This weekend, my stake had a mini mission. Ben and I participated as host families, and let me just tell you, it was A.W.E.S.O.M.E.
Um, did you know that the youth today are amazing? I knew it because I teach them every Sunday and because my sisters are amazing. But truly, they are amazing. When I was in young women's, would I have jumped at the chance to dress up all weekend and teach lessons as mini-missionaries to less active members or non members? I honestly don't know. The wanna-be-awesome part of me says heck to the yes. The realistic part of me says I probably would have done it, but it might have been grudgingly, and very scaredily (yes, I just made up that word).
The youth (14 and up) were assigned companions and assigned a host family. My family was out of town this weekend, so Ben and I signed up because we wanted to, not because my parents wanted to host the mini missionaries. We made them dinner Friday night, took them to an appointment, talked to them about teaching and the gospel and stuff, went to bed, woke up and made them breakfast (Ben exercised and made sure the girls exercised because that was part of the mini mission, but I didn't feel well, so I stayed in bed until they were done exercising), had gospel study, went to another lesson, went to a baptism, and then that was the end of our part. The youth then went to lunch and classes in the afternoon.
I can't even describe how incredible this weekend was. We felt the spirit so strongly, and it was great to be doing this service. For both appointments, the girls followed the spirit as to what message they shared with the people, and both lessons were very spiritual, and I could tell that both the lessons were exactly what the people needed to hear. Like I said, I can't even describe it. I was very impressed with their level of gospel knowledge, and I was impressed with their ability to just go teach a lesson to people they didn't even know very well. Actually, I was more impressed with their ability to teach a lesson to two kids who they know from school who the ward mission leader set an appointment with for them. That would be even more scary to teach someone their own age who goes to their school.
Being with the youth and sharing the message of the gospel was exactly what I needed this weekend.
And so was fast Sunday and testimony meeting.
I hope everyone is having a great Sabbath!
That is a really cool idea. We did something kind of similar but we did groups of three and we just did it on a mutual night. I will have to bring this up so they can get a little more of the "real experience". Thanks for sharing and I am glad that you had such a great time with it! Miss you guys!!
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