Serving in Sacramento: Amazing what a little peach pie and some faith can do!

Hi family & friends:)

Okay so this week has probably been the best week of my mission so far! So I've been studying this talk, "The Fourth Missionary" by Lawrence Corbridge for the past week and I just feel like a brand new person. Ok soooo last week I started getting so discouraged that we had nobody to teach & then I started studying this talk & I realized how selfish I have been acting! I can't really explain how everything clicked for me this week, but it did! I realized the only way to truly truly be happy on your mission is if you surrender your own will. But the rest of this email might be boring for most of you! Hahah so if you want to just read some funny good stuff here it is:

So Sister Wentzel (in the Silva Valley Ward) invited us over to make peach pie this week to deliver to people we are teaching! So we went over & got to chat with her & make some delicious peach pie:) then we went & delivered it to this family we want to start teaching & they were sooo nice!! They invited us in & and the dad said he has read the whole Book of Mormon & loved it!!! So they invited us to dinner this next week:) it's amazing what a little peach pie & some faith can do;) hahaha so we will keep ya posted on that.

Okay also get this...yesterday at church Sister Kauvaka and I sat in like the gluten free section in sacrament & I guess they forgot to bring gluten free bread to church & so the bishop got up & said, "sooo we don't have any gluten free bread today, but we have gluten free chocolate chip cookies so that's what we are having for sacrament" hahahah isn't that cool??? Hahahah it was a good sacrament:)

Also I just wanna say that I love these 2 wards. I am seriously so blessed to be serving here. I am really amazed at how awesome the members are here. This week the Gladwell family invited their neighbors over to have dessert & I just love the Gladwell family so much! They are so missionary minded! And also they just remind me of my own family at home. I am so grateful for the families who help out with missionary work:)

Alright here's the rest of my email:
I went on exchanges with Sister Hickman this week & it was so much fun. Okay so when I first got transferred into this zone I was terrified of Sister Hickman! She is a go getter & knows how to get things done. I was a little nervous to go on exchanges with her, but I LOVED it! I got to go to her area (Folsom)& ride bikes:) -I actually miss riding bikes a little tiny bit hehe. Anyway she's from Tulsa Oklahoma & has been out for a little over a year. So we went to lunch & she sat me down and we had a huge conversation about the fourth missionary talk! She said it changed her whole mission. She explained that at one point in her mission she just wasn't happy, she wasn't teaching anyone & she felt like she wasn't making a difference! She said all she cares about is getting baptisms & getting good numbers & when she wasn't getting baptisms she got so angry. She said she wanted to change but didn't know how. She said she had talked to other missionaries about it and one Elder said, "you need to use the atonement and change" and she was like "I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS" & the Elder said, "you get on your knees and plead with God" and she's like, "that's it?" & he said, "you have to want it more than anything" so she said she did that & totally changed. Anyway sorry random story...but in the talk it talks about how to become a better missionary and how success isn't measured by becoming a "great missionary" because using the term "great missionary" is used to compare to other missionaries, but it's on if you want to become a SERVANT of the Lord.

Anyway, on exchanges we were riding our bikes and we were just talking to everyone we saw so we rode through a park and started talking to this guy and I thought he looked pretty familiar and we asked if he had talked with missionaries before and he said he had 2 months ago in Carmichael!!! I knew I had talked with him before! But he said he would come to church on Sunday & he gave us his number & we passed him off to the elders that live in Folsom!! That was super cool because what are the odds I would ever see that guy again, and I was on exchanges only for 24 hours & I just happened to run into him & his kids?!! There's no such thing as coincidences:) the rest of the exchange went really well & I just really loved being with Sister Hickman. She is a missionary I really look up to. We are a lot alike & I'm so grateful I get to serve with her. After exchanges we came over to the Martins (where I live) and had lunch with the sisters in the zone & then took a 20 minute nap by the pool hahaha

On Friday we had zone training all about the fourth missionary talk. We read John 21. It was a really awesome zone training & I have really changed my whole perspective on missionary work this week & I have been so much more happy!! I read the talk "the first and great commandment" by Elder Jeffrery R Holland & it is SO GOOD! (Read if ya have time) and it just talks about how if we truly love our Heavenly Father we will be loyal to him in every stage of our life. I love when he says, "My beloved brothers and sisters, I am not certain just what our experience will be on Judgment Day, but I will be very surprised if at some point in that conversation, God does not ask us exactly what Christ asked Peter: “Did you love me?” I think He will want to know if in our very mortal, very inadequate, and sometimes childish grasp of things, did we at least understand one commandment, the first and greatest commandment of them all--“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.” And if at such a moment we can stammer out, “Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee,” then He may remind us that the crowning characteristic of love is always loyalty."

Okay so this email is gettin really long & I'm pretty sure 87% of you have stopped reading by this point, but basically I realized that the only way you can truly serve the Lord is if you put your whole heart into it, that you want nothing more than to truly serve and please the Lord. I love this quote from the talk,
"In the end, your heart and your will is all that you have to give that the Lord does not already have. If you give your time, two years, and your strength, you give only that which He grants to you with each beat of your heart and each breath that you draw. If you dedicate your gifts and talents, you only return to Him what He already has given to you. If you pay tithing you only return to Him a tenth of what he has already given to you. Everything that you have to give to the Lord, has its origin in Him, except one thing: your will. He does not have your heart, nor your mind, unless you give them to Him. It is the only gift you have to offer that He does not already have. And so when you give yourself, you truly give everything to Him."

Anyway, it was a really great week & I've changed my attitude about missionary work:) I love being out here & I truly love serving the Lord. Even if we don't have a bunch of investigators or tons of baptisms I am so happy to be serving my Heavenly Father. What a privilege!! :)

Love always,
Sister Sobotka