Hi!

March 2, 2020

Hey everyone!!

Yet another crazy week in the YSA! We had an emergency transfer on Monday, so I have a new companion (6 companions in 6 months woohoo)! Her names Sister Bainbridge and she's from Las Vegas. She's super super awesome and we get along really well (:
We had tons of fun activities this week like soccer, volleyball, a scavenger hunt, and institute (scripture study class). It’s honestly just the best. Also, I *almost* made a half-court shot and saved two goals and wrecked the other team in volleyball so I'd say pretty successful 😊 
This week in institute we talked about the Book of Jacob in the Book of Mormon. We focused a lot on Jacob 5, and for those of you who know the Book of Mormon, you know that it's a super long chapter about a guy and his olive trees and how he keeps trying to get them to bear fruit. In reality, it's an allegory for the scattering and gathering of Israel and is about like the 7 seals and stuff in Revelation which was all really cool, BUT we didn't really focus on that. In Jacob 4 it says, “Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall”. Which is telling us that as we read Jacob 5 we need to focus on the “mark” and not ignore the plainness of it. What we should be focusing on in this story as well as in everything that we do, read, and think about is the atonement of Jesus Christ. Through the atonement of Jesus Christ, we can be made into the best version of ourselves. Jacob 5 says: “I will prune it, and dig about it, and nourish it, that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, and it perish not.” Everything God does is to help us grow and flourish. Sometimes it hurts because it's like he’s cutting our branches off or digging up our roots or putting fertilizer in our mouths, but it's all because he loves us and sees us for who we truly are and have the potential to become. He came to this earth from his divine throne to suffer literally every pain and sadness and insecurity and anxiety that we all individually feel. His arm will continually reach out to us even if we push it away. I know that Jesus Christ lives. He is my Savior, redeemer, and friend :)

Have an awesome week!
Hermana Coleman