God's continuing work in me

Hi family,

I have about 10 minutes left with email because I had to email some people personal/individual ones, but I'm going to try to sum up my week in that time! :)

SOO this week has been a rollercoaster. Busy as always, but so wonderful. On Tuesday we had another apostle come to speak with us. Elder Richard G. Scott. His talk was AMAZING! He promised us so many blessings using the authority he has as an apostle. Especially he blessed the sisters with a protective shield that we may be aware of danger and be protected from it. It was very powerful! I gained a stronger testimony as to why I'm here on my mission. I know that I love to serve people, and that's partially why I came, but what I grew most in this week is the knowledge that I can bring people the same happiness and eternal salvation that I received from the elders who taught me. I want that for everyone I love in my life. I know taht everyone lives different lifestyles, but I know how important it is, and I simply just want to live with my family forever. I know taht the way to do this is through this church and everything that I am teaching. I love this church and this gospel so much I know that the sacrafices I'm making will be so worth it!

Also this week, we did a lot of teaching fake investigators. I never knew that I could feel such love for someone that I never knew before, but I know that during our teaching lessons, I felt God's love for them so strong, even though it wasn't completely a real lesson and they weren't real investigators. I am grateful for this love i feel because it makes it that much easier to help them and want to bring them this gospel. I love the work I am doing and I know I am being blessed for it! I know that as I work hard and continue in the work, that you as my family will also receive the blessings of my work! :)

I am feeling so much better from my cold! I know that the priesthood blessing I was given worked and I have felt so much better from it!

Half of our district left for spokane washington on Monday this week. :/ it was so sad to see them leave because chances are I'll never see them again :( We've all grown so close, but I know that we're going on to bigger and better things, which makes leaving a little easier. I have pictures of my disrict that I will send you.

Well Hi family ! :)

Here I am with my companion writing emails in Salt Lake City! I got here yesterday and we had orientation. First we went to temple square, which was just as gorgeous as ever! Next we met our new companions (the girl I am with as a missionary), then we went out and tried to talk to people on the street. It was fun! :) So things here are a bit different, in my area, I not only have 1 ward to be a missionary in (like most missions in the east) but I have 22 wards! :) SOO many! haha It'll be a lot to keep organized and remember, but I think it'll come with time. I'm excited to keep meeting people and working hard! :) We taught the first half of the plan of salvation to a 12 year old boy named Steven last night. His dad was given custody over him after his mom got messed up with drugs or something of that sort. It's sad, but it's cool that he's so willing to take the lessons and hear what we have to say. He's quiet, but a way nice kid! :) The Plan of salvation is the plan that God has for us as a whole. It talks about where we come from before this life and how we lived with God in Heaven before as spirits until we came onto the earth to receive a body and gain experience here. It talks about our purpose for why we are here on the earth and where we go after this life. It's a fun lesson to teach. There's a lot of information to get through, that's why we only did half the lesson. It's something that I know to be true. I know through prayer and receiving an answer from the Holy Ghost. I know that I am blessed to know that as a family, if we are all obedient to God's commandments, we can be together as a family forever. I'm grateful for the knowledge of this truth because it means I'll get to see my mom again and live with her. I know that has blessed my life and brought me much happiness to know this.

We stay busy, but it's fun! I love what I'm doing and I'm excited to get to talk with more people! It's so funny because everyone is so willing to take care of us here! We pretty much get to go to a member of the church's house every night for dinner! :) If I come home 100 lbs heavier, you'll know why! lol jk I'm trying to be good about eating well and good sized portions.

I'm excited to be here and talking to people about what I love. My companion is wonderful. She's from Williamsburg, Virginia. She's way nice! I'll try to send some pics soon! :) So since I wrote just tuesday, I don't have a whole lot to talk about, but just know that I've arrived in Salt Lake City safely and that I'm happy here and having a blast! There's a blog that the Mission President's wife, Sister Winn, keeps and she posts all the pictures she takes of us missionaries and posts updates on what we're doing on our mission as a whole.I haven't been on the site, but you can go on it, if you'd like to see pictures or just read an update. The site ismamawinnsplace@blogspot.com. The Mission President here and his wife are SOOO nice! :) Sister Winn is soo funny! :) She's the blondest most bubbly woman I've met! She's wonderful and comforting!: ) It was so nice to meet her :) President Winn is very friendly and kind. I'm grateful. OHH so guess what?! The area I'm in right now, is the area that my mission president lives and guess who lives there as well? PRESIDENT THOMAS S. MONSON!!!!! This is the Prophet that we have on the earth today! It's so incredible! My companion said that he was in church with her on this past Sunday! :) He is such a kind man, he loves to tell stories and he is just so filled with love! :) If you want, look up some talks that he's given just as an example. One video that I love is one that's called something like a lesson I learned as a boy or something. you can look it up on youtube. or if you go to lds.orgyou can click on a link that says mormon messages. It's part of youtube and you can watch videos that are soooo inspiring! :) I looove watching them, they're great to watch even if you aren't a member of the church!

