Hey guys!
Sister A here! Okay first off.. no one out here can say my last name.. like NO one. I never realized my name was hard to say till I got out here.. People just call me Sister A or just Sister...
Last week was beautiful and sunny in Madison Wisconsin and this week it's a frozen tundra, it is raining cats and dogs. and a freezing kind of rain that chills you to the bone. Me and Sister bean went running this morning and it just started to pour! but on the brightside... rain means rainbows :)
We had Stake Conference this last weekend and that was so awesome! Elder Carlson of the Seventy talked and a bunch of other wonderful people.
Elder Carlson said that "the mere fact that we are here on Earth is because we had faith and chose to follow our Heavenly Father's Plan of Happiness. We left Heaven only because we knew we could and would make it back. We walked out that door, knowing we'd walk back in"
I loved that. I know that is true.
I loved that. I know that is true.
I read something about life and judgement the other day that hit me really hard, it said that "Judgement day will not be a day in which Heavenly Father gets out a list of all of the good and bad things we did in life. Rather it will be a time in which we look at what those decisions we made helped us become. It is not what we did, but rather who we have become"
I hope my Heavenly Father is proud of who I am becoming.
I love you guys and I love this work.
We are going to ask Nate to commit to be baptized this week.. Keep him in your prayers :)
Love you guys!!
We are going to ask Nate to commit to be baptized this week.. Keep him in your prayers :)
Love you guys!!
-$ister Askerlund
okay guys... take the time to read this little piece of a talk I read this last week. IT CHANGED my outlook on everything!
"God uses another form of chastening or correction to guide us to a future we do not or cannot now envision but which He knows is thebetter way for us. President Hugh B. Brown, formerly a member of the Twelve and a counselor in the First Presidency, provided a personalexperience. He told of purchasing a rundown farm in Canada many years ago. As he went about cleaning up and repairing his property, hecame across a currant bush that had grown over six feet (1.8 m) high and was yielding no berries, so he pruned it back drastically, leavingonly small stumps. Then he saw a drop like a tear on the top of each of these little stumps, as if the currant bush were crying, and thoughthe heard it say:“How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. … And now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will lookdown on me. … How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”
President Brown replied, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruittree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say,‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down.’”
Years later, President Brown was a field officer in the Canadian Army serving in England. When a superior officer became a battle casualty,President Brown was in line to be promoted to general, and he was summoned to London. But even though he was fully qualified for thepromotion, it was denied him because he was a Mormon. The commanding general said in essence, “You deserve the appointment, but Icannot give it to you.” What President Brown had spent 10 years hoping, praying, and preparing for slipped through his fingers in thatmoment because of blatant discrimination. Continuing his story, President Brown remembered:
“I got on the train and started back … with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. … When I got to my tent, … I threw my cap on thecot. I clenched my fists, and I shook them at heaven. I said, ‘How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do tomeasure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?’ I was asbitter as gall.
“And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, ‘I am the gardener here. I knowwhat I want you to do.’ The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness. …
President Brown replied, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruittree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say,‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down.’”
Years later, President Brown was a field officer in the Canadian Army serving in England. When a superior officer became a battle casualty,President Brown was in line to be promoted to general, and he was summoned to London. But even though he was fully qualified for thepromotion, it was denied him because he was a Mormon. The commanding general said in essence, “You deserve the appointment, but Icannot give it to you.” What President Brown had spent 10 years hoping, praying, and preparing for slipped through his fingers in thatmoment because of blatant discrimination. Continuing his story, President Brown remembered:
“I got on the train and started back … with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. … When I got to my tent, … I threw my cap on thecot. I clenched my fists, and I shook them at heaven. I said, ‘How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do tomeasure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?’ I was asbitter as gall.
“And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, ‘I am the gardener here. I knowwhat I want you to do.’ The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness. …
“… And now, almost 50 years later, I look up to [God] and say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurtme.’”5
God knew what Hugh B. Brown was to become and what was needed for that to happen, and He redirected his course to prepare him for theholy apostleship."
The first picture is me Sister Bean and our Investigator Nate, (the one who tried to hug me) he is HILARIOUS!
the next picture is Aven Lee, he is my favorite member of the Madison 4th Ward
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