Kendrick, Jessica

Im honestly grateful for this week, I recognized places where I really wanted to better and I'm really excited to work on them. I'm glad that life constantly gives us opportunities to improve, so that I'm not a flat character.  But honestly, that was bound to happen since Elder Schmutz of the Seventy came to our mission and taught us. I was pretty lucky to have the opportunity to hear from him 3 different times. Revelation is real, and is so key to the Church of Jesus Christ. We, ourselves, need to recieve revelation for our own lives/families to maneuver the new trials of life. Its something we have to rely on. But that's not it, we also need it for the Church's progress. The restoration is still in progress, just like our own conversion, and our prophet and leaders are constantly receiving revelation to guide and direct us to Christ. For example, think of Joseph Smith and all of the knowledge he restored. That's a lot. Now think of our current prophet, he is s...

I don't really know what to tell you about my studies from this week. But there are a couple of general ideas that I really liked. I'm studying about how faith guides us to repent, and it's really cool how simple yet true that is. When our faith is true, and its in Jesus Christ and his atonement, the next logical step is to repent. There was a phrase I read that I really liked: The Purpose of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to turn common creatures into celestial beings. The only way we can do that is through repentance, which is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  I was also reading through a talk and thr phrase that stood out to me the most was: Where the spirit can easily dwell. I think that's kinda a guide for life, for places, friends, jobs, activities, etc. If the spirit can't follow you into that situation, why go? This week was a week to enjoy the simple things. Some things that just filled my day with joy were: chatting with Hermana Bradshaw about random ...

Once again, my studies were all over the place this week... but I really liked talk from is past conference: "Sir, we would like to see Jesus." I loved how well this talk explained that it's so easy to get caught up in not being able to do something. I thought of the phrase "you always want what you can't have." But if what you can't have is something that would hurt you or not make you feel good or happy, why would you want it? There are so many things today that tell us that rules are just rules and that they are frustrating, especially "extra rules".  This week we were teaching a recent convert about the word of wisdom, and we started to talk about just how much of a blessing the commandments are and these "extra rules" are. I know that I don't feel happy when I'm hurt or I don't feel good, so what if I could predetermine what would damage my body or my spirit. We can, since God loves us he gave us the blessing of havin...

This week I studied a lot... and the thing I feel like sharing is about Joseph Smith. I was reading about him and I thought "how did he prepare himself between the 4 years to be worthy to recieve the gold plates?" Well, I asked a missionary who just came from one of the church history sites and here is what I learned.  Overall we don't know much about what he did but we know he worked hard, and that he learned a lot. Every year he went to the Hill Cumorah to meet with the angel Moroni "and received instruction and intelligence from him at each of our interviews, respecting what the Lord was going to do, and how and in what manner his kingdom was to be conducted in the last days" (JSH 1:54). When I was talking with the other missionary she used the word coaching. Moroni was coaching Joseph to prepare him. We all need coaching, we all need to gain knowledge.  It's not terribly profound, but I really liked that Moroni was explaining the past to him to prepare h...

Hey! This week I studied the 3rd article of faith! And it honestly turned Into studying about the connection between baptism and the atonement. I don't really know how to explain my thoughts on it, but while I was studying the come follow me for this week I found this phrase: "Christ is the only rightful heir, therefore we must become adopted through the atonement." When we are baptized, we are reborn as children of Christ, children of the Covenant. Without the Atonement, baptism would just be taking a dip in a pool. But because of the Atonement we are able to fully repent and become one with Christ, and become "joint-heirs" with him. Baptism is pretty important. Without it, without Christ, we would never be able to live with our Heavenly Father again.  Also... I read a talk titled "it's true isn't it? Then what else matters?" and I reccomend reading it. There are a lot of things that matter in the world, but when we think of Our Goal (singular...