Well not a whole lot else to report on. My next preperation day where I get to email and such is on Wednesday so 6 days from now! I love you all and hope to hear from you soon! Here's my address in case you don't have it:

Sister Jamie Long

Utah Salt Lake City Mission

3487 South 1300 East (West Entrance)

Salt Lake City, UT 84106

Love you so much and Miss you tons! You're all in my thoughts and prayers! :)

Love and Blessings,

Jamie

So as an update, I've been home for a couple months now and I've just been working and visiting with friends and family. Shortly after getting home, I received my mission call that I'm going to Salt Lake City Utah! :) I leave October 9th to fly out to Utah! I'm way excited and while it's not Japan (haha Lacey) it's still going to be way fun. It'll be lots of hard work, but I know that it will be rewarding! I'm looking forward to it! I am super sad and nervous to leave my family and friends behind because I know a lot can happen in a year and a half. It will be good for me to just rely on my Heavenly Father to protect those that I love at home. I am grateful for such a loving and supportive family. They only want me to be happy and safe, and I'm grateful for that love and confidence in me to make the right decisions.

Not a whole lot has gone one while I've been home, honestly, I've just been working and visiting with people haha it's not the most exciting thing in the world, but I love being home and it's good to earn money again and see my friends, so I'm happy with it! :) At church, my calling is the assistant gospel essentials teacher. It's awesome! I love teaching and it's so great to prepare each lesson and learn so much about it from others' participation. I have been blessed from my Heavenly Father with such great callings in the church! :)

I suppose it's getting late and I should get some sleep. One thing I will not enjoy is getting up early every morning for my mission. haha well there's atleast a brief update on what I've been up to! :)

So to start off, I came back to Rexburg, ID after going home for 10 days. It was nice to be back. I could automatically feel the spirit upon returning. It was a wonderful feeling. I was so happy to see my roommates again! I had missed them so much! So I started right in with classes as I got back. I have really enjoyed my classes this semester. I am taking Juvenile Delinquency, Light and Sound, Cognition, Group Dynamics, and Book of Mormon. Life moved pretty quickly, each week seemed to pass by faster than the last. I got called to be a Sunday School teacher, which I was so excited for! A little later, I got another calling of compassionate service leader. I was so happy to accept that calling. It seemed perfect for me because I love helping, serving, and loving people. I feel so blessed this semester with such a great experience in church, in my classes, and in life in general. I've taught a few lessons so far and I've learned so much about the stories in the Old Testament. I have loved teaching these lessons to the students here. It's so rewarding! I have also loved being a compassionate service leader. I know that I have been blessed from this calling. I have absolutely loved making people who are struggling feel loved and letting them know that I am there for them. :)

So my roommate, Lacey, and I decided we wanted to try out for volleyball. We did just that and both made different teams. I had never really played on a volleyball team before, but it has been fun to learn and it's been a good workout!

So this semester I decided that I wanted to take Book of Mormon and just take it as one full semester class. So I took the Book of Mormon: Mission Prep class. I hadn't ever thought about going on a mission, and didn't even consider that I would ever go on one. The class progressed, and I was learning so much. I loved this class because I learned so many great things about the Book of Mormon. My testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon has grown substantially. I finished reading the whole Book of Mormon for the first time on May 31. It was a great experience to read the whole book in one month. So one day in class, we were listening to a talk by Elder Bednar to the missionaries in the MTC in Utah. It was so powerful and as I listened to Elder Bednar spoke, I felt the spirit so strong and had the feeling that this is something that I have a passion for: sharing the gospel with others and serving others. I knew that I had a strong testimony of the truthfulness of this church, and that I could help people who didn't have the fulness of the truth. These thoughts scared me because I had never thought of making the sacrifice of going on a mission. I knew that I should pray to my Heavenly Father because He would have the answers for me. As I went to the temple to pray, the feeling that I should go on a mission just got stronger and stronger. I got even more scared because I felt as though God was telling me that this was something that I should start to consider in my life. From that Monday on, I couldn't think about anything other than a mission. In any decision I would make, I would take into consideration, "What if I go on a mission?". I was pretty stressed out, but I knew that if this is what the Lord wanted me to do, then He would give me the strength, courage and comfort to do this. He would provide me means for me to go on a mission. I talked with my Bishop about it a couple weeks later and he told me when I asked what he thought, "Jamie, I think you already know what you want and what Heavenly Father wants you to do". I did. I knew that this is something that I would love to do, would be such a great experience, and that Heavenly Father wanted me to do. I went out with the sister missionaries a couple weeks later for part of a day, and it confirmed my decision. I started my paper work a few days later.

