Hope

A really cool girl in the zone baptized for the first time in her mission! it was a really cool baptism. She has 6ish months in her mission. We had been working with her and her companion. It was a good experience. 

I learned something about hope this week. Hope is like the never-fail word. You can hope in things that aren't necessarily true. For example-- I hope the ice cream man will come down the street. But you can't usually say I have faith that the ice cream man will come down the street. 

To misplace your faith is something that can hurt, because if that ice cream truck doesn't come down the street, you've just put all your faith into that and now you're crushed. God says to not put your trust in the arm of the flesh. That's why you hope. For example : I hope an investigator will be in church, and I have faith that God will touch his heart and give him the desire to go (especially when we pray for that). 

On the other side, if we pray and ask God for a specific blessing and feel like it will come to pass we can have faith in that, it´s just usually we don't get confirmations to things like that if we're affecting someone else's agency. 

You can hope and hope and hope as much as you want. When you don't have the strength to have faith you can hope. The righteous can hope for a better day (Ether 12:4). So even when nothing goes right, you can hope it will get better, and God promises you it will. That was this week for me.

Hermana Merrill

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!