Heyo.

Good things that happened this week:

1. A  family that lives down the street called us and asked us to help them plant their flower garden which we very happily did.

2. We were headed to a dinner appointment and saw an lady raking in her yard and she let us finish the job for her! 

3. We got a referral for a member who recently moved here from Macon and was baptized 6 years ago but was never taught the new-member lessons. So she hasn't been to church in a while but we knocked on her door and she was so excited to see us. Has 5 little kids that will be a huge blessing to Pooler's tiny primary. And we're gonna teach her and her children! Yay!

4. Sister Rowland hit her one-year mark on the mission! Party!

5. The ward had a cookie dough fundraiser and I guess a lot of members were felling generous so we went home with 5 tubs of cookie dough. Frozen. Will bless missionaries for generations to come.

6. I read about Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon - such an awesome story! I love Alma's description of his repentane process :

"28 Nevertheless, after wading through much tribulation, repenting nigh unto death, the Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an everlasting burning, and I am born of God.

29 My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more."

Bruce R. McConkie taught the following about the doctrine of being born again:

"We are born again as we die as pertaining to unrighteousness and when we live as pertaining to the things of the Spirit. But that doesn't happen in an instant, suddenly. That...is a process. Being born again is a gradual thing, except in a few isolated instances that are so miraculous that they get written up in the scriptures. As far as the generality of the members of the Church are concerned, we are born again by degrees, and we are born again to added light and added knowledge and added desires for righteousness as we keep the commandments. As members of the Church, if we chart a course leading to eternal life; if we begin the processes of spiritual rebirth, and are going in the right direction; if we chart a course of sanctifying our souls, and degree by degree are going in that direction; and if we chart a course of becoming perfect, and, step by step and phase by phase, are perfecting our souls by overcoming the world, then it is absolutely guaranteed-- there is no question whatever about it-- we shall gain eternal life. Even though we have spiritual rebirth ahead of us, perfection ahead of us, if we chart a course and follow it to the best of our ability in this life, then when we go out of this life we'll continue in exactly that same course."

Let us chart a course of righteousness and discipleship, and let us fill our lives with the small and simple things that will make us new and clean when done consistently and with pure intent. 

I know that Jesus Christ lives and that true happiness - not a fleeting, temporary pleasure - is possible only by following Him and obeying the laws of God. I am thankful for the commandments and that they pave the way for us to live with God again. 

Make it a happy week!

-Sister Gore