Since then, there has been so much opposition to me going on a mission, but I still do believe that this is something that I should be doing. My family was so understanding and supportive at first, they thought it would be a good experience for me. Now my dad says he doesn't support this mission because of various reasons. This is difficult for me because I rely a lot on the support of my family, but I am not fully relying on my Heavenly Father for support. My little sister is still supportive, but she is very sad about me leaving for a year and a half. We are best friends and I am scared to leave her, but I know that my family will be blessed for me going on a mission. I trust my Heavenly Father to take care of them while I'm away. It's hard for me to have this opposition, especially when it's my family because I love my family very much and value their opinion, but I know that the direction I'm headed is the way I'm supposed to be going. It has helped me rely on my Father in Heaven for strength and comfort during this time.

Pretty much those are the big things that are going on in my life. I am very excited about my mission. I have some mixed feelings about going home because I know if I go on my mission in the fall, I won't see my friends here for a long time, but I'm also so very excited to see my family again and my church back home. I miss everyone so very much.

Well, I'll try to be a little better about writing more consistently on my blog, but I'll wrap this up for now. Thanks for taking the time to read this whole thing! haha :)

So this week, I've been struggling with something from my past. I know all past sins are forgiven if repented for and my baptism has made me clean of all that, which I am so grateful for! Something else that has helped is a discussion I had with someone a while back about how in order for Christ to atone for our sins, he had to have full knowledge of every sin that we would commit. This is comforting in the fact that Christ knew of all my sins I have and will commit, yet he still has an unconditional love for me. Despite knowing all of this, I still struggle with this thing in my past and have a hard time forgiving myself for it. I want to just be rid of it and allow myself to be clean, but it's still very much on my mind, especially recently. I don't know what to do about it, I think I will talk to my bishop and see what he has to say. I just wish I could let it go, but maybe it's a good thing that I remember it because it's by our mistakes that we learn. I know that I am a completely different person now and have made a wonderful transformation into this blessed church, which I am so grateful for, yet I can't help but hold that person I used to be over my head and feel a sense of guilt still... Maybe time and prayer will be my healer, I guess we'll see what bishop has to say. :/

I went to the temple today and fasted, which helped a tremendous amount. I was really blessed while I was there, as I feel like I always am. It's so wonderful! I read Isaiah 58, which talked about the law of fasting. It was helpful to hear how fasting could help me lighten my burdens and be of such comfort. I am thankful for the scriptures because they are such a light in my life and provide such comfort in hard times. Just today, my friend Cameron showed me a verse, Ether 3:2-4. It's such a humble prayer and so faithful. I absolutely fell in love with it! :) I love finding new scripture verses that inspire me! :)

Another idea that was helpful that was to email 10 people that you're really close with and ask them to name 5 positive traits about you. He said that when he got each email back it was amazing how each person said almost the exact same traits. He said to then compare those traits to your Patriarchal Blessing and see how it is integrated into that. I thought that was a cool also because it may help you see if you're truly living out who you want to be and if people can see those traits in the way you act. I think that would be helpful.

On Saturday, two of my roommates, their friend Nicole, and I went to the temple and it was amazing as always. There was a story laminated there about how this girl went to the temple and had to wait 2 and a half hours. She was getting pretty impatient and then realized that the people who they were being baptized for had been waiting for much longer, some even a couple hundred years! I was touched by this and it really made it so much more personal to each person that I was baptized for. Whitney and I were talking quietly as we were waiting and she had read the story as well and she was moved by the story as well. She whispered to me that she can imagine that my mom is so happy that she doesn't have to wait any longer for her baptism and confirmation. She told me that she is sure that my mom has accepted the work that has been done for her. I sure hope so. I want so bad to see her again.

During church this Sunday there were so many great talks! In one talk, he spoke about how the opportunity was given to him to help someone learn more about the church and he knew that it would help her. I thought that was so amazing because he said that he knows that those experiences can happen to all of us if we are worthy of it and ready. I want to make sure I am prepared and worthy so that I can truly be used to help people come to know of the truth. Another girl spoke about how she sincerely appreciated the blessings in her life, even though the past month had been a nightmare for her. I was so impressed by her strength and love for God that she could see the light through the darkness so clearly.

This whole weekend has been amazing and has really helped me see that I should write down all the blessings in my life and sincerely thank our Heavenly Father for them because I know there are so many! I am so grateful for my life, family, friends, where I am, and all the wonderful things that has happened since I've joined this church! :)