ATTENTION: The Utah Ogden mission is the BEST!!!

email 28 Apr 2015

Wow. This week was full of miracles! Have I said that I love being a missionary? Because I do. I guess I'll start off with some fun stuff. So this past week we had a meeting at the mission office and there's a table there where people can take a leave things. So sometimes there's some cute clothes that are up for grabs! Well this week there was Bananagrams and Phase 10!!! SCORE! And also 2 matching t-shirts that say "batcorn" on it. It's literally an ear of corn dressed up as batman. We have no clue why. Or where they came from. But sister Betzold and I grabbed them so we can match:) haha

This past week we were in the middle of a lesson when all of sudden we hear this voice come from my bag...so I figured we accidental dialed someone's number. But then we heard "911 what is your emergency?"  WE CALLED 911!!!!! In the middle of a lesson, too!!! So we had to assure them that we were safe and we were just missionaries. It was sooo embarrassing! 

So last P-day we were going to a fun little artsy antique store called "Only in Ogden." It's downtown so the only parking space available was a parallel one and we didn't feel like dealing with that. So being lazy, we parked further away and walked to the store. Right as we were leaving the store, a HUGE accident happened between 4 cars. It was such a tender mercy that we didn't park there!!! I know Heavenly Father made us lazy in that moment to avoid the accident. They hit the parked car in the spot that we were about to park. And all the other cars parked around there couldn't leave because the accident was in the way. I know Heavenly Father was looking out for us. 

The musical fireside was this past Sunday and we had a practice in the tabernacle on Friday. We get there early and we're setting everything up when a security guy comes up to us and tells us that they accidentally double booked the tabernacle and he asked us if we could postpone our rehearsal for 4 hours. We had people coming down from Logan and all over the mission! We couldn't put it off that long. Especially since that's a long time out of our area. All of us were freaking out and didn't know what to do. So of course, when in doubt, say a prayer. We all knelt down and told Heavenly Father our concerns. Not 2 minutes after the prayer, the security man came back to let us know that he got a call from the other people that they needed to postpone their stuff till later that afternoon. DIRECT ANSWER TO OUR PRAYER. Heavenly Father knew that our rehearsal needed to happen. He wanted our musical fireside to go well. He needed it to touch people's lives. 

This last Sunday was the best!!! We spoke in a ward along with a girl's farewell talk. Our topic was courage and specifically the scripture Moses 6:31-32. Which is the scripture that helped me decide to come on a mission. That scripture is dear to my heart. I remember at the beginning of my mission, whenever I would get a prompting to do or say something, I would pray that sister Hadden would receive the same prompting so that I didn't have to do it. Hahaha How bad is that?!?! But then I studied that scripture and realized that the commandment wasn't to sit and watch. It was to open your mouth. Act. Take that leap of faith. Have the courage to do My will. C.S. Lewis said, "Courage is every virtue at its testing point." It takes courage to live the gospel. It takes courage to make it through the test of every virtue. But just as God promised Enoch, "Go forth and do as I have commanded thee, and no man shall pierce thee." 

Sorry this is a long letter, but last thing! THE MUSICAL FIRESIDE!!! We did the musical fireside in the Ogden tabernacle on Sunday. It holds 1600 people and there were 2500 people there!!!!!!!! They said it was the most filled in the history of the Ogden tabernacle!!!! Can you imagine?!?!?! They filled all the overflow rooms, cry rooms, and offices!!! Miracles happened. Sister Betzold was super sick. She couldn't even talk. Then she received a blessing from an Elder and she had her voice completely back for the entire fireside, and right after, it left again. I know people needed to hear her song. Heavenly Father put this fireside together. 100%. The group in charge of it has been so prayerful about everything they did and I have no doubt that it was exactly what Heavenly Father wanted. It was so spiritual and such an amazing experience to be a part of it. So many miracles have happened for us to be able to pull it off. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father is aware of all of his children. He's aware of the ones performing and he's aware of the ones that need questions answered through our music. 

Here is a link to the fireside audio segments on Sound Cloud. It includes many 28 short segments of beautiful musical performances intermixed with brief presentations of the Savior's birth, life, atonement, and how He continues to guide his Church today. 

Sister Sarlls sings a duet with Sister Smith called "Blessed Redeemer" (Sniff & Snarls together again, haha) 

https://soundcloud.com/utah-ogden-mission/sets/ogden-musical-fireside-april

I love the gospel so much!!!

Love, 
Sister Sarlls