Exceptional Strengths

HELLLOOOOOOOO EVERYONE

How's it going??? It has been another wonderful week!!! We have seen the hand of the Lord so much this week, miracles truly do happen every day (look up the definition for "Miracles" in the Bible Dictionary, its inspiring).

We are going to the temple this Thursday (YESSSSS SO EXCITED) so our pday is a little shortened today. I am so excited to go to the temple, it's been too long!

What even happened this week? I'm having a hard time remembering.........

Fun fact about Sister Blalock: she likes to rap and make up raps.

Well, we found two new GOLDEN investigators this week! They are AMAZING. One of them is named Debra. She was a church headquarters media referral, and we did family history with her this past Thursday! Right afterwards, we gave her a church tour and she looooved it. We invited her to come worship with us on Sunday and she said she would love to!!! Buuuut then she got really sick and was not able to come to church. Huge bummer. But! It's okay! She wants to be baptized, and she is so open and receptive so it's awesome. We love her so much already.

We also had a lesson with a former investigator named Kelley and she is so cool!!! She breeds dalmations, so whenever we go over to her house, we get a delightful overdose of PUPPIES. They are so cute. But yes, Kelley is great, she has four sons and has been looking for a church to take them to that can answer their questions. Also she wants to be baptized! Love her so much. We took one of our members, Sister Merrill, to the lesson with us and her and Kelley got along so well. What a dream. Awesome fellowshipper for an awesome investigator.

I feel like this email isn't too exciting yet and I'm trying to think of things to amp it up a bit but I can't think of anything.

OH YEAH

This past Thursday I went to MLC (Missionary Leadership Council) and it was sooooo goooooood. So much revelation! Also the Dixons. Nothing I ever say will be sufficient to describe how AMAZING the Dixons are. It's just always so good to learn from them and they are so Christlike and have so many admirable qualities. President Dixon taught us something enlightening at MLC: he said that a lot of times as humans, we will only focus on improving our weaknesses. Which is not a bad thing! But he said something that changed the way I look at the world and myself: "Find out what you're really good at, and then turn that strength into an EXCEPTIONAL strength." When you think of memorable or influential people, they all had an exceptional strength that sort of defined who they were.

Here are some examples of people with exceptional strengths:

-Moroni: a passionate and motivating leader

-Nephi: obedient and steadfast

-Mother Theresa: exceptionally kind to everyone

-Sister Dixon: EXCITED about the gospel and life in general

-Kardashians: good at being famous? (sadly they were the first celebrities I thought of)

-Me:

Haha kidding about the last one, Im sure I have exceptional strengths, I just haven't taken the time to figure out what they are yet.

But! I just love this idea, working on making your strengths STRONGER. We all have strengths, and these are God-given. How fun would it be to be better at something that we are already good at?! Are we all on board with this concept?? Woo!!! Of course, we should work on correcting any fatal flaws, and this doesn't mean that we shouldn't work on our weaknesses. ➡️Moroni still had weaknesses, for example, he had anger issues. But if Moroni wasn't able to lead the Nephite army because he was away for a while chillin in anger management, then we wouldn't have that exemplary leader in the Book of Mormon that we know and love.

Anyway, having an exceptional strength sounds awesome to me, and God didn't give us strengths for them to just sit there while we struggle with everything we are bad at. He wants us to strengthen our strengths too! We have them for a reason, and that reason is to change the world, and change other people's worlds in a way that no one else could. I invite you all to identify something that you are really good at and work on turning it into an exceptional strength this week! I know you will feel joy in using and cultivating the gifts that God has given you!

Let me know when you email me (key word: WHEN) what strengths you have and how it goes turning them into exceptional strengths. I'm excited to hear about it!!!

I hope you all have a GREAT week!!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

Sister Carina Brown

California Redlands Mission

Discover.mormon.org