a real missionary until I had ridden a bike on my mission.

I'M FINALLY A REAL MISSIONARY!

Although, if I had a choice, I would have gotten my own bike. Elder's bikes aren't always in the best shape. Mine is a little too big for me, so my feel barely reach the pedals when they're all the way down, and the brakes on Sister Keigley's bike are a little less effective than is normally desired. So it makes for some adventures. Not to mention that it poured all weekend. Which made riding bikes even more fun. Seriously though - it's a blast. Tricky in a skirt though.

Other than that, things are very slow. We only have one investigator - Gena. She's super awesome though, loves church, loves us. No baptismal date, but only because she wants to read all of the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants before she decides. Understandable. She's blazing through them though - I think she read 25 sections of the Doctrine and Covenants last week. Pretty cool!

Work with the ward is kind of non-existent. I don't think it's a lack of desire on their part; it's more of a lack of knowledge as to how they can help us. And Sister Keigley has only been here for 6 weeks, so she doesn't really know the ward at all.

I almost feel like I'm opening a new area. We're basically starting from scratch.

But that gives us a lot to do. So that's exciting.

That's the update for this week. Not much else to report. Life is good. We're just gonna keep on, keeping on.

 

Here's a cool Bible Video everyone should watch. It just makes me happy every time I see it.

 

Love you all!

 

Love,

Sister Lindsey Berg