Now is the Perfect Time!

Sister Bustillos and I tracted in the rain again, met up with a few more people who might be potentially open to lessons, and enjoyed an amazing zone conference. I also had the opportunity to finish the Book of Mormon and try out Moroni's promise: to ask God with real intent if the book was true. I prayed and felt a simple, warm feeling, one that I already felt throughout reading.

And I started it over the next day! In Zone Conference we talked about the Doctrine of Christ, the principles of Faith, Repentance, Baptism/Covenants, the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End as a way of life. It's a continuous circle, and with Christ at the center we continually become better than we ever could have been without him. I decided this time reading the Book of Mormon, I'm going to focus on these principles. So far, so great!

Another thing I learned about this week was the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is when you feel sorry about what you've done. But the word shame derives from the idea of "covering oneself," to want to hide away something you've done to avoid disgrace. We use them interchangeably at times in English, but they both come from very separate sources. Guilt could also be termed "godly sorrow," a feeling that often motivates you to fix what you have done wrong. Shame encourages you to hide it up away forevermore.

To put it simply: Guilt is a tool of the Lord. Shame is a tool of the devil.

We were teaching a young man and his girlfriend, who had a baby together very recently. The young man was LDS, but he told us plainly he couldn't come to church right now. He said he'd taken a step away from those beliefs and now was not a good time. I felt, as he said those words, the exact opposite. Now is always the perfect time! Every moment is the perfect time to reconcile yourself with God, with your guilt, and find peace and happiness. We were able to teach him and his girlfriend the first lesson, and I could see something small spark in both of their eyes. I firmly believe it was hope, for that peace and happiness in their own lives and for their barely-born daughter. I know that is what the gospel brings, and its available to each one of us, no matter what we think we've done that would discount us from those blessings.

I love you all so much! I hope you all got the chance to read a chapter from the Book of Mormon as I challenged last week. If not, its on lds.org! Now is always the perfect time!

Sister Fluegel 

Picture Time!!: Sister Bustillos and I were born about two weeks apart, so the Monday in between was our "Birthday P-Day" and we proceeded to behave like children. We went to the St. Louis City Museum (Family, we're going there, it's happening) and climbed around, then we went to "Fitz's" and had rootbeer floats for dinner. We didn't take a picture of this, but some windows in the parking lot where we parked got busted in!! "Welcome to St. Louis," haha. 

We also posed in random places, met a friendly lizard that I forced myself to pet for two seconds, and saw Illinois! "I can see my house from here!"  

​