Sister Alissa Van Valkenburg Mission Blog: April 18,2017 Email :D

Today is the 3 month mark of my serving the Lord as a full time Missionary! Wow! Time certainly flies! I have been told that the first 3 months of your mission are the slowest/longest....I certainly hope that isn't true because time has FLOWN by! :O

Did everyone have a good Easter?! I did! We went around sharing the video I believe I sent last week, the Prince of Peace, with people on doorsteps and had some amazing experiences with people who would watch it with us! We even got a new investigator from it! :D I absolutely love bearing testimony on every doorstep that I know my Savior lives and that He loves each and every one of us individually and perfectly! WOW!! :D

We were able to do some fun service for people for Easter! We "egged" someone's garage (Like a heart attack, but egg shaped paper) randomly! I had a feeling to cut out some papers shaped like eggs and pack some tape, and when we were in the area of a member's family we felt like we should egg them! It was so fun!

There is a lady in our ward that we had a really interesting experience with this week. She has told us in the past that she has been having a hard time with her landlord. She lives in a basement.They have been to court 3 times! He takes control of her lighting and turns the lights off on her throughout the day...which would just get annoying on top of the fact that it's illegal! He also has put threatening notes on her door, texted them (her daughter lives with her) saying they are being evicted the next day, and overall just been terribly rude! Also, this lady is in her 80s...so there's that too! Anyway. We felt prompted to share a message with her about the comfort and peace that the Savior brings and we wrote down a whole list of scriptures! When we were having our lesson with her, the power went completely out! Her landlord had taken the hydro meter off the side of the house! (illegal) Apparently, this was the second time that day! She had had it replaced earlier in the day. The police were called, along with they hydro company, and we stayed with her trying to help in any way she could. We could hear the landlord walking around upstairs and it was so creepy! We were so scared! But luckily he didn't come down! The lady in our ward has everything "booby trapped" anyway with paperclips leaned against doors and baby powder and books on the stairs that lead up to his portion of the house! XD Since that day, he has blasted music when he isn't home all through the night, cut her wifi and power, and tested all the security system alarms at 5 in the morning! We are trying to get this poor sister out of that house as soon as possible! Anyway. Now that I have laid all that story down, you will understand a little better what it meant to me when she called us yesterday morning in tears. She had woken up early in the morning, because of her landlord's noise, and sat down to read her scriptures. She pulled out the card we gave her with the scriptures and read the first one: 1 Nephi 1:20

20 And when the Jews heard these things they were angry with him; yea, even as with the prophets of old, whom they had cast out, and stoned, and slain; and they also sought his life, that they might take it away. But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance. It was just what she needed that morning. She bore testimony to us that as she exercises her faith, Heavenly Father will protect her and deliver her from this hard trial! I know that that is true for whatever we are going through!
I love you all! Have an amazing week!

Oh! Something fun we did for this sweet lady...she has been so stressed that she forgot about Easter! SO we brought Easter to her! We bought her some bunny ears and eggs and filled the eggs with chocolate! We put them around her little side yard area with an easy Easter egg hunt and cute note! She absolutely loved it! So cute! I absolutely love serving people and Easter and the knowledge that I have that the Gospel is true! I was able to give a talk in church on Easter Sunday about the Godhead and would love to close my email today with the words of Elder Dallin H Oaks in his talk this April General Conference that I was able to use in my talk!
I testify that we have a Heavenly Father, who loves us. I testify that we have a Holy Ghost, who guides us. And I testify of Jesus Christ, our Savior,
who makes it all possible, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Love,
Sister Van Valkenburg