This week was filled with so many tender mercies. I truly love the work here. This week I focused my personal study on the temples in preparation to go to the Temple. So, on Wednesday we got to go to the temple as a zone. It was so amazing and so beautiful. I love the temple. So, we tried to emphasize the temple when we taught this week. It was amazing to see how excited some of the families got when they realized that they could be an eternal family and to see them make this goal to be sealed.

This week I witnessed an amazing miracle. It has been very interesting to see that as we try harder to be exactly obedient and rededicate all to the Lord, that he often tries our faith even more. One day this week we had almost every single cita fall through. We had not been able to contact anyone that was really positive and we had an hour or so left in the day. We felt impressed to visit with an inactive sister in the ward. This sister is such a rollercoaster. The last time we had visited with her she told us she did not want anything to do with the church and refused to even look at the Book of Mormon. But Hermana Judd felt like we really should go so we headed over and she let us in. We sat down, talked a little and sang a hymn. We were going to say the opening prayer when she suddenly opened up to us about her life. She got very quiet, looked at us and said, “I am not a good person. I have lost my way and rejected my Savior. It is time for me to change. I want to forgive the people that hurt me and to be a better person, to be a better example for my sons.” I think my jaw might have dropped. This woman had rejected us and anything associated with the church and here she was asking for forgiveness. Hermana Judd looked at her and invited her to pray right then and confess to her Heavenly Father, asking for his help to overcome these things. She bowed her head and said the most humble, heartfelt, forgiving prayer that I have ever heard in my life. It was a sacred experience. When she finished she looked up at us with tears in her eyes and said, “I know that this church is true. I know the Book of Mormon is true… I know my Savior lives.” It was a miracle. We are still working with her but this was huge progress.

I am so grateful for the atonement. I am grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary because I have learned so much about the enabling power of the atonement. I heard a story this week at zone conference. Hermana Judd told me about an 80 year old convert. She joined the church and after some time she received her patriarchal blessing. In her blessing, it said that she could have been converted to the gospel much sooner in her live had it not been for one young man who decided not to serve a mission. This hit me so hard… The time the Lord has given us to serve really is so sacred. I hope to use it to the best that I can. I love you all. Thank you for your support!

Hurrah for Israel

Hermana Hipol